T'other night, as Apollo was quaffing a gill With his pupils, the Muses, from Helicon's rill, (For all circles of rank in Parnassus agree In preferring cold water to coffee or tea) The discourse turned as usual on critical matters, And the last stirring news from the kingdom of letters. But when poets, and critics, and wits, and what not, From Jeffery and Byron, to Stoddart and Stott,{2} Had received their due portion of consideration, Cried Apollo, "Pray, ladies, how goes education? For I own my poor brain's been so muddled of late, In transacting the greater affairs of the state; And so long every day in the courts I've been stewing, I've had no time to think what the children were doing. There's my favorite Byron my presence inviting, And Milman, and Coleridge, and Moore, have been writing; And my ears at this moment confoundedly tingle, From the squabbling of Blackwood with Cleghorn and Pringle: But as all their disputes seem at length at an end, And the poets my levee have ceased to attend; Since the weather's improving, and lengthen'd the days, For a visit to Eton I'll order my chaise: 1 This poem, the reader will perceive, is an humble imitation of Leigh Hunt's "Feast of the Poets;" and the lines distinguished by asterisks are borrowed or altered from the original. 2 A writer in "The Morning Post," mentioned by Lord Byron, in his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." ~90~~ There's my sister Diana my day coach to drive, And I'll send the new Canto to keep you alive. So my business all settled, and absence supply'd, For an earthly excursion to-morrow I'll ride." Thus spoke king Apollo; the Muses assented; And the god went to bed most bepraised and contented. 'Twas on Saturday morning, near half past eleven, When a god, like a devil,4 came driving from heaven, And with postboys, and footmen, and liveries blazing, Soon set half the country a gaping and gazing. When the carriage drove into the Christopher yard, How the waiters all bustled, and Garraway stared; And the hostlers and boot-catchers wonder'd, and swore "They'd ne'er seen such a start in their lifetime before!" I could tell how, as soon as his chariot drew nigh, Every cloud disappear'd from the face of the sky; And the birds in the hedges more tunefully sung, And the bells in St. George's spontaneously rung; And the people, all seized with divine inspiration, Couldn't talk without rhyming and versification. But such matters, though vastly important, I ween, Are too long for the limits of your magazine.