Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/279

Rh evening, and the preparations for them only a few hours, I had enough time to read, and, as I thought, to study. To please my father, I diligently repeated the smaller work of Hopp, and could stand an examination in it forwards and backwards, by which means I made myself complete master of the chief contents of the institutes. But a restless eagerness for knowledge urged me farther: I lighted upon the history of ancient literature, and from that fell into an encyclopædism, in which I hastily read Gessner's "Isagoge" and Morhov's "Polyhistor," and thus gained a general notion of how many strange things might have happened in learning and life. By this persevering and rapid industry, continued day and night, I became more confused than instructed; but I lost myself in a still greater labyrinth when I found Bayle in my father's library, and plunged deeply into this work. But a leading conviction, which was continually revived within me, was that of the importance of the ancient tongues; since from amidst this literary hurly-burly, thus much continually forced itself upon me, that in them were preserved all the models of oratory, and at the same time everything else of worth that the world has ever possessed. Hebrew, together with Biblical studies, had retired into the background, and Greek likewise, since my acquaintance with it did not extend beyond the New Testament. I therefore the more zealously kept to Latin, the masterpieces in which lie nearer to us, and which, besides its splendid original productions, offers us the other wealth of all ages in translations, and the works of the greatest scholars. I consequently read much in this language, with great ease, and was bold enough to believe I understood the authors, because I missed nothing of the literal sense. Indeed, I was very indignant when I heard that Grotius had insolently declared, "he did not read Terence as boys do." Happy narrow-minded-