"I knew my affairs there were so intricate and involved that no one but
myself could unravel them; so I ran the risk, and took my chance. I am
back with ample funds to pay all my debts, and to live comfortably for
the rest of my days."
Mr. Hook did not say if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a
license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme
laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several
streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which _poor_
debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home
in a jail for debts that might have been paid by shillings.
Hook then took up his residence at Putney, from which he afterwards
removed to a "mansion" in Cleveland Street, but subsequently to Fulham,
where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died. It was a
small, detached cottage. It is of this cottage that Lockhart says, "We
doubt if its interior was ever seen by half a dozen people besides the
old confidential worshippers of Bull's mouth."
He resided here in comparative obscurity. It gave him a pleasant
prospect of Putney Bridge, and of Putney on the opposite side of the
river. As the Thames flowed past the bottom of his small and narrow
garden, he had a perpetually cheerful and changing view of the many gay
passers-by in small boats, yachts, and steamers. The only room of the
cottage I ever saw was somewhat coarsely furnished: a few prints hung on
the walls, but there was no evidence of those suggestive refinements
which substitute intellectual for animal gratifications, in the internal
arrangements of a domicile that becomes necessarily a workshop.
Hook's love of practical joking seems to have commenced early. Almost of
that character was his well-known answer to the Vice-Chancellor at
Oxford, when asked whether he was prepared to subscribe to the
Thirty-Nine Articles,--"Certainly, to forty of them, if you please"; and
his once meeting the Proctor dressed in his robes, and being questioned,
"Pray, Sir, are you a member of this University?" he replied, "No, Sir;
pray are you?"
In the Memoirs of Charles Mathews by his widow abundant anecdotes are
recorded of these practical jokes; but, in fact, "Gilbert Gurney," which
may be regarded as an autobiography, is full of them. Mr. Barham, his
biographer, also relates several, and states, that, when a young man, he
had a "museum" containing a large and varied collection of knockers,
sign-paintings, barbers' poles, and cocked hats, gathered together
during his predatory adventures; but its most attractive object was "a
gigantic Highlander," lifted from the shop-door of a tobacconist on a
dark, foggy night. These "enterprises of great pith and moment" are
detailed by himself in full. The most "glorious" of them has been often
told: how he sent through the post some four thousand letters, inviting
on a given day a huge assemblage of visitors to the house of a lady of
fortune, living at 54, Berners Street. They came, beginning with a dozen
sweeps at daybreak, and including lawyers, doctors, upholsterers,
jewellers, coal-merchants, linen-drapers, artists, even the Lord Mayor,
for whose behoof a special temptation was invented. In a word, there was
no conceivable trade, profession, or calling that was not summoned to
augment the crowd of foot-passengers and carriages by which the street
was thronged from dawn till midnight; while Hook and a friend enjoyed
the confusion from a room opposite.[B] Lockhart, in the "Quarterly,"
states that the hoax was merely the result of a wager that Hook would in
a week make the quiet dwelling the most famous house in all London. Mr.
Barham affirms that the lady, Mrs. Tottenham, had on some account fallen
under the displeasure of the formidable trio, Mr. Hook and two unnamed
friends.
His conversation was an unceasing stream of wit, of which he was
profuse, as if he knew the source to be inexhaustible. He never kept it
for display, or for company, or for those only who knew its value: wit
was, indeed, as natural to him as commonplace to commonplace characters.
It was not only in puns, in repartees, in lively retorts, in sparkling
sentences, in brilliant illustrations, or in apt or exciting anecdote,
that this faculty was developed. I have known him string together a
number of graceful verses, every one of which was fine in composition
and admirable in point, at a moment's notice, on a subject the most
inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,--yet
with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of
criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of
recitative to some tune with which all were familiar,--and if a piano
were at hand, he accompanied himself with a gentle strain of music.
Mrs. Mathews relates that she was present once when Hook dined with the
Drury-Lane Company, at a banquet given to Sheridan in honor of his
return for Westminster. The guests were numerous, yet he made a verse
upon every person in the room:--"Every action was turned to account;
every circumstance, the look, the gesture, or any other accidental
effect, served as occasion for wit." Sheridan was astonished at his
extraordinary faculty, and declared that he could not have imagined such
power possible, had he not witnessed it.
