Part 2

"The Siege of St. Quentin," a drama of a similar description, quickly followed. The plot was founded on the famous battle of that name fought in 1557, when the French, endeavouring to raise the siege, were signally defeated. The object of the piece, which was to excite enthusiasm in favour of the Spanish nation, together with the magnificence of the _mise en scène_, won for it considerable success. It sleeps now with sundry others, such as "The Trial by Jury" (1811), "Darkness Visible" (1811), "Safe and Sound" (1809), "Music Mad" (1808). They all ran their course, and have perished--

"Unwept, unhonour'd, and unknown."

The last-named, however ("Music Mad"), perhaps deserves a word of notice, if only on account of its transcendent absurdity. The principal character, stolen bodily from _Il Fanatico per la Musica_ (which had been considered the masterpiece of the celebrated Naldi), and rendered infinitely more ridiculous by being metamorphosed into a native of our most unmusical isle, is, as the title indicates, an amateur, and so passionately devoted to his favourite science as to insist upon his servant's wearing a waistcoat scored all over with crotchets and semiquavers.

In 1809, the destruction by fire of the two patent houses having compelled the rival companies to coalesce and repair to the Lyceum, principally for the purpose of providing employment for the humbler members of the profession, Theodore Hook contributed the well-known after-piece of "Killing no Murder." Apart from the intrinsic merit of the piece itself, the admirable acting of Liston as Apollo Belvi, and of Mathews as Buskin, for whom it was especially written (though, by the way, it is but justice to add, on the authority of Mrs. Mathews, that the latter character was but "a sketch, which Mr. Mathews filled up _ad libitum_"),--there were circumstances attending its representation which invested it with peculiar interest, and enlisted all the sympathies of the audience in favour of the author. It appears that on the MS. being submitted to the deputy-licenser, Mr. Larpent, certain passages reflecting on the Methodist preachers induced that gentleman, in the first instance, to place a veto on the performance. A compromise, however, was effected, the objectionable scene remodelled, and the play allowed to proceed. Whether it would have been wiser, upon the whole, to have suffered it to go forth with its imperfections on its head, and to have trusted to the good taste of the public to demand the suppression of any incidental improprieties, may be a question, the more so, as the licenser's authority, extending only to the acted drama, could offer no hindrance to its publication. Some half-dozen editions, containing the passages omitted in the performance, were struck off and circulated like wildfire, together with a preface, from which, as the author has thus an opportunity of stating his own case, it may be as well to present our readers with a few extracts:--

"I should have suffered my gratitude to the public to have been felt, not told, had not some very singular circumstances compelled me to explain part of my conduct, which, if I remained silent, might be liable to misconstruction. On the evening previous to the performance of 'Killing no Murder,' I was much surprised to hear that it could not be produced, because Mr. Larpent, the reader of plays (as he is termed), had refused to grant his license for it. The cause of the refusal was, I heard, political. I revolted at the idea; and, as a young man entering life, felt naturally anxious to clear my character from the imputation of disloyalty. Then I heard it rumoured that the ground of the refusal was its immorality. Here again I was wounded; for though I confess I have no pretension to sanctity, yet I hope I shall never prostitute my time in the production of that for which even wit itself is no excuse.

"Thus situated, I set off in search of the gentleman who had strangled my literary infant in its birth; and to find him I referred to the 'Red-book,' where I discovered that John Larpent, Esq., was _clerk_ at the Privy Seal Office, that John Larpent, Esq., was _deputy_ to John Larpent, Esq., and that the _deputy's secretary_ was John Larpent, Esq. This proved to me that a man could be in three places at once; but on inquiry, I found he was even in a fourth and a fifth, for it was by virtue of none of these offices he licensed plays, and his place, _i.e._, his villa, was at Putney. Thither I proceeded in a post-chaise, in chase of this ubiquitarian deputy, and there I found him. After a seasonable delay to beget an awful attention on my part, he appeared, and told me with a chilling look, that the second act of my farce was a most 'indecent and shameful attack on a very religious and harmless set of people' (he meant the Methodists), 'and that my farce altogether was an infamous persecution of the sectaries.' Out came the murder. The character of a Methodist preacher, written for Liston's incomparable talents, with the hope of turning into ridicule the ignorance and impudence of the self-elected pastors, who infest every part of the kingdom, met with the reprehension of the licenser.

