The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 2

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 2

Sir Tilbury Tott 511

 

"Venice Preserved" 513

 

Daylight Dinners 515

 

Clubs! 516

 

Visitings 518

 

The Quill Manufacturer 522

 

Epigram on Twining's Tea 522

 

On the Latin Gerunds 522

 

The Splendid Annual 523

 

 

ANECDOTES, HOAXES, AND JESTS:--

 

The Berners-street Hoax 539

 

Romeo Coates 541

 

Hook, Mathews, and the Alderman 542

 

A Strange Dinner 544

 

Ludicrous Adventure at Sunbury 547

 

Charles Mathews and Hook 552

 

Hook's "First Appearance" 553

 

Hook and Dowton the Actor 554

 

Letter from Mauritius 555

 

Evading a Coach Fare 557

 

Unsuccessful Hunt for a Dinner 559

 

Hook at Lord Melville's Trial 560

 

The Thirty-nine Articles 562

 

"Chaffing" a Proctor 562

 

Summary Proceedings of Winter 563

 

"Something Wrong in the Chest" 564

 

Warren's Blacking 564

 

The Wine-cellar and the Book-seller 565

 

Sir Robert Peel's Anecdote of Theodore Hook 565

 

A Receipt against Night Air 566

 

Punting 566

 

"List" Shoes 567

 

"The Abattoir" 568

 

Putney Bridge 568

 

"Mr. Thompson is Tired" 568

 

The Original "Paul Pry" 569

 

Hook and Tom Hill 570

 

Hook's Politeness 570

 

A Biscuit and a Glass of Sherry 571

 

Much Alike 572

 

Private Medical Practice 572

 

Hook's Street Fun 572

 

A Misnomer 572

 

"Contingencies" 573

 

"The Widow's Mite" 573

 

Hook's Extempore Verses 573

 

Hook Extemporises a Melodrama 575

 

"Ass-ass-ination" 578

 

"Weather or No" 578

 

Diamond Cut Diamond 579

 

Tom Moore--Losing a Hat 579

 

"Good Night" 579

 

[Illustration: (end of section icon)]

 

 

[Illustration: PUTNEY, AS SEEN FROM THE SITTING-ROOM WINDOW OF HOOK'S

COTTAGE.]

 

 

[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF THEODORE HOOK'S AUTOGRAPH.]

 

 

 

 

MEMOIR OF THEODORE HOOK.

 

 

 

 

MEMOIR OF THEODORE HOOK.

 

 

The life of the distinguished humourist whose _opera minora_ we now

present to the world, was so chequered and diversified by remarkable

incidents and adventures, and passed so much in the broad eye of the

world and of society, as to be more than ordinarily interesting.

The biography of a man of letters in modern times seldom affords so

entertaining a narrative, or so instructive and pathetic a lesson,

exhibiting how useless and futile are the most brilliant powers and

talents, both original and transmitted, without a due admixture of

that moral principle and wisdom in daily life necessary to temper and

control them.

 

THEODORE EDWARD HOOK--one of the most brilliant wits, and one of the

most successful novelists of this century--was born in London, at

Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on the 22nd of September, 1788, in

the same year as Lord Byron, whose contemporary he afterwards was at

Harrow. The first school that Theodore attended was an "academy,"

in the Vauxhall districts. The master, a Mr. Allen, had also other

pupils in his charge who afterwards rose to eminence. Here he

remained till his tenth year, when he was sent to a kind of seminary

for young gentlemen, a green-doored, brass-plated establishment,

in Soho Square. While at this school, he appears systematically to

have played truant, to have employed his time in wandering about

the streets, and to have invented ingenious excuses to explain his

absence to the authorities. On the day of the illumination for the

Peace of Amiens, he preferred to spend the morning at home, and

informed his parents that a whole holiday had been given on account

of the general rejoicings. Unfortunately, his elder brother, James,

happened to pass through the Square, and observing signs of business

going on as usual at the academy, he went in, made inquiries, and

found that the young scape-grace had not made his appearance there

for three weeks. Theodore, instead of witnessing the fireworks,

was duly punished, and locked up in the garret for the rest of the

afternoon.

 

Theodore was the second son of Mr. James Hook, the popular musical

composer, whose pleasing strains had delighted the preceding

generation, when Vauxhall Garden was a fashionable resort. His

mother (a Miss Madden) is described as a woman of singular beauty,

talents,[1] accomplishments, and worth. To the fact that he lost her

gentle guidance at the early age of fourteen, may be attributed many

of the misfortunes and irregularities of his after-life.

 

There was but one other child of Mr. James Hook's first marriage,

the late Dr. James Hook, Dean of Worcester; and he being Theodore's

senior by eighteen years, had left the paternal roof long before the

latter was sent to school.

 

The Dean, with a great deal of the wit and humour that made his

brother famous,[2] and with perhaps much the same original cast of

disposition and temper generally, had possessed one great advantage

over him at the start of life. His excellent mother watched over him

all through the years of youth and early manhood. Theodore could

only remember her, and fondly and tenderly he did so to the last,

as the gentle parent of a happy child. He had just approached the

first era of peril when this considerate and firm-minded woman was

lost to her family. The composer soon afterwards married again; but

Theodore found not, what, in spite of a thousand proverbs, many

men have found under such circumstances--a second mother. But for

that deprivation we can hardly doubt that he might, like his more

fortunate brother, have learned to regulate his passions and control

his spirits, and risen to fill with grace some high position in an

honourable profession. The calamitous loss of his mother is shadowed

very distinctly in one of his novels, and the unlucky hero (Gilbert

Gurney) is represented as having a single prosperous brother,

exactly eighteen years older than himself. But, indeed, that novel

is very largely autobiographical: when his diary alludes to it as in progress, the usual phrase is, "Working at my Life."