People used to give him subjects the most unpromising to test his
powers. Thus, Campbell records that he once supplied him with a theme,
"Pepper and Salt," and that he amply seasoned the song with both.
I was present when this rare faculty was put to even a more severe test,
at a party at Mr. Jerdan's, at Grove House, Brompton,--a house long
since removed to make room for Ovington Square. It was a large
supper-party, and many men and women of mark were present: for the
"Literary Gazette" was then in the zenith of its power, worshipped by
all aspirants for fame, and courted even by those whose laurels had been
won. Its editor, be his shortcomings what they might, was then, as he
had ever been, ready with a helping hand for those who needed help: a
lenient critic, a generous sympathizer, who preferred pushing a dozen
forward to thrusting one back.
Hook, having been asked for his song, and, as usual, demanding a theme,
one of the guests, either facetiously or maliciously, called out, "Take
Yates's big nose." (Yates, the actor, was one of the party.) To any one
else such a subject would have been appalling: not so to Hook. He rose,
glanced once or twice round the table, and chanted (so to speak) a
series of verses perfect in rhythm and rhyme: the incapable theme being
dealt with in a spirit of fun, humor, serious comment, and absolute
philosophy, utterly inconceivable to those who had never heard the
marvellous improvisator,--each verse describing something which the
world considered great, but which became small, when placed in
comparison with
"Yates's big nose!"
It was the first time I had met Hook, and my astonishment was unbounded.
I found it impossible to believe the song was improvised; but I had
afterwards ample reason to know that so thorough a triumph over
difficulties was with him by no means rare.
I had once a jovial day with him on the Thames,--fishing in a punt on
the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health
and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft,
though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection
of a long-ago time, when bobbing for roach at the foot of Fulham Bridge,
the fisherman perpetually raising or lowering his float, according to
the ebb and flow of the tide.
A record of his "sayings and doings," that glorious day, from early morn
to set of sun, would fill a goodly volume. It was fine weather, and
fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and
there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection
of the _dolce far-niente_, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire
for refreshment. Idle time _is_ idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr.
Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a
grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived--probably
then made--the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," entitled
"The Swan at Ditton."
The last time I saw Hook was at Prior's Bank, Fulham, where his
neighbors, Mr. Baylis and Mr. Whitmore, had given an "entertainment,"
the leading feature being an amateur play,--for which, by the way, I
wrote the prologue. Hook was then in his decadence,--in broken
health,--his animal spirits gone,--the cup of life drained to the dregs.
It was morning before the guests departed, yet Hook remained to the
last; and a light of other days brightened up his features, as he opened
the piano, and began a recitative. The theme was, of course, the
occasion that had brought the party together, and perhaps he never, in
his best time, was more original and pointed. I can recall two of the
lines,--
"They may boast of their Fulham omnibus,
But _this_ is the Fulham stage."
There was a fair young boy standing by his side, while he was singing.
One of the servants suddenly opened the drawing-room shutters, and a
flood of light felt upon the lad's head: the effect was very touching,
but it became a thousand times more so, as Hook, availing himself of the
incident, placed his hand upon the youth's brow, and in tremulous tones
uttered a verse, of which I recall only the concluding lines,--
"For _you_ is the dawn of the morning.
For _me_ is the solemn good-night."
He rose from the piano, burst into tears, and left the room. Few of
those who were present saw him afterwards.[C]
All the evening Hook had been low in spirits. It seemed impossible to
stir him into animation, until the cause was guessed at by Mr. Blood, a
surgeon, who was at that time an actor at the Haymarket. He prescribed a
glass of Sherry, and retired to procure it, returning presently with a
bottle of pale brandy. Having administered two or three doses, the
machinery was wound up, and the result was as I have described it.
I give one more instance of his ready wit and rapid power of rhyme. He
had been idle for a fortnight, and had written nothing for the "John
Bull" newspaper. The clerk, however, took him his salary as usual, and
on entering his room said, "Have you heard the news? the king and queen
of the Sandwich Islands are dead," (they had just died in England of the
small-pox.) "and," added the clerk, "we want something about
them."--"Instantly," cried Hook, "you shall have it:--
"'Waiter, two Sandwiches,' cried Death.
And their wild Majesties resigned their breath."
