The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 7

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 7

In 1824 Theodore Hook published the first series of that collection

of tales which, under the title of "Sayings and Doings,"[9] placed

him at once in the highest rank of the novelists of his generation;

above all his contemporaries, with the one exception, of course,

of the Author of "Waverley." The first idea and plan of the work

was struck out during the sitting of a sort of _John Bull_ conclave

held at Fulham, and had origin in the suggestion of a friend, who,

delighted with the anecdotes of Colonial life which Hook was pouring

forth, conceived that they might be turned to better account than

the mere entertainment of a dinner-party, and hit upon a title, at

which Hook caught with eagerness. So convinced was the latter that

his first tale, "The Man of Sorrow," had not been fairly appreciated,

that he actually embodied in his new essay the rejected attempt

of Mr. Alfred Allendale, condensed, indeed, and purged from its

impurities, but not materially altered from the original. Much better

in every respect is the story of "Danvers, the _Parvenu_."

 

The more prominent characters in Hook's novels are, in spite of his

disclaimer, unquestionably portraits. To many of the Anglo-Indian

sketches, the journal kept during the author's sojourn at the

Mauritius would doubtless supply a key.

 

Hook, indeed, always denied the possession of inventive faculties.

There was doubtless truth as well as modesty in his assertion: "Give

me a story to tell, and I can tell it, but I cannot create."

 

The popularity of the first series of "Sayings and Doings" (three

vols.) may be estimated from his diary, which records the profit to

the author as £2,000. There were, we believe, three considerable

impressions before the Second Series, also in three vols., was ready

in the spring of 1825. And shortly after that publication he was at

length released from custody--with an intimation, however, that the

Crown abandoned nothing of its claim for the Mauritius debt.

 

The first series of "Sayings and Doings" were soon followed

(1825-1829) by a second and third, which are generally considered in

every way superior to the former ones. The author was of this opinion

himself, and the public as certainly ratified his verdict.

 

In the meantime Theodore Hook, released from his temporary

confinement, had taken a cottage at Putney, of which neighbourhood

he had always been fond, and may be said to have re-entered society,

though his circle of acquaintance continued limited for a couple of

years more.

 

While at Putney, in 1826, he from motives of pure kindness re-wrote,

that is to say, composed from rough illiterate materials, the very

entertaining "Reminiscences" of an old theatrical and musical friend

of his--Michael Kelly. The book was received with astonishment, for

he generously kept his own secret.

 

In 1827 he took a higher flight, and became the tenant of a house

in Cleveland Row--on the edge of what, in one of his novels, he

describes as "the real London--the space between Pall Mall on the

south, and Piccadilly on the north, St. James's-street on the west,

and the Opera House to the east." The residence was handsome, and

indeed appeared extravagantly too large for his purpose. He was

admitted a member of several clubs; became the first attraction of

their house-dinners; and in those where play was allowed, might

usually be seen in the course of his protracted evening. Soon he

began to receive invitations to great houses in the country, and

from week after week, often travelled from one to another, to all

outward appearance, in the style of an idler of high condition. He

had soon entangled himself with habits and connections which implied

considerable curtailment of his labour at the desk, and entailed a

course of expenditure more than sufficient to swallow all the profits

of what remained.

 

His next novel, "Maxwell," published in 1830, is, in point of plot,

by far the most perfect of his productions; the interest which is at

once excited, never for an instant flags, and the mystery, so far

from being of the flimsy transparent texture, common to romances, is

such as to baffle the most practised and quick-witted discoverer of

_dénoûments_, and to defy all attempts at elucidation.

 

New debts began to accumulate on him so rapidly, that about 1831,

he found it necessary to get rid of the house at St. James's, and

to remove to one of more modest dimensions close to Fulham Bridge,

with a small garden looking towards the river. Here in the locality

which had long been a favourite one with him, he remained till his

death; but though he took advantage of the change to drop the custom

of giving regular dinners, and probably to strike off some other

sources of expense, he not only continued his habits of visiting, but

extended them as new temptations offered.

