Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/155

Rh will be found among his books in the original. But in his college days the modern languages were less studied than they are now, and being a man of his time, he was less versed in them than in the ancient tongues. Hence he collected the modern histories for the most part in translations. He was one of the comparatively small number of present day public men who liked to read Gibbon. This most profound of the historians Mr. Scott knew familiarly and quoted liberally. Gibbon's account of the early church particularly struck his fancy, since, as everybody understands, the great Editor inclined to take the same views of theology as the philosophical historian did.

His familiarity with the classics was revealed by everything he wrote. He could quote long passages from Vergil in the original and had dozens of lines from Catullus at his tongue's end. Not long before he passed away, Mr. Scott began to renew his acquaintance with Ovid whom he had read at college but somewhat neglected since. It was interesting to see the skill with which he rendered the Metamorphoses into English and the ease with which he construed lines that have puzzled the commentators. He may not always have been correct but he never failed to have an opinion and a well grounded one at that. Mr. Scott's extraordinarily vigorous English style was founded oh his Latin reading. He wrote with all the precision of the classical authors and often with more than their incisiveness. His Latin taught him to shun that diffusive wordiness which is the bane of so much common writing and gave him the model for those condensed and forceful sentences which never failed to go straight to the mark, and pierce it when they struck. We may thank Mr. Scott's classical tastes for a great deal of the power over Oregon politics which he wielded up to the day of his death. Naturally, mere study of the classics would not have accomplished anything if his mind had not been of a caliber to benefit by them, but in his case the instrument was admirably adapted to its use and needed nothing but sharpening. This the Greek and Latin authors gave it as nothing else could have done.