Yes, the famous poet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron

A linguistic observation by Byron:

"...few are slow
In thinking that their enemy is beat
(Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though
I never think about it in a heat)..."

(Don Juan, canto 7, stanza 42 -- describing a battle between the
Russians and the Turks)

I actually cited this passage (among others from OED) in an a.u.e.
discussion about the passive participle "beat". It is used by Chaucer,
Shakespeare, Dryden, John Wesley, Lord Nelson and many others, but
Byron's is an interesting indication that by his time prescriptive
grammarians considered it "incorrect".

The other Byron quote (too long to copy) is about meeting the celebrated
"hyperpolyglot", Cardinal Mezzofanti.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Caspar_Mezzofanti

Ar an fichiú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Ross Clark:

> [...] The other Byron quote (too long to copy) is about meeting the
> celebrated "hyperpolyglot", Cardinal Mezzofanti.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Caspar_Mezzofanti

Now that’s a Wikipedia article full of suspicion!

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

On 20/04/2024 7:47 p.m., Aidan Kehoe wrote:
>
> Ar an fichiú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Ross Clark:
>
> > [...] The other Byron quote (too long to copy) is about meeting the
> > celebrated "hyperpolyglot", Cardinal Mezzofanti.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Caspar_Mezzofanti
>
> Now that’s a Wikipedia article full of suspicion!
>

I thought it was quite an interesting account of the continuing
skepticism about exactly how many languages he knew, and about the
essential difficulty of putting numbers to such things.

Ar an fichiú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Ross Clark:

> On 20/04/2024 7:47 p.m., Aidan Kehoe wrote:
> >
> > Ar an fichiú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Ross Clark:
> >
> > > [...] The other Byron quote (too long to copy) is about meeting the
> > > celebrated "hyperpolyglot", Cardinal Mezzofanti.
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Caspar_Mezzofanti
> >
> > Now that’s a Wikipedia article full of suspicion!
>
> I thought it was quite an interesting account of the continuing skepticism
> about exactly how many languages he knew, and about the essential difficulty
> of putting numbers to such things.

There is one hyperpolyglot of my acquaintance who could manage a conversation
of some sort in about thirty languages. Of course, this is post-internet, where
it’s easier to get practice in, but also he’s not a cardinal of the Catholic
church of that time period, with the opportunity and resources of that context.

The man is long dead, it’s going to be impossible to be certain of his command
of the more obscure languages, for me the appropriate approach of the Wikipedia
article would be to describe his contemporaneous reputation and reknown and
what evidence there is for that.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)