He rose from the piano, burst into tears, and left the room. Few of those who were present saw him afterwards.[C]
All the evening Hook had been low in spirits. It seemed impossible to stir him into animation, until the cause was guessed at by Mr. Blood, a surgeon, who was at that time an actor at the Haymarket. He prescribed a glass of Sherry, and retired to procure it, returning presently with a bottle of pale brandy. Having administered two or three doses, the machinery was wound up, and the result was as I have described it.
I give one more instance of his ready wit and rapid power of rhyme. He had been idle for a fortnight, and had written nothing for the "John Bull" newspaper. The clerk, however, took him his salary as usual, and on entering his room said, "Have you heard the news? the king and queen of the Sandwich Islands are dead," (they had just died in England of the small-pox.) "and," added the clerk, "we want something about them."—"Instantly," cried Hook, "you shall have it:—
"'Waiter, two Sandwiches,' cried Death.
And their wild Majesties resigned their breath."
The "John Bull" was established at the close of the year 1820, and it is said that Sir Walter Scott, having been consulted by some leader among "high Tories," suggested Hook as the person precisely suited for the required task. The avowed purpose of the publication was to extinguish the party of the Queen,—Caroline, wife of George IV.; and in a reckless and frightful spirit the work was done. She died, however, in 1821, and persecution was arrested at her grave. Its projectors and proprietors had counted on a weekly sale of seven hundred and fifty copies, and prepared accordingly. By the sixth week it had reached a sale of ten thousand, and became a valuable property to "all concerned." Of course, there were many prosecutions for libels, damages and costs and incarceration for breaches of privilege; but all search for actual delinquents was vain. Suspicions were rife enough, but positive proofs there were none.
Hook was of course In no way implicated in so scandalous and slanderous a publication! On one occasion there appeared among the answers to correspondents a paragraph purporting to be a reply from Mr. Theodore Hook, "disavowing all connection with the paper." The gist of the paragraph was this:—"Two things surprise us in this business: the first, that anything we have thought worthy of giving to the public should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's; and secondly, that such a person as Mr. Hook should think himself disgraced by a connection with 'John Bull.'"
Even now, at this distance of time, few of the contributors are actually known; among them were undoubtedly John Wilson Croker, and avowedly Haynes Bayly, Barham, and Dr. Maginn.
In 1836, when I had resigned the "New Monthly" into the hands of Mr. Hook, he proposed to me to take the sub-editorship and general literary management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known. Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power, and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse" seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the scandalous assaults on private character, that made these publications "good speculations" at the period of which I write, and undoubtedly disgraced the "John Bull" during the early part of its career.
No wonder, therefore, that no such person as Mr. Theodore Hook was connected with the "John Bull." He invariably denied all such connection, and perseveringly protested against the charge that he had ever written a line in it. I have heard it said, that, during the troublous period of the Queen's trial, Sir Robert Wilson met Hook in the street, and said, in a sort of confidential whisper,—"Hook, I am to be traduced and slandered in the 'John Bull' next Sunday." Hook, of course, expressed astonishment and abhorrence. "Yes," continued Wilson, "and if I am, I mean to horsewhip you the first time you come in my way. Now stop; I know you have nothing to do with that newspaper,—you have told me so a score of times; nevertheless, if the article, which is purely of a private nature, appears, let the consequences be what they may, I will horsewhip you!" The article never did appear. I can give no authority for this anecdote, but I do not doubt its truth.
I knew Sir Robert Wilson in 1823, and was employed by him to copy and arrange a series of confidential documents, relative to the Spanish war of independence, between the Cortes and the Government, the result of which was an engagement to act as his private secretary, and to receive a commission in the Spanish service, in the event of Sir Robert's taking a command in Spain. He went to Spain, leaving me as secretary to the fund raised in that year in England to assist the cause. Fortunately for me, British aid began and ended with these subscriptions; no force was raised. Sir Robert returned without taking service in Spain, and I was saved from the peril of becoming a soldier. Sir Robert was a tall, slight man, of wiry form and strong constitution, handsome both in person and features, with the singularly soldier-like air that we read so much of in books. In those days of fervid and hopeful youth, the story of Sir Robert's chivalric and successful efforts to save the life of Lavalette naturally touched my heart, and if I had remained in his service, he would have had no more devoted follower. During my engagement as Secretary to the Spanish Committee, (leading members of which were John Cam Hobhouse, Joseph Hume, and John Bowring,) I contributed articles to the "British Press,"—a daily newspaper, long since deceased,—and this led to my becoming a Parliamentary reporter.