* * * * *

"It was in vain I adduced Mother Cole in the 'Minor,' Mawworm in the 'Hypocrite,' Barebones in the 'London Hermit,' and half-a-dozen other parts. The great licenser shook his head 'as if there was something in it,' and told me that Lord Dartmouth had the piece; if he did not object, it might yet be played; but if his lordship concurred with him, not a line should be performed. I took my leave, fully convinced how proper a person Mr. Larpent was to receive, in addition to his other salaries, four hundred pounds per annum, besides perquisites, for reading plays, the pure and simple performance of which, by his creed, is the acme of sin and unrighteousness. His even looking at them is contamination--but four hundred a-year--a sop for Cerberus--what will it not make a man do?

* * * * *

"Now, in defence of the part of 'Apollo Belvi,' as originally written, I consider it necessary to speak. It is a notorious fact that the Methodists are not contented with following their own fashions in religion, but they endeavor hourly to overturn the Established Church by all means, open and covert; and I know, as a positive fact, that it is considered the first duty of Methodist parents to irritate their children against the regular clergy, before the poor wretches are able to think or consider for themselves. Nay, they are so ingenious in their efforts for this purpose, that they inculcate the aversion by nick-naming whatever object the children hate most after some characteristic of the Episcopal religion; and I have known a whole swarm of sucking Methodists frightened to bed by being told that the _bishop_ was coming--the impression resulting from this alarm grows into an antipathy, and from having been, as children, accustomed to consider a bishop as a bugbear, it became no part of their study to discover why--the very mention of lawn sleeves throws them into agonies ever after. Seeing, then, with what zeal these sectaries attack us, and with what ardour they endeavour to widen the breach between us by persecution and falsehood, I did conceive that the lash of ridicule might be well applied to their backs, particularly as I prefer this open mode of attack to the assassin-like stab of the dagger, to which the cowardly Methodist would, for our destruction, have no objection to resort.

"But my ridicule went to one point only. Mr. L. Hunt, in his admirable Essays on Methodism, justly observes, that a strong feature in the Methodists' character is a love of preaching. If it be possible that these self-elected guardians and ministers have an ascendency over the minds of their flocks, and have the power to guide and direct them, it becomes surely the duty of every thinking being to consider their qualifications for such a task.

"The wilful misleadings of the clever Methodists, from the small proportion of talent that exists among them, are more harmless in their tendency than the blasphemous doctrines of ignorance. The more illiterate the preacher, the more infatuated the flock; and there is less danger in the specious insinuation of a refined mind than the open and violent expressions of inspired tailors and illuminated cobblers. It was to ridicule such monstrous incongruities, that, without any claim to originality, I sketched the part of 'Belvi,' in the following farce. I conceived, by blending the most flippant and ridiculous of all callings, except a man-milliner's (I mean a dancing-master's), with the grave and important character of a preacher, I should, without touching indelicately on the subject, have raised a laugh against the absurd union of spiritual and secular avocations, which so decidedly marks the character of the Methodist. Of the hypocrisy introduced into the character, I am only sorry that the lightness of the farce prevented my displaying a greater depth of deception. All I can say is, that, whatever was written in 'Killing no Murder,' against the Methodists, was written from a conviction of their fallacy, their deception, their meanness, and their profaneness."

Another farce, "Exchange no Robbery," produced at a somewhat later period, under the pseudonym of "Richard Jones," deserves honourable mention. Terry, another intimate associate from that time forth, had in Cranberry a character excellently adapted to his saturnine aspect and dry humour; and Liston was not less happily provided for in Lamotte.

