CHARLES MATHEWS AND HOOK.
It was about the year 1803 that my husband first became intimate with Mr. Theodore Hook. The election for Westminster had recently taken place, and Mr. Sheridan was chosen one of its representatives, on which occasion the actors of Drury Lane celebrated their proprietor's triumph, by giving him a dinner at the Piazza coffee-house. To this dinner Mr. Hook was invited.
In the course of the day many persons sung, and Mr. Hook being in turn solicited, displayed, to the delight and surprise of all present, his wondrous talent in extemporaneous singing. The company was numerous, and generally strangers to Mr. Hook; but, without a moment's premeditation, he composed a verse upon every person in the room, full of the most pointed wit, and with the truest rhymes, unhesitatingly gathering into his subject, as he rapidly proceeded, in addition to what had passed during the dinner, every trivial incident of the moment. Every action was turned to account; every circumstance, the look, the gesture, or any other accidental effects, served as occasion for more wit; and even the singer's ignorance of the names and condition of many of the party seemed to give greater facility to his brilliant hits than even acquaintance with them might have furnished. Mr. Sheridan was astonished at his extraordinary faculty, and declared that he could not have imagined such power possible, had he not witnessed it. No description, he said, could have convinced him of so peculiar an instance of genius, and he protested that he should not have believed it to be an unstudied effort, had he not seen proof that no anticipation could have been formed of what might arise to furnish matter and opportunities for the exercise of this rare talent.—Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian, by Mrs. Mathews. Lond. 1838.