Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers, to which is added Porsoniana:
“For all modern Greek and Latin poetry he had the profoundest contempt. When Herbert published the Musae Etonenses, Porson said, after looking over one of the volumes, ‘Here is trash, fit only to be put behind the fire.’
His favourite authors in Greek (as, I believe, everybody knows) were the tragedians and Aristophanes; he had them almost by heart.
He confessed to me and the present Bishop of Durham (Maltby), that he knew comparatively little of Thucydides that, when he read him, he was obliged to mark with a pencil, in almost every page, passages which he did not understand.
He dabbled a good deal in Galen.
He cared less about Lucian than, considering the subjects of that writer, you might suppose; the fact was, he did not relish such late Greek.”
