Part 3

The ship reached Portsmouth in January, 1819, and the warrant of arrest and other documents were transmitted to London, and referred to the law officers. The Attorney-General reported, that however irregular Mr. Hook's official conduct might have been, and however justly he might be prosecuted for a civil debt, there was no apparent ground for a criminal procedure. He was therefore liberated; and reaching London with _two gold mohurs_ in his pocket, was immediately subjected to the scrutiny of the Audit Board--a scrutiny which did not terminate until after the lapse of nearly five years.

During this long suspense, eternal commissions and cross-examinations before the auditors of public accounts, and a very voluminous series of correspondence with them and others on the subject of the defalcation, had not occupied the whole of Hook's attention. If they had, he must have starved; for though his successor was not appointed till late in the inquiry, he never received a farthing in his official capacity, from the time of his original arrest.

By the end of 1819, Hook had established himself in a very humble cottage at Somers Town, where his household consisted of a single maid-servant; and formed connections with newspapers or magazines, which supplied the small necessities of the passing day. He seems at first to have felt his position far too painfully to think of reclaiming any but a few of his older and, comparatively speaking, humble allies--such as Mathews, Terry, and good little Hill; the last of whom had encountered sad reverses during his absence, and was now, perhaps, except himself, the poorest of the set. On their kindness he might rely implicitly--as well as upon the cordial friendship and sound professional advice of Messrs. Powell and Broderip.

It was shortly after his location at Somers Town that Hook renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Wilson Croker, in whose society no small portion of his time was spent, both at the Admiralty and at the latter's villa at Molesey. He was also occasionally a visitor at General Phipps's (a relation of his mother's), in Harley-street, where he met and speedily became intimate with the late Speaker, Lord Canterbury. They were afterwards seen a great deal together, and the pair strolling arm-in-arm down St. James's-street, forms the subject of one--not the most happy--of the HB sketches.[6] With these exceptions, for a long period his position as a public defaulter, together with the _res angustæ domi_, confined him to the narrow and comparatively inexpensive circle of his old literary and theatrical associates.

During the summer of 1820, Theodore Hook opened his campaign against the Queen by a thin octavo, which at the time made considerable noise. It was entitled "Tentamen; or an Essay towards the History of Whittington and his Cat," by Dr. Vicesimus Blenkinsop. The Whittington, of course, was no other than Alderman Wood, and Caroline was the cat. "Throughout the whole _libellus_," says Lockhart, "there was a prodigious rattle of puns and conundrums--but the strong points of the case against Whittington and Co. were skilfully brought out, nevertheless. Hook being as yet quite _in obscuro_, nobody suspected him. It was pretty generally ascribed to the manufacturers of the 'New Whig Guide.'"

"Tentamen" was followed by several similar pamphlets, chiefly in verse, all directed against Alderman Wood and the other supporters of the Queen, and all published in the same year (1820) by Wright, of Fleet-street. They are also to be distinguished by a caricature likeness of the celebrated Alderman, the same portrait appearing on the title-page both of "Tentamen" and the others. One of these we recollect is entitled _Solomon Logwood_.[7]

In the spring of this year (1820), Hook, with the assistance of his old friend, Daniel Terry, started a small periodical. It was published, and we believe suggested, by Mr. Miller, who had recently engaged extensive premises in--what was then expected to prove a great mart for the lighter description of literature--a sort of occidental "Row,"--the Burlington Arcade. Hence the name of the first-born, "The Arcadian," but which, to say the truth, had little of the pastoral in its composition, if we except a certain long ballad of melodious rhythm and provoking pungency, addressed to Lady Holland, and commencing,--

"Listen, lady, to my measures, While they softly, gently flow, While I sing the harmless pleasures Of the classic, silver Po," etc.

The war-cry of "The Arcadian" was of course "King and Constitution," for its editor was Conservative, or rather Tory (the former euphuism was not then in vogue) to the heart's core. Much, too, of that personality was introduced in its pages, which rendered its more fortunate successor, the _John Bull_, so formidable. The same contemptuous tone, in treating of theatricals, is observable both in the _John Bull_ and its tiny predecessor. "The Arcadian" contains a most exquisite critique, a perfect masterpiece of irony, upon the "first appearance" of a certain young lady, and some caustic remarks on the stage and its attractions, curious as coming from a popular dramatist, writing in the thirty-second year of his age.

Full of fun and spirit as the little magazine was, it nevertheless came to an untimely end: only two numbers ever made their appearance. Such was the difficulty which the publisher experienced in making up the second, owing to Hook's listlessness, or more probably preoccupation, that he declined venturing on a third.

