Note 174 — APRIL.

Mr. Lockhart gives an account of another dinner party at which Coleridge distinguished himself:—"The first time I ever witnessed it [Hook's improvisation] was at a gay young bachelor's villa near Highgate, when the other lion was one of a very different breed, Mr. Coleridge. Much claret had been shed before the Ancient Mariner proclaimed that he could swallow no more of anything, unless it were punch. The materials were forthwith produced; the bowl was planted before the poet, and as he proceeded in his concoction, Hook, unbidden, took his place at the piano. He burst into a bacchanal of egregious luxury, every line of which had reference to the author of the Lay Sermons and the Aids to Reflection. The room was becoming excessively hot: the first specimen of the new compound was handed to Hook, who paused to quaff it, and then, exclaiming that he was stifled, flung his glass through the window. Coleridge rose with the aspect of a benignant patriarch and demolished another pane—the example was followed generally—the window was a sieve in an instant—the kind host was furthest from the mark, and his goblet made havoc of the chandelier. The roar of laughter was drowned in Theodore's resumption of the song—and window and chandelier and the peculiar shot of each individual destroyer had apt, in many cases exquisitely witty, commemoration. In walking home with Mr. Coleridge, he entertained ——— and 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."—Theodore Hook, Lond. 1853, p. 23-4.