POETS' DINNER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 83, 9 April 1910, Page 13

POETS' DINNER.

DESCENDANTS OF SPENSER AMONG THE GUESTS. So succoisful have the efforts of tho Poetry Recital Society in its search for the de*c«mn.ints of pocta. of all ages proved that the diicctor was able recently to announce that a couple of bundled men and women of poetic ance. try will bo present at the poets' dinner to bo hold in Apiil, with Lord Ciewe, himself a poet and the *ou of a poet, in the chairMeanwhile, ftatea the Daily Mail, letter* from men and women of all social condition* and ages who claim descent from the maker* of Englioh verse continuo to reach tho oftlco of the society at Clun House, Surrey-street, Strand. As already unnounced, two descendants of Shakespeare, and descendants of Dryden, Crabbe, and Browning have come forward. "We have now henrd from correspondent* who ctaim descent from Edmund Spenaer, William Somerville, John Fountain, Edmund Waller, William Collins, Robert Southey. Robert Burn*, Wordaworth, Coleridge, Byron, Matthew Arnold, Frederick Tennyson, and Charles Tennwon Tuiner, among other*," itatcd the director of the Poetry Recital Society recently. "In the com of Burns and Worde worth we have heard from tcveral descendant". "The two correspondents who claim descent from Edmund Spenser are Dr. Francis Maginn, of Belfast, who says that through his mother, who was born i near Mallow, not far from where Spenser lived, he is descended from the author of the 'Faerie Queen,' and Mr. John Fountain, of Tunbridge WelU, who claims three poet* among his ancestors — Edmund Spenser, \\ illiHm Somerville, a friend of Shakespeare's, and his namesake, John Fountain. "We have heard from two grand-nieces of Southey — Mr«. Maud Southey Jahn and Mies Southey, whore home is in Somerset. "Mr*. Rachel Fane dc Sali« is 6ixth in direct detccnt from Edmund Waller, and Mrs. Rivctt Carnac, of Swefliing Uectory, Suffolk, is a direct descendunt of Crabbe. Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge is the only surviving grandson of Coleridge, and in Colonel Percy Whallcy we nave a descendant of Bishop Percy. ' There nre .still mnny blanks in the poetic circle to be filled, and the director will be interested to hear from correspondents Mho can claim descent from any of tho following >poets :— Herrick, Thomas Gray, Clough, William Blake, Hogg, Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Moore, Campbell, Sedley, Lovelace, Gooigo Withcic Tom Hood, Cowper, Mrs. Homuns, Shelley.