The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. iX
or splendour, became with me an insatiable passion, which, if circumgtances had permitted, I
would willingly have gratified by travelling over
half the globe."
In November, 1783, Scott became a student in
the university of Edinburgh, where he seems to
have attended the classes of Greek, Latin, and
logic, during one session, with those of ethics and
universal history at a later period, while preparing for the bar. At college, the scholastic part
of his education proceeded even more unprosperously than it had previously done. For science,
mental, physical, or mathematical, he displayed no
inclination; and in the acquisition of languages,
for which- he possessed considerable aptitude, he
was but partially industrious or successful. Of
Greek, as his son-in-law and biographer admits,
he had in later life forgotten the very alphabet.
He had, indeed, entered on the study with1isadvantages similar to those which had formerly
impeded his progress in Latin. Inferior to his
competitors, he petulantly resolved to despise the
study; and by his carelessness, and by an essay
maintaining Ariosto to be a better poet than Homer, he provoked Dr. Dalziel to pronounce of him
" that dunce he was, and dunce he would remain."
His knowledge of Latin, also, does not appear to
have been more than superficial, although we are
informed that for some writers in that tongue,
especially Lucan, Claudian, and Buchanan, he