let against Paine and other revolutionary writers, signed ‘Publicola;’ of ‘Al Kalomeric [i.e. Bonaparte], an Arabian Tale,’ satirising Napoleon; and of ‘The Good Old Times, or the Poor Man's History of England.’ His anonymous novels, ‘Pen Owen,’ 1822, and ‘Percy Mallory,’ 1824, exhibit a strong family likeness to his brother's, and would be readable at the present day but for the antiquated style of treatment. The former, which is considerably the better, has a lively portrait of the younger Sheridan, under the appellation of Tom Sparkle, and a spirited picture of the Cato Street conspiracy.
[Barham's Life of Theodore Hook; Stephens's Life of Walter Farquhar Hook (1878); Gent. Mag. 1826; Welch's Westminster Scholars.]
HOOK, THEODORE EDWARD (1788–1841), novelist and miscellaneous writer, son of James Hook [q. v.], musical composer, was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, 22 Sept. 1788. He was educated at private schools, and subsequently for a short time at Harrow. According to his own account, which may be easily credited, he was principally distinguished at school for mischief, deceptiveness, and an inaptitude for serious application. He had the misfortune to lose an excellent mother at an early age, and his natural failings were fostered by a premature introduction to the theatrical world as author of words for the songs in his father's comic operas. His share in the ‘Soldier's Return’ brought him 50l. when he was only sixteen; and, sometimes in conjunction with his father, sometimes independently, he produced during the next five or six years a number of farces and melodramas. One of the latter, ‘Tekeli,’ was ridiculed by Byron in ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,’ but proved attractive to the public. Hook's social qualities, however, gained him more celebrity than his dramatic performances; his conversation abounded with wit and drollery, his faculty for lyrical and musical improvisation was marvellous, and the exuberance of his animal spirits impelled him to ceaseless practical jokes, sometimes harmless, sometimes heartless, but always clever. The most celebrated was the famous Berners Street hoax, perpetrated in 1809, when the street was blocked up for a whole day by all sorts and conditions of men, from the Duke of Gloucester and the lord mayor to draymen and chimney-sweeps, summoned on various pretexts to besiege the house of a Mrs. Tottenham, who had incurred Hook's displeasure. Upwards of four thousand letters, it is said, had been sent out. Hook's next freak was to take up residence at the university of Oxford, which he left after two terms without having involved himself in any more serious scrape than the risk of banishment, from the excess of complaisance which made him volunteer to sign forty articles should such be the desire of the authorities. Resuming his gay life in town, he became acquainted with the Rev. E. Cannon and other favourites of the Prince of Wales. It was probably through their and his brother's influence that, at the age of twenty-four, utterly unacquainted as he was with business and arithmetic, he obtained the post of accountant-general and treasurer at Mauritius, where he arrived in October 1813. This apparently miraculous piece of good fortune proved his ruin. When, in 1817, an examination into the state of the treasury was directed by the governor, Hook at first received a full acquittance from every liability; but a second investigation, undertaken at the instance of a clerk named Allan, who destroyed himself during the course of it, brought to light a deficiency of sixty-two thousand dollars, of which he could offer no explanation. He was, of course, held responsible, his whole property in the island was confiscated, and he was sent home. Upon his arrival in England the case was investigated by the treasury, who discovered no ground for criminal proceedings, but fixed the civil responsibility upon him for the rest of his life. His remaining property was seized, he was imprisoned from 1823 to 1825, and although, after the final treasury minute, the crown claim for the balance of the debt was allowed to remain dormant during his life, it was revived against his representatives. The fault of this apparently harsh proceeding lay principally with himself. Though for many years receiving an ample income from his pen, he never attempted to discharge any portion of his admitted liability, and had thus forfeited all title to indulgence.
Long before Hook's liberation from confinement he had resorted to his pen for his living. In 1819 and 1820 appeared, with other ephemeral literary work, the clever farce ‘Exchange no Robbery,’ so unluckily suggestive in title that it had to be brought out under the pseudonym of ‘Richard Jones,’ ‘The Arcadian,’ a short-lived magazine, and ‘Tentamen,’ a satire on Queen Caroline and Alderman Wood, which achieved no little success. If the authorship was known to any, it may have co-operated with the general recommendation of Sir Walter Scott in obtaining for him the editorship of the ‘John Bull,’ established towards the end of 1820 to counteract the popular enthusiasm for Queen Caroline. Hook's reckless humour and preternatural faculty of improvisation now had full swing, and his powers were
