FLEET STREET (TRIBUTARIES--CRANE COURT, JOHNSON'S COURT, BOLT COURT).
Removal of the Royal Society from Gresham College--Opposition to
Newton--Objections to Removal--The First Catalogue--Swift's jeer at
the Society--Franklin's Lightning Conductor and King George
III.--Sir Hans Sloane insulted--The Scottish Society--Wilkes's
Printer--The Delphin Classics--Johnson's Court--Johnson's Opinion on
Pope and Dryden--His Removal to Bolt Court--The _John Bull_--Hook
and Terry--Prosecutions for Libel--Hook's Impudence.
In the old times, when newspapers could not legally be published without
a stamp, "various ingenious devices," says a writer in the _Bookseller_
(1867), "were employed to deceive and mislead the officers employed by
the Government. Many of the unstamped papers were printed in Crane
Court, Fleet Street; and there, on their several days of publication,
the officers of the Somerset House solicitor would watch, ready to seize
them immediately they came from the press. But the printers were quite
equal to the emergency. They would make up sham parcels of waste-paper,
and send them out with an ostentatious show of secrecy. The
officers--simple fellows enough, though they were called 'Government
spies,' 'Somerset House myrmidons,' and other opprobrious names, in the
unstamped papers--duly took possession of the parcels, after a decent
show of resistance by their bearers, while the real newspapers intended
for sale to the public were sent flying by thousands down a shoot in
Fleur-de-Lys Court, and thence distributed in the course of the next
hour or two all over the town."
The Royal Society came to Crane Court from Gresham College in 1710, and
removed in 1782 to Somerset House. This society, according to Dr.
Wallis, one of the earliest members, originated in London in 1645, when
Dr. Wilkins and certain philosophical friends met weekly to discuss
scientific questions. They afterwards met at Oxford, and in Gresham
College, till that place was turned into a Puritan barracks. After the
Restoration, in 1662, the king, wishing to turn men's minds to
philosophy--or, indeed, anywhere away from politics--incorporated the
members in what Boyle has called "the Invisible College," and gave it
the name of the Royal Society. In 1710, the Mercers' Company growing
tired of their visitors, the society moved to a house rebuilt by Wren in
1670, and purchased by the society for L1,450. It had been the
residence, before the Great Fire, of Dr. Nicholas Barebone (son of
Praise-God Barebone), a great building speculator, who had much property
in the Strand, and who was the first promoter of the Phoenix Fire
Office. It seems to have been thought at the time that Newton was
somewhat despotic in his announcement of the removal, and the members in
council grumbled at the new house, and complained of it as small,
inconvenient, and dilapidated. Nevertheless, Sir Isaac, unaccustomed to
opposition, overruled all these objections, and the society flourished
in this Fleet Street "close" seventy-two years. Before the society came
to Crane Court, Pepys and Wren had been presidents; while at Crane Court
the presidents were--Newton (1703-1727), Sir Thomas Hoare, Matthew
Folkes, Esq. (whose portrait Hogarth painted), the Earl of Macclesfield,
the Earl of Morton, James Burrow, Esq., James West, Esq., Sir John
Pringle, and Sir Joseph Banks. The earliest records of this useful
society are filled with accounts of experiments on the Baconian
inductive principle, many of which now appear to us puerile, but which
were valuable in the childhood of science. Among the labours of the
society while in Fleet Street, we may enumerate its efforts to promote
inoculation, 1714-1722; electrical experiments on fourteen miles of
wires near Shooter's Hill, 1745; ventilation, _apropos_ of gaol fever,
1750; discussions on Cavendish's improved thermometers, 1757; a medal to
Dollond for experiments on the laws of light, 1758; observations on the
transit of Venus, in 1761; superintendence of the Observatory at
Greenwich, 1765; observations of the transit of Venus in the Pacific,
1769 (Lieutenant Cook commenced the expedition); the promotion of an
Arctic expedition, 1773; the _Racehorse_ meteorological observations,
1773; experiments on lightning conductors by Franklin, Cavendish, &c.,
1772. The removal of the society was, as we have said, at first strongly
objected to, and in a pamphlet published at the time, the new purchase
is thus described: "The approach to it, I confess, is very fair and
handsome, through a long court; but, then, they have no other property
in this than in the street before it, and in a heavy rain a man may
hardly escape being thoroughly wet before he can pass through it. The
front of the house towards the garden is nearly half as long again as
that towards Crane Court. Upon the ground floor there is a little hall,
and a direct passage from the stairs into the garden, and on each side
of it a little room. The stairs are easy, which carry you up to the next
floor. Here there is a room fronting the court, directly over the hall;
and towards the garden is the meeting-room, and at the end another, also
fronting the garden. There are three rooms upon the next floor. These
are all that are as yet provided for the reception of the society,
except you will have the garrets, a platform of lead over them, and the
usual cellars, &c., below, of which they have more and better at Gresham
College."
