He was now twenty-one years of age. He had determined to write no more for the stage, but he was too restless to allow his pen to remain inactive. He wrote a novel, "The Man of Sorrow," and published it under the pseudonym of Alfred Allendale, expecting no doubt a repetition of that applause which his dramatic pieces had gained for him. He was disappointed; the work, an ornate specimen of the Minerva Press School of fiction, slumbered placidly upon the shelves of the publisher, and but for resuscitation in another form some years afterwards, would have sunk into oblivion. With his expanded prospects new ideas arose. The education begun at Harrow must be finished at Oxford, and to Oxford Hook accordingly went. The frame of mind in which he entered upon his studies is best illustrated by the reply which he made upon being presented for matriculation. When asked by the ViceChancellor if he was prepared to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles, "Oh, yes," said the accommodating and unvenerating Theodore, "forty if you please."

ship, seized an unconscious policeman wide, a laughing crowd gathered around and threw him over his head, the the spot, and it was late into the evenjoke (?) consisting probably in the ing before the commotion subsided. broken bones or perhaps total incapa- There was such an outburst of indignacitation of an inoffensive and useful tion at this occurrence, that Hook found man. During these attacks, thieves it prudent to withdraw into the country and burglars were left unwatched, and for a few weeks until the storm of pubno doubt thanked the friendly offices lic anger had blown over. of his lordship. Another of these playful sallies resulted in the death of a cabman, who had a whole bottle of strong rum given him to drink at a draught, for the purpose of earning a Sovereign given by this noble (?) man. After his lordship's marriage, his followers dwindled down to students, shopmen, and "gents," of which Mr. Albert Smith is the historian, and one feat of theirs, which Mr. Smith related in an early number of " Punch," doubtlessly for the purpose of creating a laugh, was to obtain a red lamp of a doctor, whose house was near a railway, and by its aid to stop the advance of the mail train. Proh Pudor! Well might the French term us farouches, and represent on their stage, each lord accompanied by his boxeur, and well may future times, possibly reverting to the manners and customs of the nineteenth century, presume us to be but half civilized. Hook gave rise to the "Tom and Jerry" school, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, gave a strong impulse to it, which lapsed into the class of young men just mentioned, but which is now, by the stringent measures of the magistrates and the ridicule of the satirists, nearly if not quite extinct. But the most daring of his jokes (?) was the celebrated Berners Street hoax, and the amount of time and positive labour bestowed upon its arrangement were indeed worthy of a better cause. Six weeks were consumed in preparations. Upwards of 4,000 letters were written, and on a certain day, tradesmen of every description, with every variety of their wares-visitors of every rank, from the Lord Mayor to the Duke of York, from ladies of His singing and joke-making were title to servants in search of situations, not forgotten, but on the contrary, were presented themselves at the house of destined to receive tangible recompense. an unfortunate lady in Berners Street, Inquiries had been made concerning who had in some manner offended Mr. Hook, his position, his means, his Hook and two friends. The scene prospects. It was found that he was throughout the day was most exciting. without any fixed income, and no doubt, The street was completely blockaded the fact was regarded as a sort of nawith carts, waggons, and carriages, the tional disgrace. Royal intimation was traffic in the neighbourhood was sus-given that something must be done for pended, and as the news spread far and him; and something was done for him

It needed all the eloquence of his brother to prevent the wit'sexpulsion from the university after such a proof of orthodoxy. But the dull routine of college life, though enlivened by amusements permitted or forbidden, was not likely to prove agreeable to one who had tasted so largely the pleasures of the metropolis. Theodore was soon tired with this second version of schoolboy days, and after remaining at Oxford during two terms, only was again in London.

