Another section of more modern ballads narrates events from the latest war between the Servians and Turks, between 1801 and 1815. Who of our readers has not heard of Kara George? His companions, Yanko Katitch, Stoyan Tchupitch, Milosh of Potzerye, are in Servia as well known and admired as Kara George himself. They and their comrades are the heroes of these ballads. The gallant Tchupitch rewarded the blind poet Philip, who chanted to him a long and beautiful poem of his own composition, with a white horse. The subject of his narrative was the battle of Salash; where Tchupitch himself had been the Servian commander.[59] The same ballad singer Philip is the author of most of the modern heroic poems. Of others the authors are not known. Little stress is laid on the art of poetry; exercised with such extraordinary power. These productions of our day are by no means inferior to the ancient. There is indeed no essential difference, either in their diction or in their conception; and it is easy to be perceived, that old and young have been nursed from their infancy on tales of "the days of yore." Some passages of Philip's ballads are really Homeric.[51] Fortunately, the period is past when our admiration for hyperborean poetry needed to be justified by its similarity with the classics. We have learned that real poetry is not spell-bound to names, nor to any nation or age; and the _beautiful_ has obtained in our time an independent existence, no longer subject to certain forms and conditions, but resting on itself and its divine gifts. The difficulties Vuk Stephanovitch met with in collecting these wonderful ballads, were not small. He was often hardly able to prevail on the young men and girls to recite, still less to sing them before him; partly from a natural shyness to exhibit themselves before a stranger; partly because his search after effusions which had so little value in their eyes, and his attempt to fix them by writing, seemed to them an idle and useless occupation. The only reason which they could conceive for it was, that the learned idler meant to ridicule them; and his request was frequently answered by the words: "We are no blind men to sing or recite songs to you."