An Incongruous Mixture. 189 is not nearly so bitter as was 'John Bull:' there is not in the 'London Charivari' a determination to say everything that spite can invent against any particular set or party; there is a good nature, still, in master 'Punch.' It was quite the reverse in ‘John Bull,' established for one purpose, and devoted to that. Yet the wit in Theodore's paper does not rise much higher than that of our modern laughing philosopher. Of Hook's contributions the most remarkable was the 'Ramsbottom Letters,' in which Mrs. Lavinia Dorothea Ramsbottom describes all the memory billions of her various tours at home and abroad, always, of course, with more or less allusion to political affairs. The 'fun' of these letters is very inferior to that of 'Jeames' or of the 'Snob Papers,' and consists more in Malaprop absurdities and a wide range of bad puns, than in any real wit displayed in them. Of the style of both, we take an extract anywhere : 'Oh! Mr. Bull, Room is raley a beautiful place. We entered it by the Point of Molly, which is just like the Point and Sally at Porchmouth, only they call Sally there Port, which is not known in Room. The Tiber is a nice river, it looks yellow, but it does the same there as the Thames does here. We hired a carry-lettz and a cocky-olly, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter, which is prodigious big; in the centre of the pizarro there is a basilisk very high, on the right and left two handsome foundlings; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with collateral statutes of some of the Apostates.' We can quite imagine that Hook wrote many of these letters when excited by wine. Some are laughable enough, but the majority are so deplorably stupid, reeking with puns and scurrility, that when the temporary interest was gone, there was nothing left to attract the reader. It is scarcely possible to laugh at the Joe-Millerish mistakes, the old world puns, and the trite stories of Hook 'remains.' Remains! indeed; they had better have remained where they were. Besides prose of this kind, Hook contributed various jingles -there is no other name for them—arranged to popular tunes, and intended to become favourites with the country people. These like the prose effusions, served the purpose of an hour, and have no interest now. Whether they were ever really popular remains to be proved. Certes, they are forgotten now, and long since even in the most Conservative corners of the country. Many of these have the appearance of having been originally recitati, and their amusement must have depended chiefly on the face and manner of the singer-Hook himself; but in some he displayed that vice of rhyming which has often made nonsense go down, and which is tolerable only when introduced in the satire of a Don Juan' or the first-rate mir.ncry of Rejected Addresses.' Hook had a most wonderful facility in concocting out-of-the-way rhymes, and a few verses. from his song on Clubs will suffice for a good specimen of his talent : If any man loves comfort, and has little cash to buy it, he Bow, wow, wow, &c. 'Yes, clubs knock houses on the head; e'en Hatchett's can't demolish them; Bow, wow, wow, &c. 'There's first the Athenæum Club, so wise, there's not a man of it, Bow, wow, wow, &c. 'E'en Isis has a house in town, and Cam abandons her city. The master now hangs out at the Trinity University. The Union Club is quite superb; its best apartment daily is, 'The Travellers are in Pall Mall, and smoke cigars so cosily, * 'These are the stages which all men propose to play their parts upon, For clubs are what the Londoners have clearly set their hearts upon. Bow, wow, wow, tiddy-iddy-iddy-iddy, bow, wow, wow,' &c. This is one of the harmless ballads of 'Bull.' Some of the political ones are scarcely fit to print in the present day. We cannot wonder that ladies of a certain position gave out that Fortune and Popularity. 191 they would not receive any one who took in this paper. It was scurrilous to the last degree, and Theodore Hook was the soul of it. He preserved his incognito so well, that in spite of all attempts to unearth him, it was many years before he could be certainly fixed upon as a writer in its columns. He even went to the length of writing letters and articles against himself, in order to disarm suspicion. He pub Hook now lived and thrived purely on literature. lished many novels gone where the bad novels go, and unread in the present day, unless in some remote country town, which boasts only a very meagre circulating library. 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, 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 improvisatore, 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 drinking he found a temporary 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 thirty 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 this 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. The 'Wise Wit.'-Oddities of the Father.--Verse-making at Winchester.-Curate Life on Salisbury Plain.--Old Edinburgh.--Its Social and Architectural Features.-Making Love Metaphysically.-The Old Scottish Supper.-The Men of Mark passing away-The Band of Young Spirits.Brougham's Early Tenacity.-Fitting up Conversations. Old School' Ceremonies.--The Speculative Society.-A Brilliant Set.-Sydney's Opinion of his Friends.-Holland House.-Preacher at the Foundling.'-Sydney's 'Grammar of Life.'-The Picture Mania.-A Living Comes at Last.-The wit's Ministry.-The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay.-Country Quiet. The Universal Scratcher.-Country Life and Country Prejudice.-The Genial Magistrate.-Glimpse of Edinburgh Society.-Mrs. Grant of Laggan. A Pension Difficulty.-Jeffrey and Cockburn,--Craigcrook.-Sydney Smith's Cheerfulness.-His Rheumatic Armour.-No Bishopric. -Becomes Canon of St. Paul's.-Anecdotes of Lord Dudley.-A Sharp Reproof.-Sydney's Classification of Society.-Last Strokes of Humour. MITH'S reputation-to quote from Lord Cockburn's 'Memorial 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 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 drawing room,' 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 Jeffery, |