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 mimicry 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
Should get into a crowded club—­a most select society;
While solitude and mutton-cutlets serve infelix uxor, he
May have his club (Like Hercules), and revel there in luxury. 
Bow, wow, wow, &c.

’Yes, clubs knock houses on the head; e’en Hatchett’s can’t demolish
them;
Joy grieves to see their magnitude, and Long longs to abolish them. 
The inns are out; hotels for single men scarce keep alive on it;
While none but houses that are in the family way thrive on it. 
Bow, wow, wow, &c.

’There’s first the Athenaeum Club, so wise, there’s not a man of it,
That has not sense enough for six (in fact, that is the plan of it);
The very waiters answer you with eloquence Socratical;
And always place the knives and forks in order mathematical. 
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 lounge of lawyers, doctors, merchants, beaux, cum multis aliis.

* * * * *

’The Travellers are in Pall Mall, and smoke cigars so cosily,
And dream they climb the highest Alps, or rove the plains of Moselai.

* * * * *

’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 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.