In 1820 he founded the John Bull newspaper, strongly in favour of the king’s interests, scurrilous as it was witty; everybody read it, and for some years it yielded him £2000 per annum. His life we see had been sufficiently various, and not an incident of it was ever forgotten, for his memory was probably unrivalled. He made a bet that he would repeat in order the names of all the shops on one side of Oxford Street, and he only misplaced one; and he gained another wager by saying from memory a whole column of Times advertisement, which he had only once conned over; and on another occasion he utterly discomfited a universal critic, by engaging him in a conversation anent lunar eclipses, and then discharging three columns of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” at him, without pause or hesitation. He had, too, the gift of improvising verse in our stubborn English tongue, and was known on one occasion to introduce the names of fifty guests at a supper-table, in a song of fifty verses—each verse a rhymed epigram.

With attainments and experiences like these, Colburn may be considered as a wise rather than a venturous man when he offered Hook £600 to write a novel. The idea of the “Sayings and Doings” was struck out at a John Bull gathering, and the book when published in 1824, was so successful that 6000 copies of the three volumes were soon disposed of,[21] and the generous publisher made the author a present of £350. For the second series (published in 1825), and the third series (published in 1828), he received a thousand guineas each. In 1830 appeared “Maxwell,” perhaps the best of his novels, and this was followed by the “Parson’s Daughter” (1833), “Jack Brag” (1837), and numerous others, for all of which he was very handsomely paid. But though he was earning at this period, upwards of £3000 a year by his pen, he was spending more than £6000, and was obliged, not only to make fresh engagements with his publishers, but to fore-draw to a very large extent, and to change his plans considerably with each instalment of indebtedness. Colburn and Bentley seem to have treated him with marked esteem and consideration, and his letters perpetually show this: “I have been so liberally treated by your house, that it seems almost presuming upon kindnesses” (1831). Again, in 1837: “I assure you I would not press the matter in a quarter where I am proud and happy to say—as I do to everybody—I have met with the greatest liberality.”

In 1834 he took the management of the New Monthly, and to its pages he contributed what may be considered an autobiographical sketch. “Gilbert Gurney” and the sequel “Gilbert Married,” the second of which unfortunately was not autobiographical; for he had formed ties with a woman who had not only sacrificed everything to him, but during the period of his imprisonment and his many troubles had behaved with exemplary faithfulness and unremitting attention; and these ties he had not the courage to legally strengthen. At his death the crown seized what little property he possessed, in the shape of household chattels and newspaper shares, to liquidate his unfortunate debt, and his children were left penniless. A subscription was raised—if literary men are improvident (though many have more excuses for improvidence than Theodore Hook), they are at least kindly-hearted—and a sum of £3000 was collected, to which the King of Hanover contributed £500. As a strange test of Hook’s joviality it is stated that the receipts of the dining-room of the Athenæum Club fell off by £300 when his well-known seat in “Temperance Corner” became vacant.

Another of the novelists with whom Colburn had long and intimate dealings was G. P. R. James, one of the most indefatigable writers that ever drove pen over paper. We give for the sake of clearness, a tabular statement of his extraordinary labours:—

51Novels in3Volumes153Volumes.
2”4”8”
6”2”12”
16”1”16”
Edited Works14”
Miscellaneous Contributions
would fill say		10”
223Volumes.

Truly a gargantuan labour! Some of James’s early writings had attracted the attention of Washington Irving, who strongly advised the undertaking of some more important work, and as a consequence “Richelieu” was commenced. After it had received Scott’s approval it was submitted to Colburn, and published in 1828 with a success that determined the young author’s future career. We cannot, of course, follow the progress of the 223 volumes as they issued from the press. It would be absurd to look for originality in a book-manufacturer of this calibre, and, as Whipple says, James “was a maker of books without being a maker of thought.” Still they served their purpose of enriching the author and publishers, and at a time when the public appetite was less jaded than at present, his works were eagerly looked for, and even now many readers agree with Leigh Hunt:—“I hail every fresh publication of James, though I hardly know what he is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape, and his scenery, and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial.”

In 1826 Colburn published Banim’s “Tales of the O’Hara Family,” a book that excited a very strong interest in the public mind, and in the same year he issued “Vivian Grey,” by a young author whose life was to be as romantic as his story. Mr. Disraeli’s first book contains a curious confession of his youthful aspirations, and even a curiously exact prototype of his future life. This was followed in 1831 by the “Young Duke.” “Bless me!” the elder Disraeli exclaimed when he read this eloquent account of aristocratic circles, “why the boy has never sat in the same room as a duke in his life.” Mr. Disraeli’s novels soon became famous for the portraits or caricatures of distinguished living people, scarcely disguised under the slightest of all possible pseudonyms; to those living in the metropolis the likenesses were evident enough, and a regular key was published to each for the benefit of our country cousins.

In 1829 Colburn published “Frank Mildmay,” a novel full of false morality and falser style, but delineating sea life with such a flavour of fun and frolic, adventures and brine, that Marryat was at once hailed as a true successor to Smollett. This was followed by a rapid succession of sea stories, among the best of which undoubtedly are “Peter Simple” and “Midshipman Easy.” The perusal of these works has probably done more to turn youthful aspiration and energies to the choice of a profession than any series of formal injunctions ever penned. Old King William, the Sailor-King, was so entranced with “Peter Simple” that he begged to be introduced to the author, and promised to bestow some honourable distinction upon him for his services; but afterwards recollecting suddenly that he “had written a book against the impressment of seamen,” he refused to fulfil his pledge. When, later on, Colburn published Marryat’s “Diary in America,” the Yankees felt terribly outraged, and the severe criticism that followed speedily emptied his shelves of a large edition.

This was emphatically the period of fashionable novels, and the great outside world was perpetually calling out for more and more romantic accounts of that attractive region to which middle-class thought could only aspire in reverent fancy. And though these novels seemed written primarily to illustrate the moral lesson of Touchstone to the Shepherd—“Shepherd, wert thou ever at court?” “No.” “Then thou art damned”—the public received the oracle, not only with humility, but thankfulness. For a time Mr. Bulwer Lytton was a disciple of this fashionable school, but even “Pelham” has an interest greater than any other specimen of its class, for though, in some degree, an illustration of the maxim that “manners make the man,” the threads of a darker and more tragic interest are interwoven with the tale. As an artistic worker, as a true delineator of our subtler and deeper passions, Lord Lytton was far above any other of Colburn’s writers—above, indeed, any other writer of the day; while his sophistry, immense as it undoubtedly is, only lends a more forcible and enthralling interest to his plots. None of Colburn’s novelists—and their name was legion—brought in more grist to the publishing mill than Lord Lytton; and, when the meal had been baked several times, Messrs. Routledge paid the author £20,000 for all future use of these works—as popular now perhaps in their cheap editions as they have ever been before.

To return for a moment more immediately to Colburn’s life, we find him still speculating in periodical literature, and with the same success as ever. In 1828 he commenced the Court Journal, and in the following year started the United Service Magazine, while for many years he possessed a considerable interest in the Sunday Times newspaper; and all these periodicals are still held in popular esteem.