"The last-mentioned gentleman was led to give a very interesting account of a casual interview he once enjoyed in a stage-coach with a brother of Burns; and had repeated, in a most touching manner, some unpublished verses of the poet, addressed to his beloved relative. Sir,' said Mathews, at the conclusion of the recital, which elicited universal applause, 'I would be willing and well content to commence life again a beggar, if I could but deliver those beautiful lines with half the pathos you have just thrown into them! Oh! Matty, Matty,' interrupted Hook, you have no idea how exquisitely ludicrous your enunciation would have made them-but you shall hear.' Whereupon he commenced a display of mimicry, memory, and improvisation united; furnishing forth, verse by verse, a complete and perfect parody upon the poetry in question, and adopting the while an imitation of Mathews's expression, tone, and gesture, that, even to those familiar from boyhood with his power and genius, appeared little less than miraculous. thews alone kept clear of ecstasies; no man, perhaps, is qualified to appreciate a caricature of himself; his deep reverence for the sentimental and pathetic being outraged by the profane burlesque, he maintained a moody silence, adding the finishing touch to the comedy by the look of indignation and contempt which he threw Ma upon the performer. It was not long, however, before his good humour was thoroughly established, and he himself entertained the company with one or two of his admirable songs, calling at last upon Tom Hill, whose honest face was beaming with punch and pleasure, to contribute a specimen of his vocal abilities. Sing! exclaimed Hill, 'I sing! come, come, that's too bad-you know I can't sing-never sung a song in my life, did I, Hook? Pooh! pooh!' "No," replied Theodore, I can't say I ever heard you as yet, but sing you shall to-night-by proxy.' And again he burst forth, giving an extemporaneous versification of what was supposed to be Hill's adventures; raking up the most grotesque medley of anachronous events, and weaving them into a sort of life of his tre-centenarian * friend, each stanza winding up with a chorus: For Tom Hill, Hook entertained a very sincere regard; but he was sometimes led to trespass over much on the good-nature of his friendalmost worshipper-and to allow himself liberties which no degree of intimacy could justify. troduction of a comparative stranger to their saturnalia, chose to assume all sorts "An instance of the kind occurred at Sydenham, when Hook, resenting the in. but this he attributed to there being but few people in the house. Well,' but, said the editor,' surely you liked the songs? Did you not think Mathews a very droll person?' The gentleman replied that there were no songs, and that he did not think Mathews so very droll. He had a good deal of quiet humour, certainly, and an admirable delivery. He had never seen a more gentlemanly man in his life, bating that perhaps he was a little too fat. Hook was completely puzzled. A dull entertainment, -no songs, -a thin house, and a fat performer! it was past comprehension, till a reference to the playbill shewed that his Scotch friend, having visited the theatre on the Wednesday, had been listening, unsuspectingly, to Mr. Bartly's lecture on the structure of the universe, which was delivered on the alternate nights, and which, from its subject, he was convinced was no other than the celebrated representative of the great humourist."-REV. * Thomas Hill's age has never been ascertained; some conceive that he was born about the Restoration of Charles II. others carry it up much higher. We who knew him well, and studied his face and form intently for that purpose, and dislike exaggeration of every kind, place it, as Collins says, "In the first year of the first George's reign." We dined with him once at the Green Man at Blackheath, when a lady gave, after dinner, "The Three Hills in sight." We stared-" Greenwich Hill, Shooter's Hill, and Tom Hill." Then began a shower of puns. "Hill, you are out of spirits." "Oh, he's a low Hill." "What wine does Hill drink?" "Oh, Mountain, to be They say, Hill, you look down upon your next neighbour." "Who is he? Oh! Barto Valley (Valle) ;" and so on.-REV. sure." 66 of extraordinary and offensive airs, to the great discomfiture of his host, who, with the warmest desire to see everybody comfortable,' had not always perhaps tact commensurate with his benevolence. Having completely mystified the unwelcome guest during the hour or two before dinner, when that meal was served Mr. Hook was not to be found. Search was made throughout the house, but in vain. The garden was scoured, and a peep taken into the pond, but no Hook! The party at length sat down, and a servant soon after informed them that he had just discovered the lost one-in bed! Hook now thought fit to make his appearance, which he did in strange guise, with his long black hair plastered over his face, and his whole head and shoulders dripping with water. 