A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE.
THEODORE HOOK AND HIS FRIENDS.
Theodore Edward Hook was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on the 22d of September, 1788. His father was an eminent musical composer, who "enjoyed in his time success and celebrity"; his elder brother James became Dean of Windsor, whose son is the present learned and eloquent Dean of Chichester; the mother of both was an accomplished lady, and also an author.
His natural talent, therefore, was early nursed. Unfortunately, the green-room was the too frequent study of the youth; for his father's fame and income were chiefly derived from the composition of operetta songs, for which Theodore usually wrote the libretti. When little more than a boy he had produced perhaps thirty farces, and in 1808 gave birth to a novel. Those who remember the two great actors of a long period, Mathews and Liston, will be at no loss to comprehend the popularity of Hook's farces: for they were his "props."
In 1812, when his finances were low, and the chances of increasing them limited, and when, perhaps, also, his constitution had been tried by "excesses," he received the appointment of Accountant-General and Treasurer at the Mauritius,—a post with an income of two thousand pounds a year. Hook seems to have derived his qualifications for this office from his antipathy to arithmetic and his utter unfitness for business.
The result might have been easily foreseen. In 1819 he returned to England: the cause may be indicated by his very famous pun, when, the Governor of the Cape having expressed a hope that he was not returning because of ill health, he was "sorry to say they think there is something wrong in the chest." He was found guilty of owing twelve thousand pounds to the Government: yet he was "without a shilling in his pocket." If public funds had been abstracted, he was none the richer, and there was certainly no suspicion that the money had been dishonestly advantageous to him.
Although kept for years in hot water, battling with the Treasury, it was not until 1823 that the penalty was exacted,—sometime after the "John Bull" had made him a host of enemies. Of course, as he could not pay in purse, he was doomed to "pay in person." After spending some months "pleasantly" at a dreary sponging-house in Shoe Lane, where there was ever "an agreeable prospect, barring the windows," he was removed to the "Rules of the Bench," residing there a year, being discharged from custody in 1825.
Hook, while in the Rules, was under very little restraint; he was almost as much in society as ever, taking special care not to be seen by any of his creditors, who might have pounced upon him and made the Marshal responsible for the debt. The danger was less in Hook's case than in that of others, for his principal "detaining creditor" was the King. I remember his telling me, that, during his "confinement" in the Rules, he made the acquaintance of a gentleman, who, while a prisoner there, paid a visit to India. The story is this. The gentleman called one morning on the Marshal, who said,—
"Mr. ——, I have not had the pleasure to see you for a long time."
"No wonder," was the answer; "for since you saw me last I have been to India."