Hook's improvising was at his best among his own friends. The following is an account of 'a white stone' evening spent with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others. The account was written by one of Hook's close friends, William Jerdan, who was editor of the Literary Gazette.

A friend had hired, for the autumn months of 1831, the upper portion of a small gardener's cottage at Highgate, an egg-shell of a place, the first floor of which supplied two little cabins, just big enough for coziness, fun and revel. Instead of Henry Harris, his brother Captain Harris, the member of parliament for Grimsby came, and we sat down to dinner.

I never saw Hook, often as I have seen him in his hours of exuberant humour, in such glorious 'fooling' as on this occasion. From his entrance to his departure his countenance beamed with overflowing mirth, and his wonderful talent seemed to be more than commonly excited by the company of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom, I think, he had never met - at any rate never sat with his legs under the same mahogany before.

Our host had replenished his sideboard with fine wines from his father's cellars and wine merchants in town : but having, unluckily, forgotten port, a few bottles of black-strap had been obtained for the nonce from the adjacent inn at Highgate. Sooth to say it was not of the first quality. To add to this grievance, the glasses appertaining to the lodgings were of a diminutive capacity, and when they came to be addressed to champagne and hock, were only tolerable and not to be endured.

In the midst of dinner, or rather more towards its close, we were surprised by Hook's rising, and asking us to fill bumpers to a toast. It was not difficult to fill these glasses, and we were pledged to follow the example of our leader in draining them. In a brief but most entertaining address he described the excellent qualities of Reynolds, and above all his noble capacity for giving rural dinners, but - there was always a but, not a butt of wine, but a but, a something manque. On this occasion it was but too notorious in the size of these miserable pigmies, out of which we were trying to drink his health, etc etc etc.

The toast was drunk with acclamation, and then followed the exemplary cannikin clink, hob-nobbing, and striking the poor little glasses on the table till every one was broken save one and that was reserved for a poetical fate. Tumblers were substituted, and might possibly contribute their share to the early hilarity and consecutive frolic of the night ; for ere long Coleridge's sonorous voice was heard declaiming on the extraordinary ebullitions of Hook -

"I have before in the course of my time met with men of admirable promptitude of intellectual power and play of wit, which as Stillingfleet tells The rays of wit gild whereso'er they strike but I never could have conceived such amazing readiness of mind, and resources of genius to be poured out on the mere subject and impulse of the moment."

Having got the poet into this exalted mood, the last of the limited wine-glasses was mounted upon the bottom of a reversed tumbler. To the infinite risk of the latter, Coleridge was induced to shy at the former with a silver fork, till after two or three throws, he succeeded in smashing it into fragments, to be tossed into the basket with its perished brethren.It was truly hang-up philosophy, and like all such scenes, may perhaps appear somewhat wantonly absurd in description (for the spirit which enjoyed them cannot exist in the breasts of readers); but this exhibition was remembered for years afterwards by all who partook of it ; and I have a letter of Lockhart's alluding to the date of our witnessing the roseate face of Coleridge, lit up with animation, his large grey eye beaming, his white hair floating, and his whole frame, as it were, radiating with intense interest, as he poised the fork in his hand, and launched it at the fragile object (the last glass of dinner), distant some three or four feet from him on the table !

Hook, after dinner, gave us two of his extemporised songs, one of them characterising all the "present company", no one excepted. Few, if any, were spared the satirical lash, so cleverly applied, that Captain Harris could not believe that the whole was not prearranged by Lockhart, Hook and I (Hook and Eye !). Piqued by the suspicion, Hook dared him to name a subject for an impromptu song, and of all the impracticable subjects that could be imagined, he gave him "Cocoa-Nut Oil !!" I must notice that it was suggested by the refusal of a lamp, charged with that material (just then being publicly puffed, as the best of all flame feeders) to burn, and its having been sent from the table to liquify before the kitchen fire whilst candles took its duty ; and upon these untoward incidents the song instantly proceeded.

Having heard When I was a maiden of bashful fifteen improvised on a somewhat similar occasion, such as not infrequently occurred at the jocund board of Mr Fred Hodgson, it is high praise to state that Hook never excelled this effort. Effort ? They never seemed efforts to him. He commenced with a landscape of the Mauritius with the cocoa tree as its principal feature ; he painted the natives dancing by moonlight beneath its beautiful foliage ; he described the various uses of its fruits, woods, fibres, and sap, and out of the latter extracted his oil. Then came the lampooned lamp, with all its ludicrous pretensions and mishaps, the impudence of trading puffery, and the weakness of the individual who had been taken in by it. And all this in versification, which might have been taken in short-hand, and published verbatim.

"Think of that Master Ford," and your astonishment and admiration will be nearly as great as were the astonishment and admiration of Captain Harris, largely shared even by those who were best acquainted with the Improvisatore's most successful displays of that marvellous faculty. Coleridge was in seventh heaven, and varied the pleasures of the evening by some exquisite recitation as well as humorous stories of Southey, Wordsworth, and other brother bards. In due season the feast of souls and the flow of tumblers told their tale ; and it must be confessed that some of us were a trifle uproarious. It so happened that the name of the gardener was M'Pherson ; and his busy wife, plying her utmost care in getting the dinner up from the kitchen below (we had an experienced waiter from Brompton for the dining-room), had been rather frightened by the catastrophe of the glasses and the festive cheering and shouting of the hilarious party. Towards the close, Mistress M'Pherson was the topic assigned to Hook for his last song, and he sung it !

Now I have mentioned it was a shell of a cottage, and consequently Mrs Mac was an astonished auditress of this unique composition, which had such an effect on her nerves, that she bolted from her domicile to seek her sister to stay with her, and (together with the aforesaid waiter), take care of her till her husband came home. Of this, however, I was not aware till later in the night, when it cost me a threat of Watch-house ; for Lockhart, Hook and I, returned in the same carriage, and after leaving my companions in the Regent's Park and Cleveland-row, I resolved on walking home, attended by my neighbour the waiter, who had availed himself of the coach-box. As we wended our way up Piccadilly, he amused me by describing the scenes in the inferior regions whilst we were at high jinks above. His account of the terror which seized Mrs M'Pherson so tickled my diaphragm, that I burst into laughter more uncontrollable than any previous fit, and laid hold of the iron railing to support me in having my cachinnation out. When, lo and behold, I was pulled up by a Charley, with "Hullo, sir, you must not laugh in that way there at this time of night" (it was morning). It showed great self-possession that I managed to steer safely home at last, and live to record this day of memorable enjoyment.

After the dinner Lockhart walked back with Coleridge who, he wrote, entertained me with a most excellent lecture on the distinction between talent and genius, and declared that Hook was as true a genius as Dante. That was his example. Next day Reynolds, still rejoicing in the high-jinks outbreak, wrote to Jerdan with the particulars of twenty-seven bottles of wine and one of brandy, which had somehow been disposed of, and twenty-six glasses and four tumblers breakage. It may be somewhat absurd to revive the memory of such a day, but it was long called to mind and spoken of as one for a white stone by all who were present. Hook's improvising was wonderful.