When the society got settled, by Newton's order the porter was clothed
in a suitable gown and provided with a staff surmounted by the arms of
the society in silver, and on the meeting nights a lamp was hung out
over the entrance to the court from Fleet Street. The repository was
built at the rear of the house, and thither the society's museum was
removed. The first catalogue, compiled by Dr. Green, contains the
following, among many other marvellous notices:--
"The quills of a porcupine, which on certain occasions the creature can
shoot at the pursuing enemy and erect at pleasure.
"The flying squirrel, which for a good nut-tree will pass a river on the
bark of a tree, erecting his tail for a sail.
"The leg-bone of an elephant, brought out of Syria for the thigh-bone of
a giant. In winter, when it begins to rain, elephants are mad, and so
continue from April to September, chained to some tree, and then become
tame again.
"Tortoises, when turned on their backs, will sometimes fetch deep sighs
and shed abundance of tears.
"A humming-bird and nest, said to weigh but twelve grains; his feathers
are set in gold, and sell at a great rate.
"A bone, said to be taken out of a mermaid's head.
"The largest whale--liker an island than an animal.
"The white shark, which sometimes swallows men whole.
"A siphalter, said with its sucker to fasten on a ship and stop it under
sail.
"A stag-beetle, whose horns, worn in a ring, are good against the cramp.
"A mountain cabbage--one reported 300 feet high."
The author of "Hudibras," who died in 1680, attacked the Royal Society
for experiments that seemed to him futile and frivolous, in a severe and
bitter poem, entitled, "The Elephant in the Moon," the elephant proving
to be a mouse inside a philosopher's telescope. The poem expresses the
current opinion of the society, on which King Charles II. is once said
to have played a joke.
In 1726-27 Swift, too, had his bitter jeer at the society. In Laputa, he
thus describes the experimental philosophers:--
"The first man I saw," he says, "was of a meagre aspect, with sooty
hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several
places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He
had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of
cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let
out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He told me he did not
doubt that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the
governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate; but he complained
that his stock was low, and entreated me 'to give him something as an
encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear
season for cucumbers.' I made him a small present, for my lord had
furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of
begging from all who go to see them. I saw another at work to calcine
ice into gunpowder, who likewise showed me a treatise he had written
concerning the 'Malleability of Fire,' which he intended to publish.
"There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method of
building houses, by beginning at the roof and working downward to the
foundation; which he justified to me by the like practice of those two
prudent insects, the bee and the spider. I went into another room, where
the walls and ceilings were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow
passage for the architect to go in and out. At my entrance, he called
aloud to me 'not to disturb his webs.' He lamented 'the fatal mistake
the world had been so long in, of using silk-worms, while we had such
plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because
they understood how to weave as well as spin.' And he proposed, farther,
'that, by employing spiders, the charge of dying silks would be wholly
saved;' whereof I was fully convinced when he showed me a vast number of
flies, most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring
us, 'that the webs would take a tincture from them;' and, as he had them
of all hues, he hoped to fit everybody's fancy, as soon as he could find
proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous
matter, to give a strength and consistence to the threads."