This was the prelude of _John Bull_. The most important event with which the name of Theodore Hook stands connected, is unquestionably the establishment of the _John Bull_ newspaper, at the close of 1820. The universal, instantaneous, and appreciable effect produced on the great political movements of the day by its appearance, is perhaps unparalleled in the history of periodical literature.

The Queen's affair had gone on all the summer and autumn; the madness of popular exacerbation gaining new intenseness with every week that passed. None who remember the feelings and aspects of the time will think it possible to exaggerate either in description: but we shall make no such attempt. The explosion scattered brilliant terror far and wide. No first appearance of any periodical work of any class whatever has, in our time at least, produced such a startling sensation--it told at once from the convulsed centre to every extremity of the kingdom. There was talent of every sort, apparently, that could have been desired or devised for such a purpose. It seemed as if a legion of sarcastic devils had brooded in synod over the elements of withering derision. But, as far as Hook's MSS. allowed his biographers to judge, he was really and truly alone; and, at all events, they exonerate most completely certain other persons who were at first saddled with a large share of the merit and the obloquy of the _Bull_. Of the famous songs during the winter of 1820-21, only one, he used to say, was an extraneous contribution.

The paper set out with one specific object: the extinction of the Brandenburgh House party; and, to accomplish this, Hook's varied talents--his wit and humour, his sarcasm and bitterness, his keenness of argument, fiery zeal, and unscrupulous daring--were all brought to bear with concentrated energy upon the ranks of the Opposition. Any man reckless of legal consequences, or beyond their reach, familiar with the current scandal of the day, and having so powerful an engine as a public paper at his disposal, may inflict a vast amount of injury upon his adversaries; but to these conditions, in the present case, may be added powers, if not of the very highest order, doubtless the best adapted to the purpose, sources of information peculiar and inexplicable, a singleness of purpose, and firm conviction of its justice, that combined to render _Bull_ the most formidable antagonist that had as yet entered the lists against the Queen.

Many of _Bull's_ songs, in construction, and even in execution, were very little different from those which Hook used to improvise in the course of a festive evening. It has been said by one who knew him, that a person who never witnessed that marvellous performance could not take a better notion of what it was than from such a piece as the "Visit of Mrs. Muggins," in thirty-one stanzas.

Here also Hook commenced and continued from time to time, for ten years, that famous series of Ramsbottom Papers, which were the precursors of all the Mrs. Malaprops, Mrs. Partingtons, and Mrs. Browns of a later generation, and which, like nearly all originals, greatly surpassed in genuine humour and excellence the cleverest imitations that have since appeared.

By his flagellations of the Whigs, meantime, Hook had shut against himself the gates of forbearance at Whitehall. He might have thought himself well off, if he had not tempted harshness into play against him. He thought he had: he always persisted that the auditor's final report on him was an unjust deliverance; and he maintained equally the opinion that the measures of the Government consequent on that report were unusually severe. The award was at last given in the autumn of 1823, and it pronounced him a debtor to the Crown of over £12,000.

On his arrest under the Exchequer writ (August, 1823), he was taken to the dwelling and spunging-house of the sheriff's officer, his captor, by name Mr. Hemp, and still hoping that a protracted imprisonment was not seriously intended, he chose to remain there week after week, and month after month, until Easter. The expense of board and lodging at a house of that class is always heavy; his accommodations were mean, and the situation about the worst in London--Shire Lane, so named as separating part of the City from Middlesex--a vile, squalid place, noisy and noxious, apparently almost inaccessible either to air or light, swarming with a population of thief-catchers, gin-sellers, and worse. But his spirit was not yet to be broken. He endured the unwholesome confinement with patience--no sooner was hope knocked down in one quarter than it sprung up again in another--he kept himself steadily at work in the mornings, and his few intimates commonly gathered round him in the evening.

In April, 1824, Hook at last took his leave of Shire Lane. He had, as usual, made himself a great favourite with Hemp and his family, and such a guest could not be allowed to depart without a farewell banquet. The company exhibited in harmonious contrast Mr. Hook's theatrical and literary confidants of the time, and sundry distinguished ornaments of his hospitable landlord's own order. The sederunt did not close without a specimen of the improvisatore; and his ballad "showed up" Mr. Hemp and his brethren, as intrusted with the final offices of the law in the case of the grand culprit before them:--

CHORUS--

"Let him hang with a curse,--this atrocious, pernicious Scoundrel that emptied the till at Mauritius!"[8]

The close confinement in the bad air of Shire Lane had affected his health, and indeed his personal appearance was permanently damaged in consequence of the total disuse of exercise for so many months, and the worry of mind which even he must have been enduring. He came out pale and flabby in the face, and with a figure fast tending to corpulence. He was transferred to the Rules of the King's Bench, within which he hired a small separate lodging, in an airy enough situation--Temple Place.

