Hook, having been asked for his song, and, as usual, demanding a theme, one of the guests, either facetiously or maliciously, called out, "Take Yates's big nose." (Yates, the actor, was one of the party.) To any one else such a subject would have been appalling: not so to Hook. He rose, glanced once or twice round the table, and chanted (so to speak) a series of verses perfect in rhythm and rhyme: the incapable theme being dealt with in a spirit of fun, humor, serious comment, and absolute philosophy, utterly inconceivable to those who had never heard the marvellous improvisator,--each verse describing something which the world considered great, but which became small, when placed in comparison with "Yates's big nose!" It was the first time I had met Hook, and my astonishment was unbounded. I found it impossible to believe the song was improvised; but I had afterwards ample reason to know that so thorough a triumph over difficulties was with him by no means rare. I had once a jovial day with him on the Thames,--fishing in a punt on the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft, though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection of a long-ago time, when bobbing for roach at the foot of Fulham Bridge, the fisherman perpetually raising or lowering his float, according to the ebb and flow of the tide. A record of his "sayings and doings," that glorious day, from early morn to set of sun, would fill a goodly volume. It was fine weather, and fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection of the _dolce far-niente_, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire for refreshment. Idle time _is_ idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived--probably then made--the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," entitled "The Swan at Ditton." The last time I saw Hook was at Prior's Bank, Fulham, where his neighbors, Mr. Baylis and Mr. Whitmore, had given an "entertainment," the leading feature being an amateur play,--for which, by the way, I wrote the prologue. Hook was then in his decadence,--in broken health,--his animal spirits gone,--the cup of life drained to the dregs. It was morning before the guests departed, yet Hook remained to the last; and a light of other days brightened up his features, as he opened the piano, and began a recitative. The theme was, of course, the occasion that had brought the party together, and perhaps he never, in his best time, was more original and pointed. I can recall two of the lines,-- "They may boast of their Fulham omnibus, But _this_ is the Fulham stage."