Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt Author:Leigh Hunt Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FEAST OF THE POETS. To the names of the celebrated writers, whom the author, in a fit of youthful gaiety, here undertook to seat at Apollo's table, might ... more »have been added some which have arisen of late years, both male and female, and which would have done credit to the host. The chronology of the poem, however, with two exceptions, is the same as in former editions, containing the names of those only who were in possession of poetical repute at the time it was written. The exceptions are his beloved friends, Mr. Shelley and Mr. Keats, who have amply obtained the repute since, and whom he has indulged himself with introduciug, not because any thing he can do is necessary to their fame, but because they are dead, and their fame acknowledged. ft would have been a gratification to him to extend his list; but, to confess the truth, he was unwilling to open a new ground of hostility against him, for his sins of " omission." Some further remarks on this subject, if the reader wishes to see them, may be found in the preface. They would be as much out of place here, as a solemn introduction to a dance. THE FEAST OF THE POETS. T'other day, as Apollo sat pitching his darts Through the clouds of November, by fits and bystarts, He began to consider how long it had been, Since the bards of Old England a session had seen. " I think," said the God, recollecting, (and then He fell twiddling a sunbeam, as I may my pen,) " I think—let me see—yes, it is, I declare, As long ago now as that Buckingham there : And yet I can't see why I've been so remiss, Unless it may be—and it certainly is, Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, wrote the last Session of the Poets. The others were written by Suckling and Rochester. That since Dryden's fine verses, and Milton's sublime, I have fair...« less