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

by Theodore Edward Hook

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.

The production of thirty-eight volumes, within sixteen years, Hook being all the while editor, and almost sole writer, of a newspaper, affords sufficient proof that he never sank into idleness; but in other respects there had been great changes within that period. Two unhappy errors into which he had fallen marred the happiness of the remainder of his life. Before his arrest in 1823, he had formed a liaison, which, though perhaps excusable in his position at Somers Town, was persisted in afterwards under less adverse circumstances, until the righteous consequences of guilt could not be averted. This connection soon became such as, in his position, and with the kind and manly feelings which adhered to him, made it impossible for him to marry in his proper condition; and though he often thought of atoning to his partner, and in some sort to the children she had borne him, by making her his wife, he never took courage to satisfy his conscience by carrying that purpose into effect. The second error regarded his debt to the Crown, which, though during the last twenty years of life he was in receipt of an affluent income from his writings, he made no real or adequate effort to repay by instalments. Hook never denied that he was in justice responsible for a deficit of £9,000; and those who had the sole authority to judge of the matter, pronounced the rightful claim to be £12,000. When he was released from the King's Bench, he was told distinctly that the debt must hang over him until every farthing was paid. We know that he had, in his great and various talents, left from that hour at his free command, means of earning far more than enough for his own decent maintenance, and that of his unfortunate family; and most clearly every shilling that he could make beyond that ought to have been, from time to time, paid into the Exchequer towards the liquidation of his debt. In neglecting this, he threw away the only chance before him of effectually vindicating his character, together with all reasonable chance of ever again profiting by the open patronage of either the Crown or its Ministers. In every page of his works we trace the disastrous influence of both these grand original errors, perpetually crossing and blackening the picture of superficial gaiety—indications, not to be mistaken, of a conscience ill at ease; of painful recollections and dark anticipations rising irrepressibly, and not to be stifled; of good, gentle, and generous feelings converted by the stings of remorse into elements of torture.

His pecuniary embarrassments became deeper and darker every year. Even in the midst of his abundant dissipation he worked hard in the mornings—certainly he covered with his MS. more paper than would have proved, in almost any other man's case, the energetic exertion of every hour in every day that passed over his head; and little did his fine friends understand or reflect at what an expense of tear and wear he was devoting his evenings to their amusement.