[FN#2] Every nation, however rude, has, as it has been justly
observed, a taste for poetry. This art after all that has and can be
said for and against it, is the language of nature, and among the
relics of the most polished and learned nations little has survived
except such as simply depicts those natural feelings and images which
have ever existed and ever must continue. Most of the great poets
have been individuals of humble condition rising from the mass of the
people by that natural principle which causes the most etherial
particles to rise and the denser to sink to the earth. But, as Byron
exquisitely says, in one of the most wonderfully beautiful pages he
ever composed,


"Many are poets who have never penned
Their inspirations, and, perchance, the best;
They felt, they loved, and died; but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they comprest
The god within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurel'd upon earth."


In the place where I now write amid several hundred Africans of
different ages, and nations, the most debased of any on the face of
the earth, I have been enabled to observe, even in this, last link of
the chain of humanity, the strong natural love for music and poetry.

Any little incident which occurs on the estate where they toil, and
which the greater part of them are never suffered to leave, is