“_he did protest_ _That ~Wither~ was a cruell Satyrist;_ _And guilty of the same offence and crime,_ _Whereof he was accused at this time:_ _Therefore for him hee thought it fitter farre,_ _To stand as a Delinquent at the barre,_ _Then to bee now empanell’d in a Jury._ _~George Withers~ then, with a Poetick fury,_ _Began to bluster, but ~Apollo’s~ frowne_ _Made him forbeare, and lay his choler downe._” (_Ibid_, p. 11.) Two much more sparkling and interesting “Sessions of Poets” afterwards appeared, to the tune of Ben Jonson’s “Cook Laurel.” The first of these begins:— “_~Apollo~, concern’d to see the Transgressions_ _Our paltry Poets do daily commit,_ _Gave orders once more to summon a Sessions,_ _Severely to punish th’ Abuses of Wit._ _~Will d’Avenant~ would fain have been Steward o’ the Court,_ _To have fin’d and amerc’d each man at his will;_ _But ~Apollo~, it seems, had heard a Report,_ _That his choice of new Plays did show h’ had no skill._ _Besides, some Criticks had ow’d him a spite,_ _And a little before had made the God fret,_ _By letting him know the Laureat did write_ _That damnable Farce, ‘~The House to be Let~.’_ _Intelligence was brought, the Court being set_ _That a Play Tripartite was very near made;_ _Where malicious ~Matt. Clifford~, and spirituall ~Spratt~,_ _Were join’d with their Duke, a Peer of the Trade,” &c._ The author did not avow himself. It must have been written, we hold, in 1664-5. The second is variously attributed to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, being printed in the works of both. It begins:— “_Since the Sons of the Muses grew num’rous and loud,_ _For th’ appeasing so factious and clam’rous a crowd,_ _~Apollo~ thought fit in so weighty a cause,_ _T’ establish a government, leader, and laws,” &c._ Assembled near Parnassus, Dryden, Etherege, Wycherley, Shadwell, Nat Lee, Settle, Otway, Crowne, Mrs. Aphra Behn, Rawlins, Tom D’Urfey, and Betterton, are in the other verses sketched with point and vivacity; but in malicious satire. It was probably written in 1677. Clever as are these two later “Sessions,” they do not equal Suckling’s, in genial spirit and unforced cheerfulness.