Mr. Grosley, who, in 1770, at Lausanne, published a book on London, has
drawn a curious picture of the society at that date. "The Royal
Society," he says, "combines within itself the purposes of the Parisian
Academy of Sciences and that of Inscriptions; it cultivates, in fact,
not only the higher branches of science, but literature also. Every one,
whatever his position, and whether English or foreign, who has made
observations which appear to the society worthy of its attention, is
allowed to submit them to it either by word of mouth or in writing. I
once saw a joiner, in his working clothes, announce to the society a
means he had discovered of explaining the causes of tides. He spoke a
long time, evidently not knowing what he was talking about; but he was
listened to with the greatest attention, thanked for his confidence in
the value of the society's opinion, requested to put his ideas into
writing, and conducted to the door by one of the principal members.
"The place in which the society holds its meetings is neither large nor
handsome. It is a long, low, narrow room, only furnished with a table
(covered with green cloth), some morocco chairs, and some wooden
benches, which rise above each other along the room. The table, placed
in front of the fire-place at the bottom of the room, is occupied by the
president (who sits with his back to the fire) and the secretaries. On
this table is placed a large silver-gilt mace, similar to the one in use
in the House of Commons, and which, as is the case with the latter, is
laid at the foot of the table when the society is in committee. The
president is preceded on his entrance and departure by the beadle of the
society, bearing this mace. He has beside him, on his table, a little
wooden mallet for the purpose of imposing silence when occasion arises,
but this is very seldom the case. With the exception of the secretaries
and the president, everyone takes his place hap-hazard, at the same time
taking great pains to avoid causing any confusion or noise. The society
may be said to consist, as a body corporate, of a committee of about
twenty persons, chosen from those of its associates who have the fuller
opportunities of devoting themselves to their favourite studies. The
president and the secretaries are _ex-officio_ members of the committee,
which is renewed every year--an arrangement which is so much the more
necessary that, in 1765, the society numbered 400 British members, of
whom more than forty were peers of the realm, five of the latter being
most assiduous members of the committee.
"The foreign honorary members, who number about 150, comprise within
their number all the most famous learned men of Europe, and amongst them
we find the names of D'Alembert, Bernouilli, Bonnet, Buffon, Euler,
Jussieu, Linne, Voltaire, &c.; together with those, in simple
alphabetical order, of the Dukes of Braganza, &c., and the chief
Ministers of many European sovereigns."
During the dispute about lightning conductors (after St. Bride's Church
was struck in 1764), in the year 1772, George III. (says Mr. Weld, in
his "History of the Royal Society") is stated to have taken the side of
Wilson--not on scientific grounds, but from political motives; he even
had blunt conductors fixed on his palace, and actually endeavoured to
make the Royal Society rescind their resolution in favour of pointed
conductors. The king, it is declared, had an interview with Sir John
Pringle, during which his Majesty earnestly entreated him to use his
influence in supporting Mr. Wilson. The reply of the president was
highly honourable to himself and the society whom he represented. It was
to the effect that duty as well as inclination would always induce him
to execute his Majesty's wishes to the utmost of his power; "But, sire,"
said he, "I cannot reverse the laws and operations of Nature." It is
stated that when Sir John regretted his inability to alter the laws of
Nature, the king replied, "Perhaps, Sir John, you had better resign." It
was shortly after this occurrence that a friend of Dr. Franklin's wrote
this epigram:--
"While you, great George, for knowledge hunt,
And sharp conductors change for blunt,
The nation's out of joint;
Franklin a wiser course pursues,
And all your thunder useless views,
By keeping to the point."
A strange scene in the Royal Society in 1710 (Queen Anne) deserves
record. It ended in the expulsion from the council of that irascible Dr.
