THE SESSION OF THE POETS.—Auuner, 1866. DI titagni, sataputiuns disertuni

!—CAT. LIB. LIII.

The following stanzas are taken from a poem by the late Mr. Robert Buchanan which appeared in the Spectator of September 15th, 1866. We reprint them as a reminder to our readers of how remarkable was the store of wit, imagina- tion, and poetic force with which Mr. Buchanan was endowed.]

AT the Session of Poets held lately in London, The Bard of Freshwater was voted the chair:

With hie tresses unbrush'd, and his shirt-collar undone,

He loll'd at his ease, like a good-humour'd Bear ; " Come, boys !" he exclaimed, " we'll be merry together !"

And lit up his pipe with a smile on his cheek ;—

While with eye, like a skipper's, cock'd up at the weather,

Sat the Vice-Chairman Browning, thinking in Greek.

The company gather'd embraced great and small bards, Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave, Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards, Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave.

Of books, men, and things, was the bards' conversation— Some praised Bees Homo, some deemed it so-so— And then there was talk of the state of the nation,

And when the Unwash'd would devour Mister Lowe.

Right stately sat Arnold,—his black gown adjusted Genteelly, his Rhine wine deliciously beed,— With puddingish England serenely disgusted, And looking in vain (in the mirror) for " ; "

He heark'd to the Chairman, with " Surely !" and "Really Po Aghast at both collar and cutty of clay,—

Then felt in his pocket, and breath'd again freely, On touching the leaves of his own classic play.

Close at hand, lingered Lytton, whose Icarus-winglets Had often betrayed him in regions of rhyme,— How glittered the eye underneath his grey ringlets,

A hunger within it unleasen'd by time ! Remoter sat Bailey—satirical, surly—

Who studied the language of Goethe too soon,

And sang himself hoarse to the stars very early, And crack'd a weak voice with too lofty a tune.

v.

How name all that wonderful company over ?— Prim Patmore, mild Alford,—and Kingsley shoe? Among the small sparks, who was realler than Lover ?

Among misses, who sweeter than Miss Ingelow ? There sat, looking moony, conceited, and narrow, Buchanan,—who, finding, when foolish and young, Apollo asleep on a coster-girl's barrow,