The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook. Theodore Edward Hook
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