Woodward who once fought a duel with Dr. Mead inside the gate of Gresham
College. "The sense," says Mr. Ward, in his "Memoirs," "entertained by
the society of Sir Hans Sloane's services and virtues was evinced by the
manner in which they resented an insult offered him by Dr. Woodward,
who, as the reader is aware, was expelled the council. Sir Hans was
reading a paper of his own composition, when Woodward made some grossly
insulting remarks. Dr. Sloane complained, and moreover stated that Dr.
Woodward had often affronted him by making grimaces at him; upon which
Dr. Arbuthnot rose and begged to be 'informed what distortion of a man's
face constituted a grimace.' Sir Isaac Newton was in the chair when the
question of expulsion was agitated, and when it was pleaded in
Woodward's favour that 'he was a good natural philosopher,' Sir Isaac
remarked that in order to belong to that society a man ought to be a
good moral philosopher as well as a natural one."
The Scottish Society held its meetings in Crane Court. "Elizabeth," says
Mr. Timbs, "kept down the number of Scotsmen in London to the
astonishingly small one of fifty-eight; but with James I. came such a
host of traders and craftsmen, many of whom failing to obtain
employment, gave rise, as early as 1613, to the institution of the
'Scottish Box,' a sort of friendly society's treasury, when there were
no banks to take charge of money. In 1638 the company, then only twenty,
met in Lamb's Conduit Street. In this year upwards of 300 poor Scotsmen,
swept off by the great plague of 1665-66, were buried at the expense of
the 'box,' while numbers more were nourished during their sickness,
without subjecting the parishes in which they resided to the smallest
expense.
"In the year 1665 the 'box' was exalted into the character of a
corporation by a royal charter, the expenses attendant on which were
disbursed by gentlemen who, when they met at the 'Cross Keys,' in Covent
Garden, found their receipts to be L116 8s. 5d. The character of the
times is seen in one of their regulations, which imposed a fine of 2s.
6d. for every oath used in the course of their quarterly business.
"Presents now flocked in. One of the corporation gave a silver cup;
another, an ivory mallet or hammer for the chairman; and among the
contributors we find Gilbert Burnet, afterwards bishop, giving L1
half-yearly. In no very Scotsman-like spirit the governors distributed
each quarter-day all that had been collected during the preceding
interval. But in 1775 a permanent fund was established. The hospital now
distributes about L2,200 a year, chiefly in L10 pensions to old people;
and the princely bequest of L76,495 by Mr. W. Kinloch, who had realised
a fortune in India, allows of L1,800 being given in pensions of L4 to
disabled soldiers and sailors.
"All this is highly honourable to those connected, by birth or
otherwise, with Scotland. The monthly meetings of the society are
preceded by divine service in the chapel, which is in the rear of the
house in Crane Court. Twice a year is held a festival, at which large
sums are collected. On St. Andrew's Day, 1863, Viscount Palmerston
presided, with the brilliant result of the addition of L1,200 to the
hospital fund."
Appended to the account of the society already quoted we find the
following remarkable "note by an Englishman":--
"It is not one of the least curious particulars in the history of the
Scottish Hospital that it substantiates by documentary evidence the fact
that Scotsmen who have gone to England occasionally find their way back
to their own country. It appears from the books of the corporation that
in the year ending 30th November, 1850, the sum of L30 16s. 6d. was
spent in passages from London to Leith; and there is actually a
corresponding society in Edinburgh to receive the _revenants_ and pass
them on to their respective districts."
