FORTUNE AND POPULARITY. 227 Improbability took the place of natural painting in them; punning supplied that of better wit; and personal portraiture was so freely used, that his most intimate friends - old Mathews, for instance-did not escape. Meanwhile Hook, now making a good fortune, returned to his convivial life, and the enjoyment—if enjoyment it be—of general society. He threw out his bow-window' on the strength of his success with John Bull,' and spent much more than he had. He mingled freely in all the London circles of thirty years ago, whose glory is still fresh in the minds of most of us, and everywhere his talent as an im provisatore, and his conversational powers, made him a general favourite. Unhappy popularity for Hook! He, who was yet deeply in debt to the nation-who had an illegitimate family to maintain, who owed in many quarters more than he could ever hope to pay-was still fool enough to entertain largely, and receive both nobles and wits in the handsomest manner. Why did he not live quietly? why not, like Fox, marry the unhappy woman whom he had made the mother of his children, and content himself with trimming vines and rearing tulips? Why, forsooth? because he was Theodore Hook, thoughtless and foolish to the last. The jester of the people must needs be a fool. Let him take it to his conscience that he was not as much a knave. In his latter years Hook took to the two dissipations most likely to bring him into misery-play and drink. He was utterly unfitted for the former, being too gay a spirit to sit down and calculate chances. He lost considerably, and the more he lost the more he played. Drinking became almost a necessity with him. He had a reputation to keep up in society, and had not the moral courage to retire from it altogether. Writing, improvising, conviviality, play, demanded stimulants. His mind was overworked in every sense. He had recourse to the only remedy, and in drink he found a tempo rary relief from anxiety, and a short-lived sustenance. There is no doubt that this man, who had amused London circles for many years, hastened his end by drinking. It is not yet twenty years since Theodore Hook died. He left the world on August the 24th, 1841, and by this time he remains in the memory of men only as a wit that was, a punster, a hoaxer, a sorry jester, with an ample fund of fun, but not as a great man in any way. Allowing everything for his education-the times he lived in, and the unhappy error of his early life-we may admit that Hook was not, in character, the worst of the wits. He died in no odour of sanctity, but he was not a blasphemer or reviler, like others of his class. He ignored the bond of matrimony, yet he remained faithful to the woman he had betrayed; he was undoubtedly careless in the one responsible office with which he was intrusted, yet he cannot be taxed, taking all in all, with deliberate peculation. His drinking and playing were bad—very bad. His improper connection was bad-very bad; but perhaps the worst feature in his career was his connection with John Bull,' and his ready giving in to a system of low libel. There is no excuse for this but the necessity of living; but Hook, had he retained any principle, might have made enough to live upon in a more honest manner. His name does, certainly, not stand out well among the wits of this country, but after all, since all were so bad, Hook may be excused as not being the worst of them. Requiescat in pace. SYDNEY SMITH. SMITH'S reputation'-to quote from Lord Cockburn's Memorials of Edinburgh'-' here, then, was the same as it has been throughout his life, that of a wise wit.' A wit he was, but we must deny him the reputation of being a beau. For that, nature, no less than his holy office, had disqualified him. Who that ever beheld him in a London drawing-room, when he went to so many dinners that he used to say he was a walking patty-who could ever miscall him a beau? How few years have we numbered since one perceived the large bulky form in canonical attire-the plain, heavy, almost ugly face, large, long, unredeemed by any expression, except that of sound hard sense-and thought, 'can this be the Wit? How few years is it since Henry Cockburn, hating London, and coming but rarely to what he called the 'devil's drawingroom,' stood near him, yet apart, for he was the most diffident of men; his wonderful luminous eyes, his clear, almost youthful, vivid complexion, contrasting brightly with the gray, pallid, prebendal complexion of Sydney? how short a time since Francis Jeffrey, the smallest of great men, a beau in his old age, a wit to the last, stood hat in hand to bandy words with Sydney ere he rushed off to some still gayer |