HOOK AND DOWTON THE ACTOR.
On one occasion poor Dowton was well-nigh frightened from his propriety by the sudden appearance of his young friend upon the stage, who, in appropriate costume, and with an ultra-melodramatic strut, advanced in place of the regular walking gentleman to offer him a letter. At another, during the heat of a contested Westminster election, the whole house was electrified by a solemn cry, proceeding apparently from the fiend in the "Wood Demon," of "She-ri-dan for e-ver!" and uttered in the deepest bass the speaking-trumpet was capable of producing. This last piece of facetiousness was rather seriously resented by Graham, one of the proprietors of the Haymarket, who threatened its perpetrator with perpetual suspension of his "privilege," and it required all the interest of influential friends, backed by an ample apology on the part of the culprit, who promised the most strict observance of decorum for the future, to obtain a reversal of the decree.
LETTER FROM MAURITIUS.
From "La Réduit, Mauritius," under date March 24, 1814, Theodore Hook addressed the following humorous letter to Charles Mathews:—
"My dear Mathews,—Uninteresting as a letter must be from an individual in a little African island, to you who are at the very head-quarters and emporium of news and gaiety, I shall risk annoying you and write, begging you to take along with you that the stupidity of my epistle proceeds in a great measure from the dearth of anything worth the name of intelligence; for if I had anything to say, say it I would.
"I have received so much powerful assistance from your public talents in my short dramatic career, and have enjoyed so very many pleasant hours in your private society, that I feel a great pride and gratification from this distance, where flattery cannot be suspected, nor interested motives attach themselves to praise, to express how warmly I feel and how I appreciate both your exertions and your powers.
"You have read enough of this island, I daresay, not to imagine that we live in huts on the sea-coast, or that, like our gallant forefathers, we paint ourselves blue, and vote pantaloons a prejudice. We are here surrounded by every luxury which art can furnish, or dissipation suggest, in a climate the most delightful, in a country the most beautiful, society the most gay, and pursuits the most fascinating.
"This is, by heavens, a Paradise, and not without angels. The women are all handsome (not so handsome as English women), all accomplished, their manners extremely good, wit brilliant, and good-nature wonderful; this is picking out the best! The "οι πολλοι," as we say at Oxford, are, if I may use the word, mindless—all blank—dance like devils, and better than any people, for, like all fools, they are fond of it, and naturally excel in proportion to their mental debility; for the greater the fool the better the dancer.
"In short, the whole island is like fairy-land; every hour seems happier than the last; the mildness of the air (the sweetness of which, as it passes over spice-plantations and orange-groves, is hardly conceivable), the clearness of the atmosphere, the coolness of the evenings, and the loveliness of the place itself, all combine to render it fascination. The very thought of ever quitting it is like the apprehension of the death or long parting with some near relation, and if it were not that this feeling is counteracted by having some friends at home, there is no inducement that would draw me from such a perfect Thule.