management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a
year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but
at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the
first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his
existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for
him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known.
Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be
apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet
Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without
personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much
secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the
printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the
articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years
afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree
assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities
had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of
assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of
his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with
years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had
evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power,
and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook
derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of
his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than
those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent
party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to
relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons.
I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more
than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse"
seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as
safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in
disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two
infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were
prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the
public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the
personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the
scandalous assaults on private charac