immediately. He was appointed Comp- announcements been made when a setroller of the Exchequer at the Mauri- rious charge of misappropriation of the tius, with a salary of £2000 per annum, public money, to the extent of 37,150 and setting sail from England, entered dollars, was brought against Hook, by upon his duties in 1813. Why Theodore one of his subordinates who a few days Hook was selected to occupy a position afterwards committed suicide. Although for which he was in no degree qualified it was proved that the man was insane, by habits or education, appears rather the accusation was of too grave a nature surprising. His knowledge of accounts to be entirely passed over. Another must have been small. His familiarity scrutiny of the books was commenced. with the intricacies of colonial finance Accounts which only a few weeks becould not have been extensive. Even fore had been examined and passed, his intimacy with practical arithme- were now found to be teeming with tic might have been open to dispute. errors. A deficit of 62,717 dollars was But no thoughts of his own unfitness discovered. Hook was arrested at middisturbed his mind. He evidently went night; placed in confinement; the whole out under the impression that his la- of his property sold by the Crown, and bours would consist in seeing somebody he himself, shortly afterwards, sent else perform his duties; in killing time prisoner to England The voyage was as he best might, in receiving his salary a long and trying one. Nine months by quarterly payments. Of course, he at sea, and during a portion of that led an easy untroubled life. The stern time, with bad provisions doled out in realities of office were but as shadows small quantities, Hook, despite the buoywhich scarcely for a moment flitted ancy of spirit which he continually across his path, and dimmed the light exhibited, must have spent many weary which streamed upon it. "We break- hours reflecting upon his carelessness. fast," said he in a letter to Mathews, That he was guiltless of everything exwe breakfast at eight. Always up by cept extreme inattention, has been placed gun-fire. Five o'clock bathe and ride beyond all doubt; indeed on his arrival before breakfast. After breakfast lounge in England, he was at once acquitted about. At one have a regular meal of any criminal act, and set at liberty. yclept a tiffen, hot meat, vegetables, &c., But the mystery of the deficit had yet and at this we generally sit through the to be explained, and Hook, summoned heat of the day, drinking our wine, and before the Colonial Audit Board, undermunching our fruit; at five, or half- went many disagreeable and perplexing past, the carriages come to the door, and examinations. It was to but little purwe go either in them, or in palanquins pose. He could explain nothing. His to dress; which operation performed, signature, the supposed guarantee for we drive out to the race ground and correctness, was appended to accounts the Champs de Mars, the Hyde Park of the most confused and irregular deLane, till half-past six; come into scription. Some mistakes were evident town, and at seven dine, where we almost at a glance; others were discoremain until ten, and then join the vered only after a long and wearisome French parties, as there is regularly examination, but mistakes there were in a ball somewhere or other every night. abundance. Amounts entered on the These things blended with business make debtor side of the page instead of the out the day and evening." creditor-bills confused with notesdollars with rupees, and altogether such an incoherent jumble of figures that the experienced accountants of the Audit Board became as thoroughly confused as even Hook himself.

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The only business which Hook is recorded to have performed, consisted of occasionally signing his name in the account books, playing off most unofficial jokes upon visitors, and receiving his salary at the intervals before alluded

to.

But this butterfly life was destined to meet with a harsh interruption. In 1817, a new governor was appointed to the island, and some formal investigations into the state of the Exchequer were made. The accounts were pronounced correct, the examination satisfactory. Scarcely, however, had these

The ex-Comptroller of the Mauritius Exchequer found himself compelled to begin the world anew. He had arrived in England penniless, and he now commenced working hard for existence, by contributing to magazines and other periodicals. It was at this time, and when residing in a small house in the outskirts of London, that he formed an

unhappy acquaintance with a young girl. She bore him children. She lived with him. She loved him fondly. She was all to him that woman can be to man in the days of sorrow and misfortune. But though he felt and acknowledged the warmth of her affection, though his own heart yearned towards her, he shrunk with trembling from a marriage that might fetter him when brighter days arrived. He loved her too much to cast her off, but loved her too little to make her his wife. There is not one fact in the record of his life which is more painful to dwell upon than this; not one that shows the innate weakness of his character in a more pitiable light.

The stage, so much despised in the first flush of his prosperity, was not now thought unworthy of attention, and a farce, "Exchange no Robbery," for which he received £60, soon sprang from his pen. With the exception of an attempt which he made to establish a periodical, called The Arcadian, and which lived through only two numbers, Hook did nothing worthy of special mention until the commencement of the John Bull newspaper in December, 1820.

to discover the writers, but all in vain. A well-arranged system between publisher and editor effectually prevented detection. The Queen's death, in 1821, fortunately put an end to the fierceness of the John Bull. Its tone changed, and although the circulation decreased, yet as editor and part-proprietor, the paper yielded Hook for some time a yearly income of £2000.