In 1824 Theodore Hook published the first series of that collection of tales which, under the title of "Sayings and Doings,"[9] placed him at once in the highest rank of the novelists of his generation; above all his contemporaries, with the one exception, of course, of the Author of "Waverley." The first idea and plan of the work was struck out during the sitting of a sort of _John Bull_ conclave held at Fulham, and had origin in the suggestion of a friend, who, delighted with the anecdotes of Colonial life which Hook was pouring forth, conceived that they might be turned to better account than the mere entertainment of a dinner-party, and hit upon a title, at which Hook caught with eagerness. So convinced was the latter that his first tale, "The Man of Sorrow," had not been fairly appreciated, that he actually embodied in his new essay the rejected attempt of Mr. Alfred Allendale, condensed, indeed, and purged from its impurities, but not materially altered from the original. Much better in every respect is the story of "Danvers, the _Parvenu_."

The more prominent characters in Hook's novels are, in spite of his disclaimer, unquestionably portraits. To many of the Anglo-Indian sketches, the journal kept during the author's sojourn at the Mauritius would doubtless supply a key.

Hook, indeed, always denied the possession of inventive faculties. There was doubtless truth as well as modesty in his assertion: "Give me a story to tell, and I can tell it, but I cannot create."

The popularity of the first series of "Sayings and Doings" (three vols.) may be estimated from his diary, which records the profit to the author as £2,000. There were, we believe, three considerable impressions before the Second Series, also in three vols., was ready in the spring of 1825. And shortly after that publication he was at length released from custody--with an intimation, however, that the Crown abandoned nothing of its claim for the Mauritius debt.

The first series of "Sayings and Doings" were soon followed (1825-1829) by a second and third, which are generally considered in every way superior to the former ones. The author was of this opinion himself, and the public as certainly ratified his verdict.

In the meantime Theodore Hook, released from his temporary confinement, had taken a cottage at Putney, of which neighbourhood he had always been fond, and may be said to have re-entered society, though his circle of acquaintance continued limited for a couple of years more.

While at Putney, in 1826, he from motives of pure kindness re-wrote, that is to say, composed from rough illiterate materials, the very entertaining "Reminiscences" of an old theatrical and musical friend of his--Michael Kelly. The book was received with astonishment, for he generously kept his own secret.

In 1827 he took a higher flight, and became the tenant of a house in Cleveland Row--on the edge of what, in one of his novels, he describes as "the real London--the space between Pall Mall on the south, and Piccadilly on the north, St. James's-street on the west, and the Opera House to the east." The residence was handsome, and indeed appeared extravagantly too large for his purpose. He was admitted a member of several clubs; became the first attraction of their house-dinners; and in those where play was allowed, might usually be seen in the course of his protracted evening. Soon he began to receive invitations to great houses in the country, and from week after week, often travelled from one to another, to all outward appearance, in the style of an idler of high condition. He had soon entangled himself with habits and connections which implied considerable curtailment of his labour at the desk, and entailed a course of expenditure more than sufficient to swallow all the profits of what remained.

His next novel, "Maxwell," published in 1830, is, in point of plot, by far the most perfect of his productions; the interest which is at once excited, never for an instant flags, and the mystery, so far from being of the flimsy transparent texture, common to romances, is such as to baffle the most practised and quick-witted discoverer of _dénoûments_, and to defy all attempts at elucidation.

New debts began to accumulate on him so rapidly, that about 1831, he found it necessary to get rid of the house at St. James's, and to remove to one of more modest dimensions close to Fulham Bridge, with a small garden looking towards the river. Here in the locality which had long been a favourite one with him, he remained till his death; but though he took advantage of the change to drop the custom of giving regular dinners, and probably to strike off some other sources of expense, he not only continued his habits of visiting, but extended them as new temptations offered.

Probably few of his admirers ever knew exactly where Hook lived. His letters and cards were left for him at one or other of his clubs, but it is doubtful if the interior of his Fulham cottage was ever seen by half a dozen people besides his old intimate friends and familiars. To the upper world he was visible only as the jocund convivialist of the club--the brilliant wit of the lordly banquet, the lion of the crowded assembly, the star of a Christmas or Easter party in a rural palace, the unfailing stage-manager, prompter, author, and occasionally excellent comic actor of private theatricals.

