It was shortly after his location at Somers Town that Hook renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Wilson Croker, in whose society no small portion of his time was spent, both at the Admiralty and at the latter's villa at Molesey. He was also occasionally a visitor at General Phipps's (a relation of his mother's), in Harley-street, where he met and speedily became intimate with the late Speaker, Lord Canterbury. They were afterwards seen a great deal together, and the pair strolling arm-in-arm down St. James's-street, forms the subject of one--not the most happy--of the HB sketches.[6] With these exceptions, for a long period his position as a public defaulter, together with the _res angustæ domi_, confined him to the narrow and comparatively inexpensive circle of his old literary and theatrical associates. During the summer of 1820, Theodore Hook opened his campaign against the Queen by a thin octavo, which at the time made considerable noise. It was entitled "Tentamen; or an Essay towards the History of Whittington and his Cat," by Dr. Vicesimus Blenkinsop. The Whittington, of course, was no other than Alderman Wood, and Caroline was the cat. "Throughout the whole _libellus_," says Lockhart, "there was a prodigious rattle of puns and conundrums--but the strong points of the case against Whittington and Co. were skilfully brought out, nevertheless. Hook being as yet quite _in obscuro_, nobody suspected him. It was pretty generally ascribed to the manufacturers of the 'New Whig Guide.'" "Tentamen" was followed by several similar pamphlets, chiefly in verse, all directed against Alderman Wood and the other supporters of the Queen, and all published in the same year (1820) by Wright, of Fleet-street. They are also to be distinguished by a caricature likeness of the celebrated Alderman, the same portrait appearing on the title-page both of "Tentamen" and the others. One of these we recollect is entitled _Solomon Logwood_.[7] In the spring of this year (1820), Hook, with the assistance of his old friend, Daniel Terry, started a small periodical. It was published, and we believe suggested, by Mr. Miller, who had recently engaged extensive premises in--what was then expected to prove a great mart for the lighter description of literature--a sort of occidental "Row,"--the Burlington Arcade. Hence the name of the first-born, "The Arcadian," but which, to say the truth, had little of the pastoral in its composition, if we except a certain long ballad of melodious rhythm and provoking pungency, addressed to Lady Holland, and commencing,-- "Listen, lady, to my measures, While they softly, gently flow, While I sing the harmless pleasures Of the classic, silver Po," etc.