Almost all these pieces were written before Hook was twenty years of age. Had he gone on in this successful dramatic career, and devoted to such productions the experience of manhood and that marvellous improvisatore power which was to make him the _facile princeps_ of the satirists and humourists of his time, there can be no doubt he must have rivalled any farce-writer that ever wrote in any language.

It was in his twentieth year that Theodore Hook made his first appearance as a novelist, under the pseudonym of Alfred Allendale.[4] Lockhart characterizes the work as "a mere farce, though in a narrative shape and as flimsy as any he had given to the stage. As if the set object," he says, "had been to satirize the Minerva Press School, everything, every individual turn in the fortunes of his 'Musgrave' is brought about purely and entirely by accident." The sentimental hero elopes with his mistress. A hundred miles down the North road they stop for a quarter of an hour--order dinner, and stroll into the garden. Behold, the dreaded rival happens to be lodging here--he is lounging in the garden at this moment. The whole plan is baulked. Some time afterwards they elope again--and reach Gretna Green in safety.

"Cruel mothers, chattering friends, and flattering rivals all were distanced--the game was run down, he was in at the death, and the brush was his own. False delicacy at Gretna is exploded; a woman when she goes into Lanchester's is known to want millinery (people say something more), when she lounges at Gray's she is understood to stand in need of trinkets, when she stops at Gattie's she wants complexion, and when she goes to Gretna she wants a husband.

"That being the case, _not_ to talk of marriage is as absurdly _outré_ as not to call for supper, and therefore Musgrave with a sly look at his blushing bride, ordered a couple of roasted fowls and a parson to be ready immediately; the waiter, perfect in his part, stepped over to the chandler's shop, hired the divine, and at half-past ten the hymeneal rites were to be solemnized."--Vol. i., p. 84.

The fowls are put to the fire--the blacksmith appears--the ceremony has just reached the essential point, when a chaise dashes up to the door--out spring the heroine's mother and the rival again. Farther on, the hero comes late at night to an inn, and is put into a double-bedded room, in which the rival happens to be deposited, fast asleep. The rival gets up in the morning before the hero awakes, cuts his thumb in shaving, walks out, sees a creditor, jumps on the top of a passing stage-coach, and vanishes. The hero is supposed to have murdered him--the towel is bloody--he must have contrived to bury the body; he is tried, convicted, condemned;--he escapes--an accident brings a constable to the cottage where he is sheltered--he is recaptured--pinioned--mounts the drop; he is in the act of speaking his last speech, when up dashes another post-chaise containing the rival, who had happened to see the trial just the morning before in an old newspaper. And so on through three volumes.

It abounds, as a matter of course, in play upon words: for example, a rejected suitor's taking to drinking, is accounted for on the plea that "it is natural an unsuccessful lover should be given to whine,"--a pun, by the way, better conveyed in the name "Negus," which he is said to have bestowed upon a favourite, but offending, dog. There are also introduced a couple of tolerably well-sketched portraits, _Mr. Minns_, the poet (T. Moore), and _Sir Joseph Jonquil_ (Banks). An epigram, referring to the celebrated duel of the former with Jeffrey, in consequence of an article in No. 16 of the _Edinburgh Review_, is worth repeating,--the more so, as its paternity has been subject of dispute, the majority attributing it to one of the authors of "Rejected Addresses!"--

"When Anacreon would fight, as the poets have said, A reverse he displayed in his vapour, For while all his poems were loaded with lead, His pistols were loaded with paper; For excuses Anacreon old custom may thank, Such a _salvo_ he should not abuse, For the cartridge, by rule, is always made blank, Which is fired away at _Reviews_."

