a year before returned from the
Treasuryship of the Mauritius, charged with a defalcation of
L15,000--the result of the grossest and most culpable neglect. Hungry
for money, as he had ever been, he was eager to show his zeal for the
master who had hired his pen. Hook and Daniel Terry, the comedian,
joined to start the new satirical paper; but Miller, a publisher in the
Burlington Arcade, was naturally afraid of libel, and refused to have
anything to do with the new venture. With Miller, as Hook said in his
clever, punning way, all argument in favour of it proved Newgate-ory.
Hook at first wanted to start a magazine upon the model of _Blackwood_,
but the final decision was for a weekly newspaper, to be called _John
Bull_, a title already discussed for a previous scheme by Hook and
Elliston. The first number appeared on Saturday, December 16, 1820, in
the publishing office, No. 11, Johnson's Court. The modest projectors
only printed seven hundred and fifty copies of the first number, but the
sale proved considerable. By the sixth week the sale had reached ten
thousand weekly. The first five numbers were reprinted, and the first
two actually stereotyped.

Hook's favourite axiom--worthy of such a satirist--was "that there was
always a concealed wound in every family, and the point was to strike
exactly at the source of pain." Hook's clerical elder brother, Dr. James
Hook, the author of "Pen Owen" and other novels, and afterwards Dean of
Worcester, assisted him; but Terry was too busy in what Sir Walter
Scott, his great friend and sleeping partner, used to call "_Terry_fying
the novelists by not very brilliant adaptations of their works." Dr.
Maginn, summoned from Cork to edit a newspaper for Hook (who had bought
up two dying newspapers for the small expenditure of three hundred
guineas), wrote only one article for the _Bull_. Mr. Haynes Bayley
contributed some of his graceful verses, and Ingoldsby (Barham) some of
his rather ribald fun. The anonymous editor of _John Bull_ became for a
time as much talked about as Junius in earlier times. By many witty
James Smith was suspected, but his fun had not malignity enough for the
Tory purposes of those bitter days. Latterly Hook let Alderman Wood
alone, and set all his staff on Hume, the great economist, and the Hon.
Henry Grey Bennett.

Several prosecutions followed, says Mr. Barham, that for libel on the
Queen among the rest; but the grand attempt on the part of the Whigs to
cr