"_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.
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