'Feeling a little fatigue,' he said, 'he had retired to rest, and, by way of thoroughly arousing himself, had just taken a plunge in the water-butt!' At the same moment, and before he had time to partake of any of the good things before him, Mr. Hook's carriage was announced; and, merely observing that he had recollected an engagement to dine that day in town, he bowed and quitted the company. It is not possible to estimate the degree of provocation that led to his extraordinary, and, as it stands, certainly inexcusable procedure; but he, of all men, was particularly exposed to annoyance from the intrusive curiosity of people, who seemed to consider they had been lured to the table under false pretences if Mr. Hook declined 'tumbling for their amusement, and from the scarcely less offensive adulation of those who thought themselves bound to grin and giggle at every word, however common-place, that fell from his lips. Those who were present will not readily forget how completely he succeeded in extinguishing the laughter of one of these indiscriminating admirers, who frequently beset him in society." This gentleman forced himself upon Hook, flattered him, applauded him, questioned him, and monopolised him. A mode of escape suggested itself: "Hook, who was unwilling to disturb the company by any display of that severity which he had at command, chose to adopt sedatives, replying courteously to every remark, and invariably concluding with, But, my dear sir, you don't drink! Gratified by the attention he obtained, his new friend began to push forward his observations with greater confidence. They were all received with a polite smile, a nod of assent, and a motion towards the decanter: Exactly, but I see, my dear sir, you don't drink! Glass after glass was filled and emptied by the unsuspecting Mr. -, at the suggestion of his companion, who redoubled his civilities, as he observed an increasing propensity in the former's criticisms, a wilder luxuriance in his eloquence, and a more decided tendency towards imperfect articulation. 'You see, Mr. Hook, with regard to Shaks-pere, my opinion is—' 'I beg your pardon for the interruption, but permit me your glass, I see, is empty. My dear sir, you don't drink !' finale was not long delayed; the enemy did his work, and stole away not only his victim's brain but his speech also," &c. The Hook, it is said, possessed in no small degree that superstitious feeling which is found allied to persons of different temperaments and various habits of life, not only to the timid and the imaginative, but often breaking out, as it were, abruptly, upon the even surface of the most cool and resolute minds, and forming a striking contrast to the other parts of their character. He disliked extremely to make one of a party of thirteen; a marked uneasiness being invariably betrayed if by chance he found himself in that posi tion. "That his miseries," we are told, "consequent upon the Mauritius deficit were evidently fore-shadowed, in the course of his voyage homewards, by a visitation from the original Flying Dutchman,' he also gravely mentioned; he declared that at a time when the vessel to which he had been transferred was tossing, in imminent peril of shipwreck, off the Cape,' and when, in consequence of the hurricane that was raging, they were unable to show a rag of canvas, he himself, together with five or six others, actually saw a large ship bearing down right in the wind's eye, with all her sails set, and apparently at the distance of not more than half a mile! That she was the ill-omened wanderer of the ocean there could be no doubt.'" And probably, among her ghostly crew would be found the spectral suicide, still watching over the plundered chest, and grinning a ghastly smile on the innocent victim whom he was consigning to imprisonment and ruin. "One of his friends, who was himself suspected of a leaning that way, notes, in the following words, an instance of this weakness. Dined at ; we were seated twelve in number, when Hook arrived. He looked at first very black on finding himself the thirteenth, but being told that Y. the actor, was expected, immediately took his seat, and the evening passed off merrily enough. An anecdote was given in the course of conversation singularly corroborative of the superstition by which Hook was, clearly, at first, affected. A party of twelve had just sat down, and one of the guests having observed a vacant chair, was remarking that he should hardly like to be the person destined to occupy that seat, when a tremendous double rap was heard,—the door was thrown open,-and Mr. Fauntleroy announced- he was hanged within the year!'"'