Theodore Hook was one of the most clubbable men of his time. After a late breakfast, he would force and strain himself at large arrears of literary toil, and then drive rapidly from Fulham to town, and pay a visit "first to one Club, where, the centre of an admiring circle, his intellectual faculties were again upon the stretch, and again aroused and sustained by artificial means: the same thing repeated at a second--the same drain and the same supply--ballot or general meeting at a third, the chair taken by Mr. Hook, who addresses the members, produces the accounts, audits and passes them--gives a succinct statement of the prospects and finances of the Society--parries an awkward question--extinguishes a grumbler--confounds an opponent--proposes a vote of thanks to himself, seconds, carries it,--and returns thanks, with a vivacious rapidity that entirely confounds the unorganized schemes of the minority--then a chop in the committee-room, and just one tumbler of brandy-and-water, or _two_, and we fear the catalogue would not always close there."
At the Athenæum, Hook was a great card; and in a note to the sketch of him in the _Quarterly Review_, it is stated that the number of dinners at this Club fell off by upwards of three hundred per annum after Hook disappeared from his favourite corner, near the door of the coffee-room. That is to say, there must have been some dozens of gentlemen who chose to dine there once or twice every week of the season, merely for the chance of Hook's being there, and permitting them to draw their chairs to his little table in the course of the evening. Of the extent to which he suffered from this sort of invasion, there are several bitter oblique complaints in his novels. The _corner_ alluded to will, we suppose, long retain the name which it derived from him--_Temperance Corner_. Many grave and dignified personages being frequent guests, it would hardly have been seemly to be calling for repeated supplies of a certain description; but the waiters well understood what the oracle of the corner meant by "Another glass of toast and water," or, "A little more lemonade."
In Suffolk-street, Pall Mall East, was instituted in 1824, and the Club-house, designed by Deering and Wilkins, architects, was opened in 1826. It is of the Grecian Doric and Ionic orders; and the staircase walls have casts from the Parthenon frieze. The Club consists chiefly of Members of Parliament who have received University education; several of the judges, and a large number of beneficed clergymen. This Club has the reputation of possessing the best stocked wine-cellar in London, which is of no small importance to Members, clerical or lay.