great literary work, the ‘Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,’ his chief employment for the remainder of his life. But the fall of the cathedral tower and spire in 1861 involved him again in the irksome business of begging for subscriptions, attending committees and making speeches, and entailed heavy expenses which he could ill afford. Nevertheless he toiled on at his literary work with astonishing vigour; his conception of it enlarged until it embraced the whole history of the church of England. The prolonged ill-health of his wife and her death in 1871 gave a shock to his constitution, and the last years of his life were marked by a decline of bodily and mental power. When Mr. Gladstone was prime minister he in vain offered Hook one deanery after another in rapid succession, Rochester in 1870, Canterbury and St. Paul's in 1871, Winchester in 1872. Hook died on 20 Oct. 1875, and was buried beside his wife in the churchyard of Mid Lavant, two miles from Chichester. The tenth volume of his history had been brought out early in the same year, and the eleventh, containing the lives of Laud and Juxon, had been sent to press. Hook married, in June 1829, Anna Delicia, eldest daughter of Dr. John Johnstone, a physician of Birmingham.
In youth and early manhood Hook was spare and bony, but, though tall and muscular, he never was agile. With advancing years he grew stout, especially after he became a total abstainer. The plainness of his face was a subject upon which he often jested, but it was redeemed by a sweet smile and melodious voice, which was remarkable for strength and compass. In his massive frame and low but bossy brow he resembled Dr. Johnson; he was like him also in other peculiarities—occasional twitchings of the face, fits of depression, a constitutional dread of dying, and a vehement antipathy to foreigners. His industry was prodigious. He commonly rose at five, sometimes at four o'clock or even earlier. He was an excellent letter-writer, and his correspondence with private friends, public men, and persons who sought his advice from all parts of the country was very large; but it was in his letters to his friend Page Wood, written once a fortnight at least during sixty years, that he poured out his whole mind and heart. The secret of his immense personal influence consisted in his large-hearted sympathy, his enthusiastic zeal, his honesty, his high sense of justice and fair play, his shrewd common sense, and his inexhaustible fund of playful humour.
Many of Hook's sermons were published together in two volumes entitled ‘The Church and her Ordinances,’ edited in 1876 by his son, Walter Hook, rector of Porlock, Somerset. His principal writings, besides those mentioned above, were:
- ‘The Catholic Clergy of Ireland, their Cause defended,’ 1836.
- Five sermons preached before the university of Oxford, 1837.
- ‘The Gospel and the Gospel only the Basis of Education,’ 1839.
- ‘A Call to Union on the Principles of the English Reformation,’ 1839.
- Sermons on various subjects, vol. i. 1841; vol. ii. 1842.
- ‘A Letter to the Bishop of Ripon on the State of Parties in the Church of England,’ 1841.
- ‘Reasons for contributing towards the Support of an English Bishop at Jerusalem,’ 1842.
- A ‘Church Dictionary,’ 1842. Originally brought out in short numbers on a small scale for parochial distribution, afterwards much enlarged in successive editions; 14th edit., 1887, revised and in great part rewritten under the editorship of the Revs. Walter Hook and W. R. W. Stephens.
- ‘Mutual Forbearance in Things Indifferent,’ 1843.
- ‘“Take heed what ye hear,”’ 1844.
- A ‘Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Biography,’ 8 vols. 1845–52.
- ‘Sermons on the Miracles,’ 2 vols. 1847–8.
- ‘Sermons on the Ordinances of the Church,’ preached at St. James's, Morpeth, 1847.
- ‘Letter to Sir W. Farquhar on the Present Crisis in the Church,’ 1850.
- ‘Duty of English Churchmen and Progress of the Church in Leeds,’ 1851.
- Discourses on controversies of the day, 1853.
- ‘Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,’ 12 vols., with index (vol. i. 1860; vol. ii. 1862; vols. iii.–iv. 1865; vol. v. 1867; vols. vi.–vii. 1868; vol. viii. 1869; vol. ix. 1872; vols. x.–xi. 1875; and vol. xii. index 1876).
Hook also edited the ‘Cross of Christ,’ ‘Meditations for every Day in the Year,’ ‘The Christian taught by the Church's Services,’ and other devotional works.
[Letters and Diary; reminiscences supplied by friends; personal recollections; Life and Letters (with two portraits), by the writer of this article, 1878, 2 vols., popular ed. 1880.]
HOOK, WILLIAM (1600–1677), puritan divine, is said to have been born of respectable parents in Hampshire in 1600; perhaps he was one of the Hooks of Bramshott in that county. He became commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1618, and graduated B.A. in 1620. He only matriculated in the university just before taking his degree. Wood says that he first went there four years before, in 1616. He proceeded M.A. in 1623. Taking holy orders Hook became vicar of Axmouth in Devonshire, and a pronounced puritan. According to Wood, Jerom Turner, a well-known puritan minister, was his assistant there from about 1638 to 1640;
