The Feast of the Poets well received by Hunt's friends. The new edition was dedicated to Thomas Mitchell and it ended with a sonnet that was dedicated to Thomas Barnes, both friends of Hunt. The poem would be revised throughout Hunt's life, including an edition in 1815. The poem satirically describes many of Hunt's contemporaries: Wordsworth is experiencing a "second childhood", Coleridge "muddles" in writing, and William Gifford is a "sour little gentleman". Four great poets, Thomas Moore, Walter Scott, Robert Southey, and Thomas Campbell are allowed to dine with Apollo while Samuel Rogers is only allowed to have tea. In the rewrite, Hunt says
The Spirit of the Age and writer ... ." Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) was a Scottish poet and the editor of the "New Monthly Magazine", where several of the essays that were later incorporated into "The Spirit of the Age" were first published. With the 1799 publication of his poem "The Pleasures of Hope", written in the formal language and rhymed couplets characteristic of an earlier period (though also with some traits of the emerging Romantic period), Campbell was catapulted into fame, becoming one of the most popular poets of the day, far more so than his Romantic contemporaries Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose "Lyrical Ballads" had