Page:Petrach, the first modern scholar and man of letters.djvu/257

 hundred obscure sources all the remains of Roman literature that were obtainable in his day, and had made himself familiar with them. Greek literature, unfortunately, it was impossible for him to know. In spite of a lifelong desire, and at least one determined effort, he was unable to acquire even a rudimentary knowledge of the Greek language. He read in barren Latin translations more or less of Plato and Aristotle and Homer, but this could afford him nothing like an adequate conception of the power and beauty of the literature as a whole. It is a sad pity that he was so handicapped, for if the first Humanist had known and appreciated Homer and Plato and Sophocles, as he did Cicero and Virgil and Seneca and Livy, all our modern culture would be something far finer. We should be simpler and clearer in our conceptions, and better developed æsthetically. If Hellenic influences have never played their due part in our education, if the proportion between the Greek and the Roman elements has been unnatural, this is owing mainly to the insufficient opportunities of Petrarch and his earliest disciples.