The "John Bull" was established at the close of the year 1820, and it is
said that Sir Walter Scott, having been consulted by some leader among
"high Tories," suggested Hook as the person precisely suited for the
required task. The avowed purpose of the publication was to extinguish
the party of the Queen,--Caroline, wife of George IV.; and in a reckless
and frightful spirit the work was done. She died, however, in 1821, and
persecution was arrested at her grave. Its projectors and proprietors
had counted on a weekly sale of seven hundred and fifty copies, and
prepared accordingly. By the sixth week it had reached a sale of ten
thousand, and became a valuable property to "all concerned." Of course,
there were many prosecutions for libels, damages and costs and
incarceration for breaches of privilege; but all search for actual
delinquents was vain. Suspicions were rife enough, but positive proofs
there were none.
Hook was of course In no way implicated in so scandalous and slanderous
a publication! On one occasion there appeared among the answers to
correspondents a paragraph purporting to be a reply from Mr. Theodore
Hook, "disavowing all connection with the paper." The gist of the
paragraph was this:--"Two things surprise us in this business: the
first, that anything we have thought worthy of giving to the public
should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's; and secondly, that _such a
person as Mr. Hook_ should think himself disgraced by a connection with
'John Bull.'"
Even now, at this distance of time, few of the contributors are actually
known; among them were undoubtedly John Wilson Croker, and avowedly
Haynes Bayly, Barham, and Dr. Maginn.
In 1836, when I had resigned the "New Monthly" into the hands of Mr.
Hook, he proposed to me to take the sub-editorship and general literary
management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a
year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but
at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the
first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his
existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for
him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known.
Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be
apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet
Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without
personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much
secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the
printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the
articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years
afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree
assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities
had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of
assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of
his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with
years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had
evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power,
and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook
derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of
his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than
those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent
party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to
relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons.
I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more
than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse"
seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as
safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in
disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two
infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were
prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the
public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the
personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the
scandalous assaults on private character, that made these publications
"good speculations" at the period of which I write, and undoubtedly
disgraced the "John Bull" during the early part of its career.
No wonder, therefore, that no such person as Mr. Theodore Hook was
connected with the "John Bull." He invariably denied all such
connection, and perseveringly protested against the charge that he had
ever written a line in it. I have heard it said, that, during the
troublous period of the Queen's trial, Sir Robert Wilson met Hook in the
street, and said, in a sort of confidential whisper,--"Hook, I am to be
traduced and slandered in the 'John Bull' next Sunday." Hook, of course,
expressed astonishment and abhorrence. "Yes," continued Wilson, "and if
I am, I mean to horsewhip _you_ the first time you come in my way. Now
stop; I know you have nothing to do with that newspaper,--you have told
me so a score of times; nevertheless, if the article, which is purely of
a private nature, appears, let the consequences be what they may, I will
horsewhip _you_!" The article never did appear. I can give no authority
for this anecdote, but I do not doubt its truth.
I knew Sir Robert Wilson in 1823, and was employed by him to copy and
arrange a series of confidential documents, relative to the Spanish war
of independence, between the Cortes and the Government, the result of
which was an engagement to act as his private secretary, and to receive
a commission in the Spanish service, in the event of Sir Robert's taking
a command in Spain. He went to Spain, leaving me as secretary to the
fund raised in that year in England to assist the cause. Fortunately for
me, British aid began and ended with these subscriptions; no force was
raised. Sir Robert returned without taking service in Spain, and I was
saved from the peril of becoming a soldier. Sir Robert was a tall,
slight man, of wiry form and strong constitution, handsome both in
person and features, with the singularly soldier-like air that we read
so much of in books. In those days of fervid and hopeful youth, the
story of Sir Robert's chivalric and successful efforts to save the life
of Lavalette naturally touched my heart, and if I had remained in his
service, he would have had no more devoted follower. During my
engagement as Secretary to the Spanish Committee, (leading members of
which were John Cam Hobhouse, Joseph Hume, and John Bowring,) I
contributed articles to the "British Press,"--a daily newspaper, long
since deceased,--and this led to my becoming a Parliamentary reporter.
I apologize for so much concerning myself,--a subject on which I desire
to say as little as possible,--but in this "Memory" it is more a
necessity to do so than it will be hereafter.
I have another story to tell of these editorial times. One day a
gentleman entered the "John Bull" office, evidently in a state of
extreme exasperation, armed with a stout cudgel. His application to see
the editor was answered by a request to walk up to the second-floor
front room. The room was empty; but presently there entered to him a
huge, tall, broad-shouldered fellow, who, in unmitigated brogue,
asked,--
"What do you plase to want, Sir?"