* "The On his return, Hook lodged, somewhat obscurely and furtively, at Somers Town; but the fertility of his pen, and the success of his works, soon enabled him to emerge, and hire a comfortable house at Putney. He took, of course, the cause of his patron the Prince against his great enemy the Princess Caroline, and published the "Tentamen,"-" conducted," says the biographer," in a strain of elaborate irony, equal to that of Martin Scriblerus, upon Alderman Wood and his royal protegée." After that, the "Arcadian" appeared, in a strain of high Tory politics, opening with a Carmen Estuale, "A Song for the Summer, by J. Cam Hobhouse, Esq. now a prisoner in his Majesty's gaol of Newgate." It however only reached two numbers, and Hook turned again for a short time to the stage for a livelihood; but the establishment of the John Bull newspaper, at the close of 1820, was the most important event with which his name is connected, and for many years produced him the clear income of 2,0007. paper," we are told, "set out with one specific object-the extinction of the Brandenburg House party; and, to accomplish this, Hook's varied talents, his wit and humour, his sarcasm and bitterness, his keenness of argument, fiery zeal, and unscrupulous daring, were all brought to bear with concentrated energy upon the ranks of the Opposition. ever may be thought of the fierceness of invective and the overwhelming ridicule, the torrents of splendid abuse with which the Queen and her partizans were assailed,—it must at all events be remembered Bull' was not the aggressor. War to the knife had been proclaimed, and waged too, on the one side, with ruthless malignity; and the Liberals and their allies were but writhing under a chastisement which they had themselves provoked. Hook certainly had no personal malice to gratify; his shafts struck home, it must be admitted, but were urged for the most part against those who entered of their own accord into the lists. Nor was private What * Another story was at the same time told in connection with this unfortunate gentleman. A Mr. R, a wine merchant, was very intimate with Fauntleroy, and, with a few friends, was in the habit of dining with him frequently. On these occasions, when the party was not too large, the host would produce some very choice old Lunelle wine, of which R- was exceedingly fond, but Fauntleroy could never be prevailed upon to say where he got it, or how it could be obtained. When the latter was under sentence of death, his old associates visited him repeatedly, and at the last interview, the night before his execution, R after having bidden him farewell with the rest, on a sudden paused in the prison passage, returned to his cell, and said in a low tone to the criminal,-You'll pardon my pressing the subject, but now, at all events, my dear friend, you can have no objection to tell me where I can get some of that Lunelle.'— This beats the story of Fontenelle and the asparagus.-REV, character invaded,-with a few deeply to be regretted cases of exception,save when that private character was by its owner dragged forth into political life, and made to challenge, as it were, the scrutiny of the public." The success of the paper was unexampled. At the sixth week the sale had reached ten thousand; the first five numbers were reprinted more than once, and the first and second actually kept in stereotype! Hook was soon suspected, but it was impossible to tax him with any share in the concern. The prosperity of this paper lasted uninjured and unaffected till the death of the Queen. In 1824 Hook published his first series of Sayings and Doings;* this was succeeded by a second and third, and he received nearly 2,000l. for the whole. "In the art of punning," we are told, "Hook had few rivals, and but one superior, if indeed one-we mean Mr. Thomas Hood. Among the innumerable 'Theodores' on record, it will be difficult of course to pick out the best, but what he himself considered to be such, was addressed to the late unfortunate Mr. Fan artist, who subsequently committed suicide at the Salopian Coffee House, for love, as it is said, of a popular actress. They were walking in the neighbourhood of Kensington, when the latter pointing out on a dead wall an incomplete or halfeffaced inscription, running 'Warren's B--,' was puzzled at the moment for Iwant of the context. ''Tis lacking that should follow,' observed Hook, in explanation. Nearly as good was his remark on the Duke of Darmstadt's brass band. They well nigh stun one,' said he, in reference to a morning concert,' with those terrible wind instruments, which roar away in defiance of all rule, except that which Hoyle addresses to young whistplayers when in doubt-trump it." เ In a different specimen of verbal humour, "the Ramsbottom Letters," which will be found in the second volume of this work, is an entertaining specimen of broad, coarse humour, and clever absurdity, in the style of Mrs. Malaprop, ex gr.: "Mr. Colman is the eminent itinerary surgeon who constantly resides at St. Pancras. .. When we got to Rochester we went to the Crown inn, and had a cold collection; the charge was absorbent. I had often heard my poor dear husband talk of the influence of the Crown, and a bill of Wrights, but I had no idea what