In Crane Court, says Mr. Timbs, lived Dryden Leach, the printer, who, in
1763, was arrested on a general warrant upon suspicion of having printed
Wilkes's _North Briton_, No 45. Leach was taken out of his bed in the
night, his papers were seized, and even his journeymen and servants were
apprehended, the only foundation for the arrest being a hearsay that
Wilkes had been seen going into Leach's house. Wilkes had been sent to
the Tower for the No. 45. After much litigation, he obtained a verdict
of L4,000, and Leach L300, damages from three of the king's messengers,
who had executed the illegal warrant. Kearsley, the bookseller, of Fleet
Street (whom we recollect by his tax-tables), had been taken up for
publishing No. 45, when also at Kearsley's were seized the letters of
Wilkes, which seemed to fix upon him the writing of the obscene and
blasphemous "Essay on Woman," and of which he was convicted in the Court
of King's Bench and expelled the House of Commons. The author of this
"indecent patchwork" was not Wilkes (says Walpole), but Thomas Potter,
the wild son of the learned Archbishop of Canterbury, who had tried to
fix the authorship on the learned and arrogant Warburton--a piece of
matchless impudence worthy of Wilkes himself.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL SOCIETY'S HOUSE IN CRANE COURT (_see page
104_).]
Red Lion Court (No. 169), though an unlikely spot, has been, of all the
side binns of Fleet Street, one of the most specially favoured by
Minerva. Here Valpy published that interminable series of Latin and
Greek authors, which he called the "Delphin Classics," which Lamb's
eccentric friend, George Dyer, of Clifford's Inn, laboriously edited,
and which opened the eyes of the subscribers very wide indeed as to the
singular richness of ancient literature. At the press of an eminent
printer in this court, that useful and perennial serial the _Gentleman's
Magazine_ (started in 1731) was partly printed from 1779 to 1781, and
entirely printed from 1792 to 1820.
Johnson's Court, Fleet Street (a narrow court on the north side of Fleet
Street, the fourth from Fetter Lane, eastward), was not named from Dr.
Johnson, although inhabited by him.
[Illustration: Theodore E. Hook (_See page 110_).]
Dr. Johnson was living at Johnson's Court in 1765, after he left No. 1,
Inner Temple Lane, and before he removed to Bolt Court. At Johnson's
Court he made the acquaintance of Murphey, and he worked at his edition
of "Shakespeare." He saw much of Reynolds and Burke. On the accession of
George III. a pension of L300 a year had been bestowed on him, and from
that time he became comparatively an affluent man. In 1763, Boswell had
become acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and from that period his wonderful
conversations are recorded. The indefatigable biographer describes, in
1763, being taken by Mr. Levett to see Dr. Johnson's library, which was
contained in his garret over his Temple chambers, where the son of the
well-known Lintot used to have his warehouse. The floor was strewn with
manuscript leaves; and there was an apparatus for chemical experiments,
of which Johnson was all his life very fond. Johnson often hid himself
in this garret for study, but never told his servant, as the Doctor
would never allow him to say he was not at home when he was.
"He"(Johnson), says Hawkins, "removed from the Temple into a house in
Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, and invited thither his friend Mrs.
Williams. An upper room, which had the advantage of a good light and
free air, he fitted up for a study and furnished with books, chosen with
so little regard to editions or their external appearances as showed
they were intended for use, and that he disdained the ostentation of
learning."
"I returned to London," says Boswell, "in February, 1766, and found Dr.
Johnson in a good house in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, in which he
had accommodated Mrs. Williams with an apartment on the ground-floor,
while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret. His faithful Francis
was still attending upon him. He received me with much kindness. The
fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are
these:--I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had
distinguished Pope and Dryden, thus: 'Pope drives a handsome chariot,
with a couple of neat, trim nags; Dryden, a coach and six stately
horses.' Johnson: 'Why, sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and
six, but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling; Pope's go at
a steady, even trot.' He said of Goldsmith's 'Traveller,' which had been
published in my absence, 'There's not been so fine a poem since Pope's
time.' Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines
which he furnished to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village,' which are only the
last four:--
'That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.'
At night I supped with him at the 'Mitre' tavern, that we might renew
our social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now
considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness, in
which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period,
continued to abstain from it, and drank only water or lemonade."
