He learned Italian and read Ariosto. Later he learned
Spanish and devoured Cervantes, whose "_novelas_," he said, "first
inspired him with the ambition to excel in fiction;" and all that he
read and admired he remembered. Scott used to illustrate the
capricious affinity of his own memory for what suited it, and its
complete rejection of what did not, by old Beattie of Meikledale's
answer to a Scotch divine, who complimented him on the strength of his
memory. "No, sir," said the old Borderer, "I have no command of my
memory. It only retains what hits my fancy; and probably, sir, if you
were to preach to me for two hours, I would not be able, when you
finished, to remember a word you had been saying." Such a memory, when
it belongs to a man of genius, is really a sieve of the most valuable
kind. It sifts away what is foreign and alien to his genius, and
assimilates what is suited to it. In his very last days, when he was
visiting Italy for the first time, Scott delighted in Malta, for it
recalled to him Vertot's _Knights of Malta_, and much, other mediaeval
story which he had pored over in his youth.
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