In 1806 there was an election to the House of Commons. The Westminster seat was won by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the famous playwright who was also owner of Drury Lane theatre. The company of the Drury Lane theatre held a party to congratulate their employer on his election success.

The celebration took place at the Piazza Coffee House in the north-eastern corner of Covent Garden in the centre of London. Some sixty people were present and many performed their party pieces. Eighteen year old Theodore Hook was asked to perform his. Nancy Mathews, an actress, who watched, wrote afterwards that Theodore 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, every look, every gesture or accidental effect, served as occasion for more wit. 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 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. 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.

Another eye-witness wrote that Theodore had performed a song upon a company of sixty persons, each verse containing an epigram. Sheridan was present, and expressed his opinion that it was one of the most extraordinary exertions of human intellect that he had ever witnessed.