HOLMES, DR. OLIVER WENDELL, born 1809, physician, novelist, essayist, and poet, began literary work at an early age, and for more than half a century has written industriously and with consistent success. The _Breakfast-Table_ series is among the most read of all America’s humorous writings, and various short poems of a humorous nature, such as “The One-Hoss Shay,” “Contentment,” “The Spectre Pig,” etc., are in every compilation of humour. His chief works are _The Autocrat at the Breakfast-Table_, _The Professor at the Breakfast-Table_, _The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_, _Songs of Many Seasons_, _Songs in Many Keys_. He is one of the small band of humorists who are as carefully read and highly appreciated in the United Kingdom as in their native land. American publishers, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. HOOPER, JOHNSON, J. (1815-1863), a native of North Carolina, studied law in Alabama, was made a judge, and in 1861 appointed Secretary of the Provisional Confederate Congress. He published _Widow Rugby’s Husband and Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs_. Clever, but somewhat broad in humour. HOPKINS, LEMUEL (1750-1801), one of the “Hartford Wits,” and co-author and projector of _The Anarchiad_, a poem on State Rights, cuttingly sarcastic. He also wrote _The Echo_, _The Political Greenhouse_, and _New Year’s Verses_, all full of sarcasm. HOPKINSON, FRANCIS (1737-1791), a telling, sarcastic writer, widely read in his lifetime, and author of the poem, “The Battle of the Kegs,” which remains famous. He was one of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. His son wrote “Hail, Columbia.” HOWARD, BRONSON (1842). The most successful American dramatist of the day, and almost the only American whose plays command attention in England. His plays, _Saratoga_, _Truth_, _The Old Love and the New_, _Young Mrs. Winthrope_, _The Henrietta_, and others are full of humour, and have been successful on both sides the Atlantic. HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN, born 1837. He is now America’s representative novelist, and has qualified for representation in a humorous book by his comedies, _Out of the Question_, _A Counterfeit Presentment_, _The Parlour Car_, _The Sleeping Car_, etc. He is an industrious writer. D. Douglas, Edinburgh, in his American author series, has included twenty-five of Mr. Howells’ works. The extract given in this book is from _A Chance Acquaintance_. American publishers, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., and Osgood & Co. HOYT, CHARLES, humorous paragraphist of the _Boston Post_, the paper, by the way, which is credited with having originated the column of witty paragraphs now so popular with American and British papers.