Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/288

 he went on a mission to the Scottish Jacobites, and in 1706 he obtained letters of naturalisation in France, and took part in the battle of Ramillies. In April 1707 he again went to Scotland, with Lieutenant-colonel John Murray, to confer with the Jacobites. The next year he became a brigadier in the French army (3 March 1708), was created an Irish baron, and was present at the Dunkirk expedition of that year, and at Malplaquet in the next.

Hooke had now wearied of negotiating schemes for rebellion with the Jacobites in Scotland, and refused in 1709 to go again as an emissary. He is probably the Mr. Hooke who appears as a correspondent of the Duke of Marlborough in 1710 (Hist. MSS. Comm. App. to 8th Rep. p. 38), and in 1711 he went to Dresden on a diplomatic mission from Louis XIV to Frederick Augustus, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, but this negotiation was superseded by the general arrangements for peace at Utrecht. Hooke had no active share in the rebellion of 1715. He had communications in that year with, second earl of Stair [q. v.], British ambassador in Paris, but there is nothing to prove that he turned traitor to the Jacobite cause; it is more probable that in his relations with Stair he was acting as a spy in the Jacobite interest. On 18 March 1718 he became a maréchal de camp in the French army. On 1 Jan. 1720 his letters of naturalisation were confirmed and registered, and on 27 April 1721 he became a commander of the order of St. Louis. Hooke died on 25 Oct. 1738. He married in 1704 Eleanor Susan MacCarthy Reagh, probably a lady-in-waiting on the exiled queen-dowager, and by her left one son, James Nathaniel Hooke (1705–1744).

The correspondence of Colonel Hooke from 1703 to 1707, partly transcribed by Hooke's nephew,, the historian of Rome [q. v.], is now in the Bodleian Library. This was edited, with a memoir (in vol. ii.), by the Rev. W. D. Macray, for the Roxburghe Club, 1870–1. Portions of Hooke's correspondence had previously appeared in ‘Revolutions d'Ecosse et d'Irlande en 1707, 1708, et 1709 …’ published at the Hague 1758, and in Macpherson's ‘Original Papers,’ published 1775.



HOOKE, NATHANIEL or NATHANAEL (d. 1763), author, eldest son of, serjeant-at-law [q. v.], and nephew of [q. v.], is thought by Kirk to have studied with Pope at Twyford school, near Winchester, and to have there formed a friendship with the poet which subsisted through life (Biog. Collections, MS. No. 42, quoted by, Dict. of English Catholics). He was admitted to Lincoln's Inn 6 Feb. 1702. Writing to the Earl of Oxford, 17 Oct. 1722, he says that ‘the late epidemical distemper’ (meaning the South Sea infatuation) ‘seized him,’ and that ‘he was in some measure happy to find himself at that instant just worth nothing.’ He seeks employment and also permission to dedicate to his lordship a translation from the French of Sir Andrew Michael Ramsay's ‘Life of Fénelon’ (published in 1723), London, 12mo. The permission was granted, and from 1723 till his death Hooke is said to have enjoyed the confidence and patronage of many distinguished men, including the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Marchmont, Mr. Speaker Onslow, Fénelon, Pope, Dr. Cheyne, and Dr. King, principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford. When the Duchess of Marlborough required literary assistance in the preparation of her memoirs, Hooke was recommended to her. He accordingly waited upon the duchess while she was still in bed, oppressed by the infirmities of age. On his arrival she caused herself to be lifted up, and continued speaking for six hours. Without the aid of notes she delivered her narrative in a lively and connected manner. Hooke resided in the house until the completion of the work, which appeared in 1742 under the title of ‘An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough from her first coming to Court to the year 1710.’ Hooke received from the duchess 5,000l. (, Memoirs of Lord Chesterfield, i. 116). During his residence with her she commissioned him to negotiate with Pope for the suppression, in consideration of the payment of 3,000l., of the character of ‘Atossa’ in his ‘Epistles’ (, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iii. 79, 80, 84, 91, 105). Ruffhead states (Life of Pope) that the duchess took a sudden dislike to Hooke because, finding her without religion, he attempted to convert her to popery. John Whiston, however, asserts that at her death she left 500l. a year to Hooke and Mallet to write the history of the late duke (manuscript note in, Life of Pope).

It was Hooke who brought a catholic ecclesiastic to take Pope's confession on his deathbed. The priest had scarcely departed when Bolingbroke entered, and flew into a great passion on learning what had happened. Pope bequeathed Hooke 5l. to be expended on a ring or other memorial. Hooke was also friendly with Martha Blount, who by will dated 13 Oct. 1762 left a legacy to Miss Elizabeth Hooke. Hooke died at Cookham,