Innovate he must.

He chose the least indecorous sphere at hand for innovation; and felt therewith most innocently happy.

Without being precisely conscious of it, he had discovered a way of adhering to time-honored precedent while following the general impulse to discard precedent.

He threw Petrarch overboard, but he took on Pindar for his pilot.

'When I see anything eminently beautiful, or hear something, or taste something that is excellent, I say: It is Greek Poetry.' In this self-revealing sentence lies the ruling instinct of the man as scholar.