THEODORE

See also:

• EDWARD

EDWARD

See also:

• HOOK, JAMES CLARKE (1819-1907)
• THEODORE EDWARD HOOK (1788-1841)
• HOOK, WALTER FARQUHAR (1798-1875)

HOOK (1788-1841)  , English author, was born in London on the 22nd of September 1788 . He spent a year at Harrow, and subsequently matriculated at Oxford, but he never actually resided at the university . His father, James Hook (1746–1827), the composer of numerous popular songs, took great delight in exhibiting the boy's extraordinary musical and metrical gifts, and the precocious Theodore became " the little pet lion of the green room." At the age of sixteen, in conjunction with his father, he scored a dramatic success with The Soldier's Return, a comic opera, and this he rapidly followed up with a series of over a dozen sparkling ventures, the instant popularity of which was hardly dependent on the inimit able acting of John Liston and Charles Mathews . But Hook gave himself up for some ten of the best years of his life to the pleasures of the town, winning a foremost place in the world of fashion by his matchless powers of improvisation and mimicry, and startling the public by the audacity of his practical jokes . His unique gift of improvising the words and the music of songs eventually charmed the prince Regent into a declaration that " something must be done for Hook." The prince was as good as his word, and Hook, in spite of a total ignorance of accounts, was appointed accountant-general and treasurer of the Mauritius with a salary of £2000 a year . For five delightful years he was the life and soul of the island, but in 1817, a serious deficiency having been discovered in the treasury accounts, he was arrested and brought to England on a criminal charge . A sum of about £r2,000 had been abstracted by a deputy official, and for this amount Hook was held responsible . During the tardy scrutiny of the audit board he lived obscurely and maintained himself by writing for magazines and newspapers . In 182o he launched the newspaper John Bull, the champion of high Toryism and the virulent detractor of Queen Caroline . Witty, incisive criticism and pitiless invective secured it a large circulation, and from this source alone Hook derived, for the first year at least, an income of £2000 . He was, however, arrested for the second time on account of his debt to the state, which he made no effort to defray . In a sponging-house, where he was confined for two years, he wrote the nine volumes of stories afterwards collected under the title of Sayings and Doings (r826-1829) .

In the remaining twenty-three years of his life he poured forth no fewer than

thirty-eight volumes, besides numberless articles, squibs and sketches . His novels are not works of enduring interest, but they are saved from mediocrity by frequent passages of racy narrative and vivid portraiture . The best are Maxwell (1830), Love and Pride (1833), the autobiographic Gilbert Gurney (1836), Jack Brag (1837), Gurney Married (1838), and Peregrine Bunce (1842) . Incessant work had already begun to tell on his health, when Hook returned to his old social habits. and a prolonged attempt to combine industry and dissipation resulted in the confession that he was " done up in purse, in mind and in body too at last." He died on the 24th of August 1841 . His writings in great part are of a purely ephemeral character; and the greatest triumphs of the improvisatore may be said to have been writ in wine . Putting aside, however, his claim to literary greatness, Hook will be remembered as one of the most brilliant, genial and original figures of Georgian times . See the Rev . R . H . D . Barbara's Life and Remains of Hook (3rd ed., 1877) ; and an article by J . G .

Lockhart in the Quarterly Review May 1843) .