But when his friends
descanted to him at Pozzuoli on the Thermae--commonly called the Temple
of Serapis--among the ruins of which he stood, he only remarked that
he would believe whatever he was told, "for many of his friends, and
particularly Mr. Morritt, had frequently tried to drive classical
antiquities, as they are called, into his head, but they had always
found his skull too thick." Was it not perhaps some deep literary
instinct, like that here indicated, which made him, as a lad, refuse
so steadily to learn Greek, and try to prove to his indignant
professor that Ariosto was superior to Homer? Scott afterwards deeply
regretted this neglect of Greek; but I cannot help thinking that his
regret was misplaced. Greek literature would have brought before his
mind standards of poetry and art which could not but have both deeply
impressed and greatly daunted an intellect of so much power; I say
both impressed and daunted, because I believe that Scott himself would
never have succeeded in studies of a classical kind, while he
might--like Goethe perhaps--have been either misled, by admiration for
that school, into attempting what was not adapted to his genius, or
else disheartened in the work for which his character and ancestry
really fitted him.
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