The alteration in his prospects consequent upon the success of the John Bull must have been of the most gratifying nature; but Hook was soon reminded that former carelessness had yet to be atoned for. In 1823 he was arrested for the Mauritius debt, and his effects were seized by the Crown. Believing that his efforts in the John Bull had given him some claim to royal favour, he remained for nine months in a dirty sponging-house in Shire Lane, in almost daily expectation that he would be set at liberty, and the claim of the Colonial Audit Board be discharged by funds from the privy purse. At the expiration of this term, his health beginning to suffer by confinement, he removed to more commodious lodgings in Temple Place, within the rules of the King's Bench Prison. It has been asserted that the John It was not until nearly two years after Bull was called into existence by a his arrest that he was finally set at royal suggestion, and that a royal purse liberty. The Audit Board then settled supplied funds for the undertaking; their claim at £12,000. All further but these statements, although far from proceedings were to be stayed, but it improbable, have never risen above the was distinctly announced that he was rank of the on dit. The object of the to be still held liable for the amount. paper was to crush the supporters of Instead of making any attempt to pay Queen Caroline, the Brandenburgh- even a portion of it as an earnest of House party, by merciless ridicule and his desire-thoroughly to clear himself bitter sarcasm. Hook was editor, and in the eyes of all men, Hook still clung he devoted himself to the task with an to the belief that the Crown would reeagerness, stimulated no doubt by his lease him from his responsibility. Had circumstances and hopes. His favourite he offered to pay even a small sum, it "that in every family there would no doubt have worked interest is some weak point, some secret cancer, in his behalf. He was in a position to the lightest touch upon which is tor- make a considerable payment. His inture." Upon this belief he acted, and come was large, and in the preceding with such effect, that "it seemed," to year it had been increased by the proquote the language of the Quarterly duction of a series of tales, under the Review, as if a legion of sarcastic title of "Sayings and Doings," for devils had brooded in synod over the which he received £750; but he looked elements of withering derision." The upon himself as a martyr to the cause success of the paper was without pre-of colonial finance, and made no effort cedent. Every copy of the first num- to shake off the bonds of debt by which ber was sold in a few hours, and the he was surrounded. A second series circulation increased week by week. The adherents of the Queen were in dismay, their opponents were in raptures. Extraordinary pains were taken

axiom was,

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of the "Sayings and Doings" yielded their author £1,000; and then, in 1827, the quiet little villa at Putney, to which he had removed on regaining his liberty,

F

was given up, and a large and fashion- in the maddening excitement of the able house in Cleveland Row engaged gaming table. Such a fevered life could in its stead. In 1829 he produced the be sustained only by artificial aid. Powthird series of his "Sayings and Doings;" erful stimulants were resorted to. The and in the following year " Maxwell," remembrance of the previous night's a novel. For each of these works he losses had to be effaced by ardent received £1,000. Now was the time, spirits in the morning. Preparations it might have been thought, for Hook for the evening demanded a renewal of to prove that early experience had not the same assistance. His constitution, been lost upon him; that past reckless-naturally strong, now began to give way. ness had taught him lessons of prudence; His mental energies felt the shock. but his mind seemed to scorn the teach- Years of excitement and dissipation ings it had received. He had plunged were leaving their marks upon the mind; into a whirl of excitement and gaiety. writing their tale of triumph upon the He had again become a lion of fashion- tablets of the brain, and crushing the able society. He was again welcomed moral and material man in one common to great men's houses. He was again ruin. The pen trembled within the that "dear Theodore," who years before shaking hand. The ideas that might had sung himself into the hearts of the have given it strength and firmness beauties of May Fair. Notwithstanding trembled also. Hook wrote but little the large income he was now making, more. In 1840 he published a series his reckless mode of life and his profuse of papers, under the title of "Precepts expenditure soon began to make serious and Practice." A portion of "Peregrine inroads upon his finances. Salary was Bunce" followed. He projected a Hisanticipated; money borrowed at any tory of the House of Hanover, and a rate of interest; but debts accumulated life of his friend, the comedian Matwith fearful rapidity, and after strug-thews, but owing to some misundergling on until 1831, the fashionable standing, did not commence the former house was at last given up, and surburban seclusion once more sought.

work, and finished only the first chapter of the latter. He was rapidly going down the hill of life, and becoming unfit for any mental exertion. "Ah, I see I look as I am," said he, at a fashionable party at Brompton, while surveying himself in a mirror, "done up in purse, in mind, and in body too, at last." He was right. In a few days he was compelled to take to his bed, and on the 24th August, 1841, after a short but painful illness, Theodore Hook, in the fifty-third year of his age, was numbered with the dead. He was buried in the church-yard of Fulham.

