itation to dinner by making him believe that he and Charles
Mathews were public surveyors, sent to make observations for a new road,
which was to go straight through the poor shopkeeper's lawn,
flower-garden, and bedroom, he has, I believe, introduced into his novel
of "Gilbert Gurney." But not, of course, with the audacious
extemporaneous song with which he wound up the joke, when, having eaten
and drank the poor citizen's dinner, prepared for a small party of
citizen friends (all the time assuring him that he and his friend would
use their very best endeavors to avert the threatened invasion of his
property by the new line of road), he proposed singing a song, to the
great delight of the unsophisticated society, the concluding verse of
which was--

"And now I am bound to declare
That your wine is as good as your cook,
And that this is Charles Mathews, the player,
And I, sir, am Theodore Hook."

He always demanded, when asked for a specimen of his extemporizing
power, that a subject should be given to him. I do not remember, on one
occasion, what was suggested in the first instance, but after some
discussion Horace Twiss cried out, "The Jews." It was the time of the
first mooting of the question of the Jews being admitted to stand for
Parliament and having seats in the House, and party spirit ran extremely
high upon the subject. Theodore Hook shrugged his shoulders and made a
discontented grimace, as if baffled by his theme, the Jews. However, he
went to the piano, threw back his head, and began strumming a galloping
country-dance tune, to which he presently poured forth the most
inconceivable string of witty, comical, humorous, absurd allusions to
everybody present as well as to the subject imposed upon him. Horace
Twiss was at that time under-secretary either for foreign affairs or the
colonies, and Hook took occasion to say, or rather sing, that the
foreign department could have little charms for a man who had so many
more in the home, with an indication to Annie Twiss; the final verse of
this real firework of wit was this--

"I dare say you think there's little wit
In this, but you've all forgot
That, instead of being a jeu d'esprit,
'Tis only a jeu de mot,"

pronouncing the French words as broadly as possible, "a _Jew d'esprit_,
and 'tis only a _Jew de motte_," for the sake of the rhyme, and his
subject, the Jews. It certainly was all through a capital specimen o