But, notwithstanding the round of gaiety and pleasure in which the greater number of his evenings were spent, the time so employed cannot be said to have been altogether wasted; for, to a writer who has to draw from life, whose books are men and women, and to whom the gossip and _on dits_ of the day are the rough material of his manufacture, a constant mixing in society of every accessible rank is absolutely necessary--to one of his taste and discrimination, the higher the grade the better. Whithersoever he went he carried with him not only an unfailing fund of entertainment, but also unslumbering powers of observation, that served to redeem what otherwise would have appeared mere weakness and self-indulgence. And that he was not slow to avail himself of the advantages that fell to his share, no one will deny, who casts a glance over the list of productions he gave to the world, during a period when the intellectual exertion of his convivial hours alone would have exhausted the energies, physical and mental, of well-nigh any other man.

In 1832 he published the "Life of Sir David Baird," a standard biographical work, and one spoken of in the highest terms by the best reviews of the day. So satisfied were the family with the manner in which he executed his task, that they presented him with a magnificent gold snuff-box set with brilliants, the gift of the Pasha of Egypt to the subject of the memoir. Hook seems to have tossed the trinket aside as an unconsidered trifle into a drawer, from which it was happily rescued on the accidental discovery of its value and importance.

In 1833 he sent forth no fewer than six volumes, full of originality and wit; a novel called the "Parson's Daughter," and a couple of stories under the title of "Love and Pride." In one of the latter, the supposed resemblance of Liston to a certain noble lord is happily turned to account; the being mistaken for _Mr. Buggins_, principal low comedian of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, forming a light and pointed climax to the _congeries_ of ridiculous miseries heaped on the unfortunate Marquis.

In 1836, Theodore Hook undertook the editorship of the _New Monthly Magazine_, at a salary of four hundred pounds a year, irrespective of the sums to be paid for original contributions. Here he commenced his "Gilbert Gurney," accommodating himself to the exceedingly uncomfortable practice, now all but universal among popular and prolific novelists, of delivering his tale by monthly instalments. To this plan, though obliged to succumb to it, he always took exception, as not only wearisome to the reader, but fatal to fair development of plot.

Of all his works, "Gilbert Gurney" is by far the most mirth-provoking and remarkable. His own adventures form the groundwork of the comedy; himself and his friends figure as the _dramatis personæ_, and throughout the whole there appear an unrestrained expression of private feelings, and a frequency of personal allusion, that give it the semblance and almost the interest of true history.

In his next novel, "Jack Brag," Hook again hit upon a character with which he could go to work _con amore_. Vulgar, vain, and impudent, a cross between a tallow-chandler, and what, in the cant phrase of the day, is termed a sporting _gent_, a hanger-on upon the loose branches of the aristocracy, and occasionally thrown into society more respectable, Mr. Brag's _gaucheries_ convulse the reader; while those who scorn not to read a warning, even on the page of a novel, may be led to devote more than a passing thought to the folly (to say the least of it) of indulging in the very silly and very common habit of perpetual though petty misrepresentation, as regards their means and position in life, and the nature and degree of their acquaintance with individuals of a rank higher than their own. There is no lower depth of drawing-room degradation than is involved in the exposure of one of these pretenders; unrecognised, perhaps, by his "most intimate friend" Lord A----, cut by his "old crony" Sir John B----, or never "heard of" by his "college chum," the Bishop of C----.

"Jack Brag" was followed, in 1839, by "Births, Marriages, and Deaths," which, notwithstanding its infelicitous title,--as far as fitness goes, it might as well have been called "Law Notices," or "Fashionable Intelligence," or by any other newspaper "heading,"--was a novel of a higher class than any he had before attempted: the humour is scantier and more subdued than heretofore, and though the magnificent _Colonel Magnus_, and his rascally attorney _Brassey_, here and there afford admirable sport, the latter, with his economical wardrobe, to wit:--"one tooth-brush twisted up in a piece of whitey-brown paper; a razor by itself tied with a piece of red tape to a round pewter shaving-box (enclosing a bit of soap), with the tip of its handle peeping from the bottom of a leathern case, like the feet of a long-legged Lilliputian sticking out of his coffin; a remarkably dirty flannel under-waistcoat, edged with light blue silk and silver; one pair of black silk socks, brown in the bottoms," &c.--yet the general effect is heavy,--heavier, that is, than the public were inclined to accept from the pen of Theodore Hook.

This, in point of fact, may be considered his last finished work. "Precepts and Practice" appeared in 1840,--the name an obvious plagiarism, and from himself, being merely a collection of short papers and tales, published during the preceding year or two, in the _New Monthly_, of which he was the editor. As for "Fathers and Sons," portions of which appeared in the same magazine, and "Peregrine Bunce," we believe neither of them to have been completed by his own hand; of the latter, about one hundred pages of the last of the three volumes were certainly supplied by another writer.