The necessity now for working hard with the pen, in order to battle against the debts which attacked him on every side, stimulated Hook to great exertion. He was not an indolent man, and he now first began to show it. In 1832 he produced "The life of Sir David Baird," in two large 8vo. volumes. In the following year he wrote six volumes: "The Parson's Daughter," three vols., and "Love and Pride," three vols. In 1886 appeared "Jack Brag," in three vols. In the same year he commenced editing "The New Monthly Magazine,” The long dormant claim of the Crown with a salary of £400 a year, exclusive was now enforced, and all the personal of sums to be paid for original compo- property which Hook had left was sitions. In the pages of this periodical seized and sold. His children and "Gilbert Gurney" appeared, and after their mother were not suffered to rewards "Gurney Married." In 1889 he main in want. A subscription was imwrote "Births, Deaths, and Marriages," mediately raised, and although but few for which he received £600; although of the wit's titled friends contributed to the book scarcely paid expenses. But it, a considerable sum was obtained his labours were but of little use. He without their assistance. To the howorked hard, and received large sums, but they were almost immediately squandered away. He was still to be seen, night after night, in the houses of his aristocratic admirers, amusing the heartless circle by the variety and excellence of his amusing powers, and early dawn too often found him engaged

nour of a very high dignitary of the Church of England, a bishop, not unknown, and not without this detractor, it may be mentioned, that he was the last at the bedside of the dying wit, and the only one of the titled ffriends who did not desert him. Through the influence of this bishop, the children and

their mother received the proceeds of a to amuse them, never for a moment subscription, made larger by the bene-regarding him as an equal. Yet he volent prelate himself.

strove hard for his position, and renMuch of the fame which Hook gained dered the most essential services to his in his lifetime perished with him. As party. His early success in obtaining a brilliant wit and wonderful improvi- a sinecure place, which he probably satore he was probably never surpassed; once looked upon as the most fortunate but a large amount of the talent he dis- circumstance in the world, turned out played was of that nature which finds a to be the very rock upon which he ready recognition from contemporaries, split,-the very fact of his living with but which another generation scarcely a government debt hanging, like the acknowledges. His dramatic produc- sword of Damocles, continually over tions, those precocious evidences of his head, served but to make him the ability, were written for the hour, and more careless and the more inconsiderwith the hour have passed away. It is ate. He had also a moral wrong at his in his novels, therefore, that we must back, and no man prospers with that. look for the evidences of his genius. Each child that was born to him he And here we think contemporary criti- injured, for he marked it with the cism has judged him too favourably. stigma of illegitimacy. The lady whom His works, thrown off hurriedly without he lived with as his wife, seduced by allowing sufficient time to restrain that himself, had with him as her portion exuberance of spirit which tempted a continual shame, and must have sat him into all kinds of extravagance, are, at the head of his table with a heart at the best, but sketches; overlaid in oppressed with the most painful feelmany instances with a profusion of co-ings. Yet through this Hook lived on, louring, intended to conceal the poverty the professed diner-out, the man who of the original design. "Cousin Wil-pleased all, without whom a dinner liam," and "Martha, the Gipsy," contain many forcible passages-but a melo-dramatic vein runs throughout, which mars, by its unreality, much that is otherwise genuine. He had a low idea of the place and position of an author, and seems never to have dreamt of teaching anything high or moral, or, ¦ indeed, of anything else, than mere filagree sketches of fashionable and, we regret to say, vicious life. Probably the novel of "Maxwell" is his best and most even production, although by no means the brightest or most startling. What he did, with one exception, "The Life of Kelly," was done for money, and money was his reward. After serving great men, without any conscientious scruples about the dirty work he did, when that work was done, he got deservedly neglected. He was admired and invited to amuse, and with the amusement the connection ceased.

In reviewing the life of Hook, the reader cannot but be struck with the lesson and the moral which it teaches, that the most brilliant talents and success are often but meteors which allure those who too eagerly follow them, to destruction. The flattering notice of a prince rendered his home but dull in comparison to the society of the aristocracy, and these received him merely

party was not complete, for invitations were expressly given "to meet Mr. Hook." It is this part of his life which is the most painful; these are the facts, which make not only the moralist but the man, judge him as a coward, and condemn him as a knave. His life is indeed a sad one, but he had nursed the scorpions which stung him, and he, alas! was not the only one to suffer.

In his humour broad farce preponderates. We are rarely taken out of sight of the foot-lights. His best scenes savour of the stage: and we almost unconsciously invest his characters with the peculiarities of a Liston or Mathews, as being essential to the complete realiization of the author's conception, and thus one of his best characters, Hulls, in "Gilbert Gurney," becomes far more amusing when we know all about old Mr. Hill, who sat for the portrait. There is a dash, a hastiness about Hook's novels an evident want of concentrated thought and systematic arrangement, which, redeemed as it is by much spirited wit, and by many highly wrought scenes of passion, leaves an imperfect impression upon the mind. The constant excitement in which he lived breathed its spirit into his pages, but the flush which it gave them was not, we fear, the sign of life, but rather of quick decay.