The production of this little piece brought the young author into contact with Mathews and Liston. These distinguished comedians were both considerably his seniors. Both had their own peculiar style, and yet both seemed at their best when treading the boards together. With the view of providing an opportunity for their joint appearance, Theodore Hook planned his second afterpiece, "Catch Him who Can" (1806), in which abundant opportunity was contrived for exhibiting the grave irresistible drollery of Liston in contrast with the equally matchless vivacity and versatility of the prince of mimics and ventriloquists. In the course of the farce Mathews figured in, we think, seven different disguises. Such acting would have insured the triumph of even a worse thing than the "Soldier's Return,"--but this was better than that in every respect. One of Liston's songs was long in vogue, perhaps still survives-- "I sing the loves, the smiling loves, Of Clutterbuck and Higginbottom." There are three other readable songs, "Mary," "Donna Louisa Isabella," and the "Blacksmith," and not a few meritorious points in the dialogue. It is impossible, however, as we have already hinted, to be sure of the originality of anything either in the plot or the dialogue of these early pieces. Hook pilfers with as much audacity as any of his valets, and uses the plunder occasionally with a wonderful want of thought. Liston's sweetheart, for instance, a tricky chambermaid, knocks him down with Pope's famous saying, "Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding." "The Invisible Girl" next followed (1806). The idea appears to have been taken from a newspaper account of a new French vaudeville;[3] but it was worked out by the adapter with very great cleverness. The fun is, that with a crowd of _dramatis personæ_, a rapid succession of situations, and even considerable complication of intrigue, no character ever gets out more than _yes_, _no_, a _but_, a _hem_, or a _still_--except the indefatigable hero Captain Allclack--for whose part it is difficult to believe that any English powers but Jack Bannister's in his heyday could ever have been adequate. This affair had a great run; and no wonder. If anybody could play the Captain now, it would fill the house for a season. Under a somewhat altered form, and with the title of "Patter _versus_ Clatter," it has indeed been reproduced by Mr. Charles Mathews, with great success. In the following year (1807) a drama, by Hook, in three acts, entitled "The Fortress," and also taken from the French, was produced at the Haymarket. As a fair specimen of the easy jingle with which these pieces abounded, we select a song sung by Mathews, in the character of Vincent, a gardener, much in vogue in its day:--