ite
letters, but entered into all his favorite pursuits with keen
sympathy, and was consulted, from this time forth, upon all his
juvenile essays, both in prose and verse.

He does not seem to have resumed attendance at College during the
session of 1785-86; so that the Latin and Greek classes, with that of
Logic, were the only ones he had passed through previous to the
signing of his indentures as an apprentice to his father. The Memoir
mentions the ethical course of Dugald Stewart, as if he had {p.113}
gone immediately from the logical professor (Mr. Bruce) to that
eminent lecturer; but he, in fact, attended Mr. Stewart four years
afterwards, when beginning to consider himself as finally destined for
the Bar.

I shall only add to what he sets down on the subject of his early
academical studies, that in this, as in almost every case, he appears
to have underrated his own attainments. He had, indeed, no pretensions
to the name of an extensive, far less of an accurate, Latin scholar;
but he could read, I believe, any Latin author, of any age, so as to
catch without difficulty his meaning; and although his favorite Latin
poet, as well as historian, in later days, was Buchanan, he had
preserved, or subsequently acquired, a strong relish for some others
of more ancient date. I may mention, in particular, Lucan and
Claudian. Of Greek, he does not exaggerate in saying that he had
forgotten even the alphabet; for he was puzzled with the words [Greek:
aoidos] and [Greek: poietes], which he had occasion to introduce, from
some authority on his table, into his Introduction to Popular Poetry,
written in April, 1830; and happening to be in the house with him at
the time, he sent for me to insert them for him in his MS. Mr. Irving
has informed us of the early period at which he enjoyed the real Tasso
and Ariosto. I presume he had at least as soon as this enabled himself
to read Gil Blas in the original; and, in all probability, we may
refer to the same time of his life, or one not much later, his
acquisition of as much Spanish as served for the Guerras Civiles de
Granada, Lazarillo de Tormes, and, above all, Don Quixote. He read all
these languages in after-life with about the same facility. I never
but once heard him attempt to speak any of them, and that was when
some of the courtiers of Charles X. came to Abbotsford, soon after
that unfortunate prince took up his residence for the second time at
Holyrood-house. Finding that on