was one of the most distinguished. His
Death Song breathes ferocious sentiments, but a glorious and
impassioned strain of poetry.

"_Hindostan_ is undistinguished by any great bard,--at least
the Sanscrit is so imperfectly known to Europeans, we know
not what poetical relics may exist.

"_The Birman Empire._--Here the natives are passionately
fond of poetry, but their bards are unknown.

"_China._--I never heard of any Chinese poet but the Emperor
Kien Long, and his ode to _Tea_. What a pity their
philosopher Confucius did not write poetry, with his
precepts of morality!

"_Africa._--In Africa some of the native melodies are
plaintive, and the words simple and affecting; but whether
their rude strains of nature can be classed with poetry, as
the songs of the bards, the Skalds of Europe, &c. &c., I
know not.

"This brief list of poets I have written down from memory,
without any book of reference; consequently some errors may
occur, but I think, if any, very trivial. The works of the
European, and some of the Asiatic, I have perused, either in
the original or translations. In my list of English, I have
merely mentioned the greatest;--to enumerate the minor poets
would be useless, as well as tedious. Perhaps Gray,
Goldsmith, and Collins, might have been added, as worthy of
mention, in a _cosmopolite_ account. But as for the others,
from Chaucer down to Churchill, they are 'voces et praeterea
nihil;'--sometimes spoken of, rarely read, and never with
advantage. Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on
him, I think obscene and contemptible:--he owes his
celebrity merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve
so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune. English
living poets I have avoided mentioning;--we have none who
will not survive their productions. Taste is over with us;
and another century will sweep our empire, our literature,
and our name, from all but a place in the annals of mankind.

"November 30. 1807.

BYRON."

Among the papers of his in my possession are several detached poems
(in all nearly six hundred lines), which he wrote about this period,
but never printed--having produced most of them after the publication
of his "Hours of Idleness." The greater number of these have little,
besides his nam