it really meant till we had to pay one. As we passed near Chatham I saw several Pitts, and Mr. Fulmer showed me a great many buildings, I believe he said they were forty-fications, but I think there must be near fifly of them. He also showed us the lines at Chatham, which I saw quite distinctly with the clothes drying on them. Rochester was remarkable in King Charles's time for being a very witty and dissolute place, as I have read in books. At Canterbury we stopped ten minutes to visit all the remarkable build ings and curiosities in it and about its neighbourhood. The church is beautiful. When Oliver Cromwell conquered William the Third, he perverted it into a stable; the stalls are still standing. The old virgin who showed us the church wore buckskin breeches and powder. He said it was an archypiscopal sea, but I saw no sea, nor do I think it possible he could see it either, for it is at least seventeen miles off. We saw Mr. Thomas à Becket's tomb; my poor husband was extremely intimate with the old gentleman, and one of his nephews, a very nice man, who lives near Golden Square, dined with us twice I think in London. In Trinity Chapel is the monument of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrea, in the Regent's Park.... After dinner we read the Paris Guide, and looked over the list of all the people who had been incontinent during * There is great difference in the relative merits of the different stories in the Sayings and Doings. We think the "Sutherlands" is one of the pleasantest, though, like most of the rest, the thin and flimsy veil which hides the future development of the story is too easily seen through. Who does not at once divine that Jane will prove a natural daughter of the nabob? It is interesting to read in Hook's story of "Maxwell" a grave diatribe on the folly, wickedness, and distress of wilfully running into debt, and the wretchedness of a life of pecuniary embarrassment!! The story of "Passion and Principle," in the third volume, is one of the best of the series.-REV. ... the season, whose names are all put down We waited out the whole cere mony, and heard Tedium sung, which lasted three hours. Dined at a tavern called Very-because every thing is very good there. Saw two or three ladies quite in nubibus-but when I looked at the bill of fare, I was quite anileated, for I found that Charlotte des Pommes might be had for one shilling and two-pence and Pattyde-veau for half-a-crown. Saw a review of the Queerasses of the royal guard. The sister of the late Dolphin was present. The Dolphin of France is the same as the Prince of Whales in England. Mr. Fulmer shewed me a large picture painted by David, which is wonderfully fresh, considering its great age. I knew David was the greatest musician of his time, but did not know he was a painter into the bargain. As for the Rams' little property in Gloucestershire, I never can go there, for one of the creditors has got a lion on the estate, and I cannot think of exposing myself to the mercy of a wild creature like that. The gentleman which keeps the coffee-house at the House of Commons is called Belly-me; you may see many a man there who has a stake in the country taking his chop there. This place has been famous for its beef-steaks ever since the rump Parliament. I believe the House of Lords pays for the dinners of the House of Commons, as I see they very often carry up their bills to them. I have changed my doctor. The last person, who fancies himself a second Hippocrite, had the impotence to say my girls had a low fever-girls brought up as they have been to be duchesses. A friend of Mr. Fulmer's came here, who I thought was a clergyman by his dress, but I found out it was an old lady in disguise, for he said she was Margaret Professor, and he called her a divinity. There is no understanding these scholars; for Mr. Fulmer told me he expected a Brazen-Nose man to dinner, and when he came his nose was just like those of other people," &c. And that will do for the Ramsbottom Correspondence. The next novel was "Maxwell," published in 1830, and said to be " the most perfect of his productions;" but we are afraid that we must differ from the biographer in his estimate of the excellency of its plot, and its adherence to nature and probability. However, we are "bent on speed," and it is hardly worth while to enter on the dispute of a novel that is now nearly twenty years old, and has met the usual fate of age. In 1832 he published the Life of Sir David Baird, and the next year sent forth no less than six volumes, The Parson's Daughter, and Love and Pride. In 1836 he undertook the editorship of the New Monthly Magazine, at a salary of 4007. per annum, exclusive of the sum to be paid for original contributions, and here he commenced his "Gilbert Gurney," of which his own adventures form the ground-work. There is a character in the novel called Mr. Wells, which was intended for a late eminent divine who held a prebendal stall in Cathedral. |