Ariosto, Boiardo, and Pulci. When he first went to London in 1799, "his
great anxiety," reports Lockhart, "was to examine the antiquities of the
Tower and Westminster Abbey, and to make some researches among the MSS.
of the British Museum." From Oxford, which he visited in 1803, he
brought away only "a grand but indistinct picture of towers and chapels
and oriels and vaulted halls", having met there a reception which, as he
modestly acknowledges, "was more than such a truant to the classic page
as myself was entitled to expect at the source of classic learning."
Finally, in his last illness, when sent to Rome to recover from the
effects of a paralytic stroke, his ruling passion was strong in death.
He examined with eagerness the remains of the mediaeval city, but
appeared quite indifferent to that older Rome which speaks to the
classical student. It will be remembered that just the contrary of this
was true of Addison, when he was in Italy a century before.[6] Scott was
at no pains to deny or to justify the one-sidedness of his culture. But
when Erskine remonstrated with him for rambling on

"through brake and maze
With harpers rude, of barbarous days,"

and urged him to compose a regular epic on classical lines, he
good-naturedly but resolutely put aside the advice.

"Nay, Erskine, nay--On the wild hill
Let the wild heath-bell[7] flourish still . . . .
Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,
Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale!" [8]

Scott's letters to Erskine, Ellis, Leyden, Ritson, Miss Seward, and other
literary correspondents are filled with discussions of antiquarian