But the oddest part of the whole is that Hook himself, sixteen years afterwards, thought it worth while to re-cast precisely the same absurd fable, even using a great deal of the language, in his "Sayings and Doings." (Series first, vol. iii. _Merton_.) Of course the general execution of that tale is vastly superior to the original edition; but some of, all things considered, its most remarkable passages are transcribed almost _literatim_.

Mr. Allendale's novel excited little or no attention, and remained unacknowledged. It is worthless, except that in the early filling up occasionally we have glimpses of the author's early habits and associations, such as he was in no danger of recalling from oblivion in the days of "Sayings and Doings." When the hero fell in love, for example, "Bond-street lounges became a bore to him--he sickened at the notion of a jollification under the Piazza--the charms of the pretty pastry-cooks at Spring Gardens had lost their piquancy." A Viscountess's fête at Wimbledon has all the appearance of having been sketched after a _lark_ at Vauxhall with a bevy of singing women. In the re-cast, it is right to say, he omitted various gross indecencies, some rude personalities, and a very irreverent motto.[5]

Of such an ephemeral character were the earlier writings of a man whose later works have charmed and delighted thousands wherever the English language is spoken. But his brilliancy in the social circle and the fame of his marvellous hoaxes had already spread far and wide, when an unexpected event occurred which changed the whole tenor of his life, and removed him from English society and from English literature for nearly seven years.

Up to 1812, Theodore Hook had been almost, if not entirely, dependent upon his pen for pecuniary supplies; his father was in no condition to assist him; and at the rate of two or three farces a year, which seems to have been about the average of his productions, an income could scarcely have been realized by any means commensurate with the expenses of a fashionable young gentleman "upon town;" debts began to accumulate, and he had already resorted to the pernicious expedient of raising money upon his "promise to write," (a draught upon the brain, honoured, on at least one occasion, by Mr. Harris, the manager of Covent Garden,) when he was presented with an appointment which promised to place him in easy circumstances for the remainder of his life--that of Accountant-General and Treasurer at the Mauritius, worth about £2,000 per annum. It was not, however, till October, 1813, that after a long but agreeable voyage he entered upon his duties at the Mauritius.

It so happened that the island, which had been captured from the French in 1811, had been since that time under the control of Mr. (afterwards Sir R. J.) Farquhar, who, as Governor, united in his own person all the executive and legislative powers. Nothing could have been more favourable to the young official than this circumstance, Mr. Farquhar being not only esteemed throughout the colony, on account of his judgment, moderation, and affability, but being also connected with Dr. James Hook, by the latter's marriage with his sister. The reception which met Theodore on his arrival was as encouraging as could have been wished, and his own convivial qualities and agreeable manners soon made him as popular among the _élite_ of Port Louis as he had been in the fashionable and literary circles of London. In a letter addressed to his old friend, Mathews, about a couple of years after his establishment in what he terms "this paradise, and not without angels," he gives a most spirited and joyous account of his general mode of life, and of the social resources of the island:--

"We have," says he, "operas in the winter, which sets in about July; and the races, too, begin in July. We have an excellent beef-steak club, and the best Freemasons' lodge in the world. We have subscription concerts and balls, and the parties in private houses here are seldom less than from two to three hundred. At the last ball given at the Government House, upwards of seven hundred and fifty ladies were present, which, considering that the greater proportion of the female population are not admissible, proves the number of inhabitants, and the extent of the society."

It may be supposed, that if he was delighted with the Mauritius, its society was enchanted with him. He was but twenty-five when he arrived; and the sudden advancement of his position and enlargement of his resources, must have had rather an exciting than a sobering influence on such a temperament as his at that buoyant age. He was of course the life and soul of the hospitalities of the place and all its amusements and diversions--the phœnix of his _Thule_. He became, among other things, a leading man on the _turf_, and repeatedly mentions himself as having been extremely successful in the pecuniary results of that dangerous pursuit. His own hospitality was most liberal; many an Indian veteran yet delights to recall the cordial welcome he found at _La Reduite_ during a brief sojourn at the Mauritius; and not a few such persons were unconsciously sitting for their pictures in crayon then, and in pen and ink afterwards, while they displayed their Oriental airs before the juvenile Treasurer, their profuse Amphitryon. His journal would make it easy enough to identify not a few of the _Quihis_ in his "Sayings and Doings," and other novels of later life--but perhaps their spectres still haunt the long walk at Cheltenham--_requiescant_!