 

Probably few of his admirers ever knew exactly where Hook lived. His

letters and cards were left for him at one or other of his clubs, but

it is doubtful if the interior of his Fulham cottage was ever seen by

half a dozen people besides his old intimate friends and familiars.

To the upper world he was visible only as the jocund convivialist

of the club--the brilliant wit of the lordly banquet, the lion of

the crowded assembly, the star of a Christmas or Easter party in a

rural palace, the unfailing stage-manager, prompter, author, and

occasionally excellent comic actor of private theatricals.

 

But, notwithstanding the round of gaiety and pleasure in which the

greater number of his evenings were spent, the time so employed

cannot be said to have been altogether wasted; for, to a writer who

has to draw from life, whose books are men and women, and to whom

the gossip and _on dits_ of the day are the rough material of his

manufacture, a constant mixing in society of every accessible rank

is absolutely necessary--to one of his taste and discrimination,

the higher the grade the better. Whithersoever he went he carried

with him not only an unfailing fund of entertainment, but also

unslumbering powers of observation, that served to redeem what

otherwise would have appeared mere weakness and self-indulgence.

And that he was not slow to avail himself of the advantages that

fell to his share, no one will deny, who casts a glance over the

list of productions he gave to the world, during a period when

the intellectual exertion of his convivial hours alone would have

exhausted the energies, physical and mental, of well-nigh any other

man.

 

In 1832 he published the "Life of Sir David Baird," a standard

biographical work, and one spoken of in the highest terms by the

best reviews of the day. So satisfied were the family with the

manner in which he executed his task, that they presented him with a

magnificent gold snuff-box set with brilliants, the gift of the Pasha

of Egypt to the subject of the memoir. Hook seems to have tossed the

trinket aside as an unconsidered trifle into a drawer, from which

it was happily rescued on the accidental discovery of its value and

importance.

 

In 1833 he sent forth no fewer than six volumes, full of originality

and wit; a novel called the "Parson's Daughter," and a couple of

stories under the title of "Love and Pride." In one of the latter,

the supposed resemblance of Liston to a certain noble lord is happily

turned to account; the being mistaken for _Mr. Buggins_, principal

low comedian of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, forming a light and

pointed climax to the _congeries_ of ridiculous miseries heaped on

the unfortunate Marquis.

 

In 1836, Theodore Hook undertook the editorship of the _New Monthly

Magazine_, at a salary of four hundred pounds a year, irrespective

of the sums to be paid for original contributions. Here he commenced

his "Gilbert Gurney," accommodating himself to the exceedingly

uncomfortable practice, now all but universal among popular and

prolific novelists, of delivering his tale by monthly instalments. To

this plan, though obliged to succumb to it, he always took exception,

as not only wearisome to the reader, but fatal to fair development of

plot.

 

Of all his works, "Gilbert Gurney" is by far the most mirth-provoking

and remarkable. His own adventures form the groundwork of the

comedy; himself and his friends figure as the _dramatis personæ_,

and throughout the whole there appear an unrestrained __EXPRESSION__ of

private feelings, and a frequency of personal allusion, that give it

the semblance and almost the interest of true history.

 

In his next novel, "Jack Brag," Hook again hit upon a character with

which he could go to work _con amore_. Vulgar, vain, and impudent,

a cross between a tallow-chandler, and what, in the cant phrase of

the day, is termed a sporting _gent_, a hanger-on upon the loose

branches of the aristocracy, and occasionally thrown into society

more respectable, Mr. Brag's _gaucheries_ convulse the reader; while

those who scorn not to read a warning, even on the page of a novel,

may be led to devote more than a passing thought to the folly (to say

the least of it) of indulging in the very silly and very common habit

of perpetual though petty misrepresentation, as regards their means

and position in life, and the nature and degree of their acquaintance

with individuals of a rank higher than their own. There is no lower

depth of drawing-room degradation than is involved in the exposure of

one of these pretenders; unrecognised, perhaps, by his "most intimate

friend" Lord A----, cut by his "old crony" Sir John B----, or never

"heard of" by his "college chum," the Bishop of C----.

