To the Editors of The World and The National Observer, and to the Proprietors of Punch, I wish to express my thanks for their courtesy in permitting me to republish these verses.

O. S.

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“The new ‘Rejected Addresses’ of Mr. Owen Seaman are quite worthy to be ranked with the classic volumes of Horace and James.... The thing is done as well as it could be.... This little volume is merum sal.”––The Spectator.

“Mr. Kipling has never been so nimbly caught before, for Mr. Seaman has the art to reproduce his flute-notes as well as his big drum.... Several of the miscellaneous pieces are among the very best humourous poetry of this generation. We have laughed at nothing lately more than at ‘Ars Postera,’ at ‘A New Blue Book,’ at ‘To a Boy-Poet of the Decadence,’ and at ‘To Julia in Shooting Togs.’ But, after all, Mr. Seaman’s masterpiece up to date is certainly ‘To the Lord of Potsdam.’ ... This will live, or we are greatly mistaken, among the most effective examples of historical satire-lyric.”––The Saturday Review.

“It is certainly remarkable, in our dearth of great poetry, how good of its sort the satiric verse of our day is––so good, in fact, that nothing but the best will serve, and even the best, like Mr. Seaman’s, which in the day when Sir George Trevelyan was a wit would have taken people’s breath away, is apt to be treated as mere journalism.... But really it is the most characteristic expression of our time, using the accustomed forms of verse to point the neatest criticisms and the slyest of epigrams.... Mr. Seaman’s humourous imitation of Mr. Swinburne, Sir Edwin Arnold, Sir Lewis Morris, Mr. Kipling, and the rest, is in every case very funny.”––St. James’s Gazette.

“The book abounds in excellent fooling and really wholesome satire, the ingenuity and felicity of verse and expression giving it likewise a high artistic value.... Quips and cranks of audacious wit, strokes of a humour always sane and healthy, waylay the reader incessantly, and leave him no peace for laughter.”––The Westminster Gazette.

“Mr. Seaman must be tired of being compared to Calverley and J.K.S., but he is of their company, and, what is more, on their level. ‘The Battle of the Bays’ ... bristles with points; it is brilliant, ... and it has that easy conversational flow which is the one absolutely necessary characteristic of good humourous poetry.... One charm of writing such as Mr. Seaman’s is that it makes us feel quite obliged to poets whom we have never admired for being so good to parody.”––Pall Mall Gazette.

“Mr. Owen Seaman has a very neat talent for parody.... The ‘Ballad of a Bun’ is exceedingly funny, and ought to make even Mr. John Davidson laugh.... All the imitations are good.”––The Times.

“His versatility and bright and ready wit are conspicuous in all his work. As a parodist he is second to none, not even to Mr. Calverley, if we may take the word of the reviewers.... Mr. Seaman cracks the whip with consummate skill, and applies it with such naughty precision, that even his victims must find it difficult to withhold their admiration.”––The National Observer.

“To every university man ... this book will be a rare treat. But in virtue of its humour, its extreme and felicitous dexterity of workmanship both in rhyme and metre ... it will appeal to a far wider public.”––Punch.

“We very cordially recommend Mr. Seaman’s book ... to all who are likely to care for verse which is not unworthy to be ranked with the efforts of Calverley the immortal.”––The World.

“Mr. Seaman manages his ingenious metres with unfailing skill.”––The AthenÆum.

“A genial cynic with a genuine smack of Bon Gaultier.”––St. James’s Gazette.

“The humour is bright and spontaneous.”––The Times.

“Mr. Seaman’s book is never slipshod; it has the neatness, the precision, the sparkle of its Latin namesake.”––The Spectator.

“In the political sphere Mr. Seaman is at present without a rival.”––The Globe.

“Taken as a whole, we are much mistaken if any better volume of political verse has made its appearance since the days of the Rolliad and the Anti-Jacobin.”––The World.

“The best of the satirists on the other side is Mr. Owen Seaman, who has touched off some of the weaknesses of the late government with very happy and caustic humour.”––The Spectator.

“Mr. Seaman is own brother to Calverley, and in modern times there has been nothing so good of its sort as ‘Tillers of the Sand.’... Mr. Seaman proves himself so brilliant a jester that it needs must be he takes the jester’s privilege of offending no one.”––The Speaker.

“One of the most accomplished writers of occasional verse to-day.”––Bookman.

“It is all so good that passages are hard to choose.”––Scotsman.

“The author’s rare quality––a capacity for satirizing one’s political opponents with a wit that leaves no wound.”––Mr. James Payn in The Illustrated London News.

“Brilliant and inimitable.”––Chicago Daily News.

“Here is no shouting, no banging of the bauble. The form of phrase, the inflexion of voice, the dancing light of humour, make up the motley which is the true jester’s ‘only wear’; and under his flashes of merriment is a sober, sound philosophy. This, after all, is the only kind of humour that lasts ... it is easy to appreciate, difficult to acquire; and Mr. Owen Seaman, having acquired it with all the felicity of good humour and art, stands practically alone among the humourists of the hour.... His technical quality seems to strengthen with every new volume.”––Mr. Arthur Waugh in The St. James’ Gazette.

“Clean laughter, and scholarly wit; polished metre, and humorous phrase––these are to me the essential characteristics for which I am invariably glad to read Mr. Owen Seaman.”––Mr. Theodore Cook in Literature.

“The brilliant author of ‘Cap and Bells’ assumes, before the eyes of a later generation, the mantle of Crawley, and does the same sort of work more felicitously still.”––The Speaker.

“At the end of the volume Mr. Seaman gives agreeable evidence that, in the domain of memorial and complimentary verse, he has the knack of combining felicity of phrase with a wholesome avoidance alike of adulation and excess. The ‘In Memoriam’ lines to Lewis Carroll, with the graceful reference to Sir John Tenniel, are particularly happy.”––The Spectator.

“Calverley had not, or did not show in his verses, Mr. Seaman’s critical acuteness and depth.... As a critic in the form of parody, Mr. Seaman is without a rival.... Of his serious poems an ode to Queen Wilhelmina is a very graceful accomplishment of a difficult task.”––Mr. G. S. Street in The Pall Mall Magazine.

“Mr. Seaman is what we may call a critic of mannerisms, and a very keen critic to boot. His is a useful, not a merely destructive, function. He is no wanton debaser of the poetic currency. One might rather call him a touchstone of true merit in poetry.”––Daily Chronicle.

“A new volume from the pen of Mr. Owen Seaman must needs be welcome. He is the most accomplished versifier among all our jesters.”––The Globe.

“The parodies in Mr. Seaman’s new volume are wonderful examples of this difficult art; the Stephen Phillips, the Alfred Austin, the Watts-Dunton, and the George Meredith are faultless.”––Academy.

“Mr. Owen Seaman has already made his reputation as, perhaps, the surest modern poet to make you laugh, and the nature of his new collection of copies of verse cannot be better described than by saying that it is well worthy of his hand.... The book is heartsome and delightful all through.”––The Scotsman.

“The present vogue of Mr. Owen Seaman’s delightful parodies is very great.”––Liverpool Courier.

JOHN LANE: The Bodley Head, London & New York.

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