Towards the end of 1817, General Farquhar found it necessary, from the state of his health, to repair for a time to England, and Major-General Gage John Hall was sworn in as deputy-governor during his absence. On this occasion the Governor appointed a commission consisting of five of the principal men in the colony, to examine the accounts and contents of the Treasury, in order that the finance department might be handed over to his successor in a condition of ascertained correctness. The commissioners signed a report that they had examined the whole accordingly, and that books and chest were all in the proper state. Their report was dated November 19th, and Sir R. Farquhar sailed.

On the 15th of January, 1818, Lieutenant-Governor Hall received a letter from William Allan, a clerk in the Treasury-office, announcing to him, that, notwithstanding the above report, a grave error existed, and had been passed over in the Treasurer's accounts. No credit had been given for a sum of 37,000 dollars, which sum he, Allan, knew to have been paid in at the Treasury some fifteen months before.

General Hall instantly communicated this information to Mr. Hook, and appointed another commission to re-examine the condition of the public chest and accounts. The commission began their work on the 11th of February: Allan was examined _vivâ-voce_ before them on that and on several successive days. He addressed, while his examination was in progress, letters upon letters to the deputy-governor and also to the commissioners, in which he reiterated his assertions that a large deficiency existed, that its existence had been known to himself during many succeeding quarters, and that he had so long concealed it from reluctance to bring himself into collision with his superior, the Treasurer. His letters, from the first very strangely written, became wilder at every step; and on the morning of the 27th, before the commissioners met, he shot himself. His last letter alleged that he had been tampered with by Hook, who offered to pay him thenceforth an allowance of twenty-five dollars per month if he would instantly make his escape from the Mauritius, and never re-appear there; but the person whom he named as having brought Hook's message instantly contradicted the statement _in toto_ on oath before the commissioners. There were many other witnesses; and the result was the detection of not a few irregularities, omissions, and discrepancies in the books of the Treasury.

The inquiry proceeded till the 9th of March; at eleven that night Hook was arrested at a friend's house, where he was supping, and dragged, by torchlight, through crowded streets to the common prison. The town having shortly before been the scene of a terrible conflagration, the prison had been almost entirely destroyed. There was only one cell in which the Treasurer could be placed, and that was in so wretched a condition that at three in the morning he was admitted to bail, escorted to the house of his bail-man, and left there under his surveillance by the police. After a few days he was handed over to the care of a millitary detachment, and embarked with them for England as a culprit, to be tried for _crimes_. Before he sailed, his property in the island was disposed of, and the whole amount placed to the public credit in the Treasury. Even the minutest articles belonging to him were seized. After he was on board ship, a negro slave came alongside to beg his acceptance of his writing-desk, which the poor fellow had bought at the auction for ten shillings.

He had a protracted and most unhappy voyage of nine months. For one whole month they were tossed in a hurricane off the Cape of Good Hope, and for six weeks reduced to the allowance of half a pound of mouldy buiscuit and half a pint of water by the day. While refitting at the Cape, however, Hook, who had by that time conciliated the regard of his keepers by his unshaken fortitude and good-humoured submission, was made their companion on shore, on _parole_; and how completely he could, under such calamitous circumstances, exert his faculties of observation, we may judge from the most picturesque sketches of the Cape, the capital, and its inhabitants, which occur in one of his subsequent stories--_Maxwell_. The ship also stopped for a day or two at St. Helena; and by the kindness of the officers, Hook accompanied them when they went to Longwood to be presented to Napoleon.