"Mr. Beauclerk and I," says Boswell, in another place, "called on him in
the morning. As we walked up Johnson's Court, I said, 'I have a
veneration for this court,' and was glad to find that Beauclerk had the
same reverential enthusiasm." The Doctor's removal Boswell thus duly
chronicles:--"Having arrived," he says, "in London late on Friday, the
15th of March, 1776, I hastened next morning to wait on Dr. Johnson, at
his house, but found he was removed from Johnson's Court, No. 7, to Bolt
Court, No. 8, still keeping to his favourite Fleet Street. My reflection
at the time, upon this change, as marked in my journal, is as follows:
'I felt a foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name;
but it was not foolish to be affected with some tenderness of regard for
a place in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often
issued a better and a happier man than when I went in; and which had
often appeared to my imagination, while I trod its pavement in the
solemn darkness of the night, to be sacred to wisdom and piety.'"
Johnson was living at Johnson's Court when he was introduced to George
III., an interview in which he conducted himself, considering he was an
ingrained Jacobite, with great dignity, self-respect, and good sense.
That clever, but most shameless and scurrilous, paper, _John Bull_, was
started in Johnson's Court, at the close of 1820. Its specific and real
object was to slander unfortunate Queen Caroline and to torment,
stigmatise, and blacken "the Brandenburg House party," as her honest
sympathisers were called. Theodore Hook was chosen editor, because he
knew society, was quick, witty, satirical, and thoroughly unscrupulous.
For his "splendid abuse"--as his biographer, the unreverend Mr. Barham,
calls it--he received the full pay of a greedy hireling. Tom Moore and
the Whigs now met with a terrible adversary. Hook did not hew or stab,
like Churchill and the old rough lampooners of earlier days, but he
filled crackers with wild fire, or laughingly stuck the enemies of
George IV. over with pins. Hook had only a year before returned from the
Treasuryship of the Mauritius, charged with a defalcation of
L15,000--the result of the grossest and most culpable neglect. Hungry
for money, as he had ever been, he was eager to show his zeal for the
master who had hired his pen. Hook and Daniel Terry, the comedian,
joined to start the new satirical paper; but Miller, a publisher in the
Burlington Arcade, was naturally afraid of libel, and refused to have
anything to do with the new venture. With Miller, as Hook said in his
clever, punning way, all argument in favour of it proved Newgate-ory.
Hook at first wanted to start a magazine upon the model of _Blackwood_,
but the final decision was for a weekly newspaper, to be called _John
Bull_, a title already discussed for a previous scheme by Hook and
Elliston. The first number appeared on Saturday, December 16, 1820, in
the publishing office, No. 11, Johnson's Court. The modest projectors
only printed seven hundred and fifty copies of the first number, but the
sale proved considerable. By the sixth week the sale had reached ten
thousand weekly. The first five numbers were reprinted, and the first
two actually stereotyped.
Hook's favourite axiom--worthy of such a satirist--was "that there was
always a concealed wound in every family, and the point was to strike
exactly at the source of pain." Hook's clerical elder brother, Dr. James
Hook, the author of "Pen Owen" and other novels, and afterwards Dean of
Worcester, assisted him; but Terry was too busy in what Sir Walter
Scott, his great friend and sleeping partner, used to call "_Terry_fying
the novelists by not very brilliant adaptations of their works." Dr.
Maginn, summoned from Cork to edit a newspaper for Hook (who had bought
up two dying newspapers for the small expenditure of three hundred
guineas), wrote only one article for the _Bull_. Mr. Haynes Bayley
contributed some of his graceful verses, and Ingoldsby (Barham) some of
his rather ribald fun. The anonymous editor of _John Bull_ became for a
time as much talked about as Junius in earlier times. By many witty
James Smith was suspected, but his fun had not malignity enough for the
Tory purposes of those bitter days. Latterly Hook let Alderman Wood
alone, and set all his staff on Hume, the great economist, and the Hon.
Henry Grey Bennett.
Several prosecutions followed, says Mr. Barham, that for libel on the
Queen among the rest; but the grand attempt on the part of the Whigs to
crush the paper was not made till the 6th of May, 1821. A short and
insignificant paragraph, containing some observations upon the Hon.