"Want!" said the gentleman,--"I want the editor."
"I'm the idditur, Sir, at your sarvice."
Upon which the gentleman, seeing that no good could arise from an
encounter with such an "editor," made his way down stairs and out of the
house without a word.
In 1836 Mr. Hook succeeded me in the editorship of the "New Monthly
Magazine." The change arose thus. When Mr. Colburn and Mr. Bentley had
dissolved partnership, and each had his own establishment, much
jealousy, approaching hostility, existed between them. Mr. Bentley had
announced a comic miscellany,--or rather, a magazine of which humor was
to be the leading feature. Mr. Colburn immediately conceived the idea of
a rival in that line, and applied to Hook to be its editor. Hook readily
complied. The terms of four hundred pounds per annum having been
settled, as usual he required payment in advance, and "then and there"
received bills for his first year's salary. Not long afterwards Mr.
Colburn saw the impolicy of his scheme. I had strongly reasoned against
it,--representing to him that the "New Monthly" would lose its most
valuable contributor, Mr. Hook, and other useful allies with him,--that
the ruin of the "New Monthly" must be looked upon as certain, while the
success of his "Joker's Magazine" was problematical at best. Such
arguments prevailed; and he called upon Mr. Hook with a view to
relinquish his design. Mr. Hook was exactly of Mr. Colburn's new
opinion. He had received the money, and was not disposed, even if he
had been able, to give it back, but suggested his becoming editor of the
"New Monthly," and in that way working it out. The project met the views
of Mr. Colburn; and so it was arranged.
But when the plan was communicated to me, I declined to be placed in the
position of sub-editor. I knew, that, however valuable Mr. Hook might be
as a large contributor, he was utterly unfitted to discharge editorial
duties, and that, as sub-editor, I could have no power to do aught but
obey the orders of my superior, while, as co-editor, I could both
suggest and object, as regarded articles and contributors. This view was
the view of Mr. Colburn, but not that of Mr. Hook. The consequence was
that I retired. As to the conduct of the "New Monthly" in the hands of
Mr. Hook, until it came into those of Mr. Hood, and, not long
afterwards, was sold by Mr. Colburn to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, it is not
requisite to speak.
A word here of Mr. Colburn. I cherish the kindliest memory of that
eminent bibliopole. He has been charged with many mean acts as regards
authors; but I know that he was often liberal, and always considerate
towards them. He could be implacable, but also forgiving; and it was
ever easy to move his heart by a tale of sorrow or a case of distress.
For more than a quarter of a century he led the general literature of
the kingdom; and I believe his sins of omission and commission were very
few. Such is my impression, resulting from six years' continual
intercourse with him. He was a little, sprightly man, of mild and kindly
countenance, and of much bodily activity. His peculiarity was, that he
rarely or never finished a sentence, appearing as if he considered it
hazardous to express fully what he thought. Consequently one could
seldom understand what was his real opinion upon any subject he debated
or discussed. His debate was always a "possibly" or "perhaps"; his
discussion invariably led to no conclusion for or against the matter in
hand.
It was during my editorship of the "New Monthly" that the best of all
Hook's works, "Gilbert Gurney," was published in that magazine. The part
for the ensuing number was rarely ready until the last moment, and more
than once at so late a period of the month, that, unless in the
printer's hands next morning, its publication would have been
impossible. I have driven to Fulham to find not a line of the article
written; and I have waited, sometimes nearly all night, until the
manuscript was produced. Now and then he would relate to me one of the
raciest of the anecdotes before he penned it down,--sometimes as the raw
statement of a fact before it had received its habiliments of fiction,
but more often as even a more brilliant story than the reader found it
on the first of the month.[D]
Hook was in the habit of sending pen-and-ink sketches of himself in his
letters. I have one of especial interest, in which he represented
himself down upon knees, with handkerchief to eyes. The meaning was to
indicate his grief at being late with his promised article for the "New
Monthly," and his begging pardon thereupon. He had great facility for
taking off likenesses, and it is said was once suspected of being the
"H. B." whose lithographic drawings of eminent or remarkable persons
startled society a few years ago by their rare graphic power and their
striking resemblance,--barely bordering on caricature.