, at their commencement, lies far less in
any lack of thoughts or images, than in that want of a fitting organ
to give those conceptions vent, to which their unacquaintance with the
great instrument of the man of genius, his native language, dooms
them. It will be found, indeed, that the three most remarkable
examples of early authorship, which, in their respective lines, the
history of literature affords--Pope, Congreve, and Chatterton--were
all of them persons self-educated,[63] according to their own
intellectual wants and tastes, and left, undistracted by the worse
than useless pedantries of the schools, to seek, in the pure "well of
English undefiled," those treasures of which they accordingly so very
early and intimately possessed themselves.[64] To these three
instances may now be added, virtually, that of Lord Byron, who, though
a disciple of the schools, was, intellectually speaking, _in_
them, not _of_ them, and who, while his comrades were prying
curiously into the graves of dead languages, betook himself to the
fresh, living sources of his own,[65] and from thence drew those
rich, varied stores of diction, which have placed his works, from the
age of two-and-twenty upwards, among the most precious depositories of
the strength and sweetness of the English language that our whole
literature supplies.

In the same book that contains the above record of his studies, he has
written out, also from memory, a "List of the different poets,
dramatic or otherwise, who have distinguished their respective
languages by their productions." After enumerating the various poets,
both ancient and modern, of Europe, he thus proceeds with his
catalogue through other quarters of the world:--

"_Arabia._--Mahomet, whose Koran contains most sublime
poetical passages, far surpassing European poetry.

"_Persia._--Ferdousi, author of the Shah Nameh, the Persian
Iliad--Sadi, and Hafiz, the immortal Hafiz, the oriental
Anacreon. The last is reverenced beyond any bard of ancient
or modern times by the Persians, who resort to his tomb near
Shiraz, to celebrate his memory. A splendid copy of his
works is chained to his monument.

"_America._--An epic poet has already appeared in that
hemisphere, Barlow, author of the Columbiad,--not to be
compared with the works of more polished nations.

"_Iceland, Denmark, Norway_, were famous for their Skalds.
Among these Lodburgh