Henry Grey Bennett, a brother of Lord Tankerville's, was selected for
attack, as involving a breach of privilege; in consequence of which the
printer, Mr. H.F. Cooper, the editor, and Mr. Shackell were ordered to
attend at the bar of the House of Commons. A long debate ensued, during
which Ministers made as fair a stand as the nature of the case would
admit in behalf of their guerrilla allies, but which terminated at
length in the committal of Cooper to Newgate, where he was detained from
the 11th of May till the 11th of July, when Parliament was prorogued.
Meanwhile the most strenuous exertions were made to detect the real
delinquents--for, of course, honourable gentlemen were not to be imposed
upon by the unfortunate "men of straw" who had fallen into their
clutches, and who, by the way, suffered for an offence of which their
judges and accusers openly proclaimed them to be not only innocent, but
incapable. The terror of imprisonment and the various arts of
cross-examination proving insufficient to elicit the truth, recourse was
had to a simpler and more conciliatory mode of treatment--bribery. The
storm had failed to force off the editorial cloak--the golden beams were
brought to bear upon it. We have it for certain that an offer was made
to a member of the establishment to stay all impending proceedings, and,
further, to pay down a sum of L500 on the names of the actual writers
being given up. It was rejected with disdain, while such were the
precautions taken that it was impossible to fix Hook, though suspicion
began to be awakened, with any share in the concern. In order, also, to
cross the scent already hit off, and announced by sundry deep-mouthed
pursuers, the following "Reply"--framed upon the principle, we presume,
that in literature, as in love, everything is fair--was thrown out in an
early number:--
"MR. THEODORE HOOK.
"The conceit of some people is amazing, and it has not been unfrequently
remarked that conceit is in abundance where talent is most scarce. Our
readers will see that we have received a letter from Mr. Hook, disowning
and disavowing all connection with this paper. Partly out of good
nature, and partly from an anxiety to show the gentleman how little
desirous we are to be associated with him, we have made a declaration
which will doubtless be quite satisfactory to his morbid sensibility and
affected squeamishness. We are free to confess that two things surprise
us in this business; the first, that anything which we have thought
worth 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_."
For sheer impudence this, perhaps, may be admitted to "defy
competition"; but in point of tact and delicacy of finish it falls
infinitely short of a subsequent notice, a perfect gem of its class,
added by way of clenching the denial:--
"We have received Mr. Theodore Hook's second letter. We are ready to
confess that we may have appeared to treat him too unceremoniously, but
we will put it to his own feelings whether the terms of his denial were
not, in some degree, calculated to produce a little asperity on our
part. We shall never be ashamed, however, to do justice, and we readily
declare that we meant no kind of imputation on Mr. Hook's personal
character."
The ruse answered for awhile, and the paper went on with unabated
audacity.
The death of the Queen, in the summer of 1821, produced a decided
alteration in the tone and temper of the paper. In point of fact its
occupation was now gone. The main, if not the sole, object of its
establishment had been brought about by other and unforeseen events. The
combination it had laboured so energetically to thwart was now dissolved
by a higher and resistless agency. Still, it is not to be supposed that
a machine which brought in a profit of something above L4,000 per annum,
half of which fell to the share of Hook, was to be lightly thrown up,
simply because its original purpose was attained. The dissolution of the
"League" did not exist then as a precedent. The Queen was no longer to
be feared; but there were Whigs and Radicals enough to be held in check,
and, above all, there was a handsome income to be realised.
"Latterly Hook's desultory nature made him wander from the _Bull_,
which might have furnished the thoughtless and heartless man of pleasure
with an income for life. The paper naturally lost sap and vigour, at
once declined in sale, and sank into a mere respectable club-house and
party organ." "Mr. Hook," says Barham, "received to the day of his death
a fixed salary, but the proprietorship had long since passed into other
hands."