With attainments and experiences like these, Colburn may be considered as a wise rather than a venturous man when he offered Hook £600 to write a novel. The idea of the “Sayings and Doings” was struck out at a _John Bull_ gathering, and the book when published in 1824, was so successful that 6000 copies of the three volumes were soon disposed of,[21] and the generous publisher made the author a present of £350. For the _second series_ (published in 1825), and the _third series_ (published in 1828), he received a thousand guineas each. In 1830 appeared “Maxwell,” perhaps the best of his novels, and this was followed by the “Parson’s Daughter” (1833), “Jack Brag” (1837), and numerous others, for all of which he was very handsomely paid. But though he was earning at this period, upwards of £3000 a year by his pen, he was spending more than £6000, and was obliged, not only to make fresh engagements with his publishers, but to fore-draw to a very large extent, and to change his plans considerably with each instalment of indebtedness. Colburn and Bentley seem to have treated him with marked esteem and consideration, and his letters perpetually show this: “I have been so liberally treated by your house, that it seems almost presuming upon kindnesses” (1831). Again, in 1837: “I assure you I would not press the matter in a quarter where I am proud and happy to say--as I do to everybody--I have met with the greatest liberality.” In 1834 he took the management of the _New Monthly_, and to its pages he contributed what may be considered an autobiographical sketch. “Gilbert Gurney” and the sequel “Gilbert Married,” the second of which unfortunately was not autobiographical; for he had formed ties with a woman who had not only sacrificed everything to him, but during the period of his imprisonment and his many troubles had behaved with exemplary faithfulness and unremitting attention; and these ties he had not the courage to legally strengthen. At his death the crown seized what little property he possessed, in the shape of household chattels and newspaper shares, to liquidate his unfortunate debt, and his children were left penniless. A subscription was raised--if literary men are improvident (though many have more excuses for improvidence than Theodore Hook), they are at least kindly-hearted--and a sum of £3000 was collected, to which the King of Hanover contributed £500. As a strange test of Hook’s joviality it is stated that the receipts of the dining-room of the Athenæum Club fell off by £300 when his well-known seat in “Temperance Corner” became vacant. Another of the novelists with whom Colburn had long and intimate dealings was G. P. R. James, one of the most indefatigable writers that ever drove pen over paper. We give for the sake of clearness, a tabular statement of his extraordinary labours:--