"Leigh Hunt (not the notorious Mr. Henry Hunt, but the fop, poet and politician of the 'Examiner') is a great keeper of birthdays. He was celebrating that of Haydn, the great composer--giving a dinner, crowning his bust with laurels, berhyming the poor dear German, and conducting an apotheosis in full form. Somebody told Mr. Haydon they were celebrating _his_ birthday. So off he trotted to Hampstead, and bolted into the company--made a very fine animated speech--thanked him most sincerely for what they had done him and the arts in his person."[450] At one time the set became violently vegetarian. The enthusiasm came to a sudden end, as narrated by Joseph Severn: "Leigh Hunt most eloquently discussed the charms and advantages of these vegetable banquets, depicting in glowing words the cauliflowers swimming in melted butter, and the peas and beans never profaned with animal gravy. In the midst of his rhapsody he was interrupted by the venerable Wordsworth, who begged permission to ask a question. 'If,' he said, 'by chance of good luck they ever met with a caterpillar, they thanked their stars for the delicious morsel of animal food.' This absurdity all came to an end by an ugly discovery. Haydon, whose ruddy face had kept the other enthusiasts from sinking under their scanty diet--for they clung fondly to the hope that they would become like him, although they increased daily in pallor and leanness--this Haydon was discovered one day coming out of a chop-house. He was promptly taxed with treachery, when he honestly confessed that every day after the vegetable repast he ate a good beef-steak. This fact plunged the others in despair, and Leigh Hunt assured me that on vegetable diet his constitution had received a blow from which he had never recovered. With Shelley it was different, for he was by nature formed to regard animal food repulsively."[451]