Hook’s earliest displays of his talent was at a dinner given by the Drury Lane actors to Sheridan at the Piazza Coffee House in 1808.  Here, as usual, Hook sat down to the piano, and touching off a few chords, gave verse after verse on all the events of the entertainment, on each person present, though he now saw many of them for the first time, and on anything connected with the matters of interest before them.  Sheridan was delighted, and declared that he could not have believed such a faculty possible if he had not witnessed its effects:  that no description ’could have convinced him of so peculiar an instance of genius,’ and so forth.

One of his most extraordinary efforts in this line is related by Mr. Jerdan.  A dinner was given by Mansell Reynolds to Lockhart, Luttrell, Coleridge, Hook, Tom Hill, and others.  The grown-up schoolboys, pretty far gone in Falernian, of a home-made, and very homely vintage, amused themselves by breaking the wine-glasses, till Coleridge was set to demolish the last of them with a fork thrown at it from the side of the table.  Let it not be supposed that any teetotal spirit suggested this inconoclasm, far from it—­the glasses were too small, and the poets, the wits, the punsters, the jesters, preferred to drink their port out of tumblers.  After dinner Hook gave one of his songs which satirized successively, and successfully, each person present.  He was then challenged to improvise on any given subject, and by way of one as far distant from poetry as could be, cocoa-nut oil was fixed upon.  Theodore accepted the challenge; and after a moment’s consideration began his lay with a description of the Mauritius, which he knew so well, the negroes dancing round the cocoa-nut tree, the process of extracting the oil, and so forth, all in excellent rhyme and rhythm, if not actual poetry.  Then came the voyage to England, hits at the Italian warehousemen, and so on, till the oil is brought into the very lamp before them in that very room, to show them with the light it feeds and make them able to break wine-glasses and get drunk from tumblers.  This we may be sure Hook himself did, for one, and the rest were probably not much behind him.

In late life this gift of Hook’s—­improvising I mean, not getting intoxicated—­was his highest recommendation in society, and at the same time his bane.  Like Sheridan, he was ruined by his wonderful natural powers.  It can well be imagined that to improvise in the manner in which Hook did it, and at a moment’s notice, required some effort of the intellect.  This effort became greater as circumstances depressed his spirits more and more and yet with every care upon his mind, he was expected, wherever he went, to amuse the guests with a display of his talent.  He could not do so without stimulants, and rather than give up society, fell into habits of drinking, which hastened his death.