 

"Jack Brag" was followed, in 1839, by "Births, Marriages, and

Deaths," which, notwithstanding its infelicitous title,--as far as

fitness goes, it might as well have been called "Law Notices," or

"Fashionable Intelligence," or by any other newspaper "heading,"--was

a novel of a higher class than any he had before attempted: the

humour is scantier and more subdued than heretofore, and though

the magnificent _Colonel Magnus_, and his rascally attorney

_Brassey_, here and there afford admirable sport, the latter, with

his economical wardrobe, to wit:--"one tooth-brush twisted up in a

piece of whitey-brown paper; a razor by itself tied with a piece of

red tape to a round pewter shaving-box (enclosing a bit of soap),

with the tip of its handle peeping from the bottom of a leathern

case, like the feet of a long-legged Lilliputian sticking out of his

coffin; a remarkably dirty flannel under-waistcoat, edged with light

blue silk and silver; one pair of black silk socks, brown in the

bottoms," &c.--yet the general effect is heavy,--heavier, that is,

than the public were inclined to accept from the pen of Theodore Hook.

 

This, in point of fact, may be considered his last finished work.

"Precepts and Practice" appeared in 1840,--the name an obvious

plagiarism, and from himself, being merely a collection of short

papers and tales, published during the preceding year or two, in the

_New Monthly_, of which he was the editor. As for "Fathers and Sons,"

portions of which appeared in the same magazine, and "Peregrine

Bunce," we believe neither of them to have been completed by his own

hand; of the latter, about one hundred pages of the last of the three

volumes were certainly supplied by another writer.

 

The production of thirty-eight volumes, within sixteen years, Hook

being all the while editor, and almost sole writer, of a newspaper,

affords sufficient proof that he never sank into idleness; but in

other respects there had been great changes within that period. Two

unhappy errors into which he had fallen marred the happiness of the

remainder of his life. Before his arrest in 1823, he had formed a

_liaison_, which, though perhaps excusable in his position at Somers

Town, was persisted in afterwards under less adverse circumstances,

until the righteous consequences of guilt could not be averted. This

connection soon became such as, in his position, and with the kind

and manly feelings which adhered to him, made it impossible for him

to marry in his proper condition; and though he often thought of

atoning to his partner, and in some sort to the children she had

borne him, by making her his wife, he never took courage to satisfy

his conscience by carrying that purpose into effect. The second

error regarded his debt to the Crown, which, though during the

last twenty years of life he was in receipt of an affluent income

from his writings, he made no real or adequate effort to repay by

instalments. Hook never denied that he was in justice responsible

for a deficit of £9,000; and those who had the sole authority to

judge of the matter, pronounced the rightful claim to be £12,000.

When he was released from the King's Bench, he was told distinctly

that the debt must hang over him until every farthing was paid. We

know that he had, in his great and various talents, left from that

hour at his free command, means of earning far more than enough for

his own decent maintenance, and that of his unfortunate family; and

most clearly every shilling that he could make beyond that ought

to have been, from time to time, paid into the Exchequer towards

the liquidation of his debt. In neglecting this, he threw away the

only chance before him of effectually vindicating his character,

together with all reasonable chance of ever again profiting by the

open patronage of either the Crown or its Ministers. In every page

of his works we trace the disastrous influence of both these grand

original errors, perpetually crossing and blackening the picture of

superficial gaiety--indications, not to be mistaken, of a conscience

ill at ease; of painful recollections and dark anticipations rising

irrepressibly, and not to be stifled; of good, gentle, and generous

feelings converted by the stings of remorse into elements of torture.