Indeed, by a recent authority of great eminence[604] Boccaccio has been

treated as a coryphæus and representative of “the [Sidenote: _His work

on Dante._] critics of the middle ages.” I have endeavoured, in these

chapters, to show that the critics of the middle ages are, except in the

most remote and shadowy function, almost a non-existent body. And it

seems to me that Boccaccio’s views on criticism, though most worthy of

remark, are the very head and front of that Renaissance side of him

which is so undeniable. In the passage which Mr Courthope cites from the

_Life of Dante_, where Boccaccio says that Theology and poetry are

almost one, that “Theology is God’s poetry,” that it is a kind of poetic

invention when Christ is spoken of at one time as a lion, at the other

as a lamb, that the words of the Saviour in the Gospel are merely or

mainly allegory, that “Poetry is Theology and Theology poetry,” and that

Aristotle said nearly as much[605]—when he writes in this way he is

speaking very much less the mind of the Middle Ages than the mind which

agitated the mass of his countrymen, the Italian critics, from Daniello

onwards in the sixteenth century. But it is quite certain that in

writing this he is writing with a conception of criticism quite alien

from that which we are now handling. He may quote Aristotle, but he is

speaking in the manner of Plato. It is poetry in the abstract with which

he is dealing, not the literary value of poetry according to its

expression in form, of no matter what ideal in essence. And it will be

found, I think, that a careful study of his commentary on Dante, the

most important thing of the kind that we possess by one considerable man

of letters in the Middle Ages upon another, entirely bears this out.

Footnote 604:

My friend, Mr W. J. Courthope, in the third chapter of his _Life of

Pope_ (Pope’s _Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, v. 50: London, 1889.)

Footnote 605:

Had he known Maximus Tyrius (_v. supra_, p. 117), he might almost have

borrowed the very words of that writer. But in the astonishingly long

list of Boccaccio’s classical authorities Maximus does not, I think,

occur.

As for the _Life_ (or, as he himself seems to call it in the first

lecture of the _Commentary_, the “Little Treatise”[606]) on Dante, it is

couched in so extremely rhetorical a style, with constant bursts of

apostrophe and _epiphonema_, that there may seem to be a sort [Sidenote:

_The_ Trattatello.] of warning on it from the first: “Criticism not to

be expected.” As a matter of fact, however, Boccaccio does give us some

of what, as we shall see more fully in a moment, he thought to be

criticism, and of what not a few persons seem still to think the best

criticism. For he has an elaborate digression on Poetry and Poets in the

abstract, with a particular parallel distinction (referred to above)

between poetry and theology. But he goes no farther, and the heading

“Qualità e diffetti di Dante” is entirely occupied with moral

characteristics. In the _Comento_ itself, however, it might well seem to

be a case of Now or Never. Here was a literary lectureship expressly

instituted for the treatment of the greatest man of letters of the city,

the country, and (as it happened) the world, at the time and for long

before and after. Here was an exceedingly learned lecturer, with plenty

of mother-wit to keep his learning alive, with a distinct fellow-feeling

of creation further to animate both, and with the sincerest and

heartiest goodwill to complete his competence. He spares no trouble, but

goes to his work with scholastic minuteness, expending some three score

lectures and some nine hundred pages on seventeen cantos only out of the

hundred of the _Commedia_. Unfortunately neither his models nor his

tastes seem to incline [Sidenote: _The_ Comento.] him in the way where

we would so fain see him go. He has read Servius and all (or at least

many of) the rhetoricians and scholastic philosophers, and he tells us

with gusto what are the causes, formal, efficient, material, and final,

of the book, how its form is “poetic, fictive, descriptive, digressive,

and transitive,” and how the efficient cause is “that very same author,

Dante Alighieri, of whom we will speak more extensively by-and-by.” He

has also read Fulgentius:[607] and before very long he gives us a

capital specimen of derivation, in the manner of that ingenious author,

by telling us that “Avernus” is from _a_, which is without, and

_vernus_, which is joy. He has at his command all that extraordinary

supply of mythological and miscellaneous classical learning which, as we

shall see immediately, enabled him to write his _Genealogy_: and he

never comes to the name of an ancient writer or of a mythological

personage without giving a full and particular account thereof. No

details are too obvious or too minute for him, even apart from the

allegorical interpretation, in which, as any scholar of Fabius

Planciades, and indeed any mediæval writer of the fourteenth century,

was bound to do, he expatiates delightedly. He vouches the information

that Dante called the forest _selvaggia_ “because he wished to denote

that there was not in it any human habitation, and that as a consequence

it was horrible;” _aspera_, “in order to demonstrate the quality of the

trees and shrubs of the same, which would be old, with long straggling

branches en woven and interpleached among themselves, and likewise full

of blackthorns, and brambles, and dry stubs, growing without any order,

and stretching hither and thither—whereby it was a rough thing and a

dangerous to go through,” &c. He is copious in moral _excursus_ on the

impropriety of Florentine dress, on the sin of Luxury, on the obvious

inconvenience and hardship of the fact that while men are allowed to try

horses, asses, oxen, dogs, clothing, casks, pitchers before they buy

them, they have to take their wives on trust and without trial. But on

literary criticism we come not seldom, but never, beyond the beggarly

elements of verbal interpretation, where Boccaccio is just as happy with

_Pape Satan_ as with _Galeotto fu il libro_, or rather more so, while he

is much happier with Penthesilea or Pasiphae than with either. It is no

doubt unfair to try Master John Bochas with the things that make us

“nearly wild” (as Cowper made Miss Marianne Dashwood,[608] and does

_not_ often make us), but still the Galeotto passage is very tempting.

Lancelot, we learn, was one of whom the French romances tell many

beautiful and laudable things (things which he tells us, in confidence,

he himself believes to be set forth rather to please than according to

the truth), and the said Lancelot was _ferventissimamente_ enamoured of

Guinevere. Then he points out that the line which follows (_Soli

eravamo_, &c.), and the previous mention of the book, indicate three

things—reading about love, solitude, and freedom from suspicion—which

are very powerful to induce a man and a woman to adoperate dishonestly.

And so he proceeds, expounding or construing the whole ineffable

passage, word for word, with a solemn and indiscriminate enjoyment—the

trembling at the kiss, the fact that Galehault was a kind of giant,

great and big, down to _Quel giorno_, his remark on which, though not

scientifically inaccurate, savours rather of the _Decameron_ than of the

_Commedia_ itself. But in the whole comment there is nothing (or, what

is worse than nothing, a single banal _ottimamente descrive_) for any

part whatsoever of the passion, the poetry, the mysterious magnificence

of the expression. The passage is to Boccaccio a good _ecphrasis_, a

capital _compte rendu_ of an interesting situation—that is all.

Footnote 606:

_Trattatello._ I use the cheap and convenient ed. of the two books

published by Le Monnier. (Florence, 1863; latest ed. 1895, 2 vols.)

Footnote 607:

He quotes him early, ed. cit., i. 94 (see note opposite).

Footnote 608:

“To hear those beautiful lines, which have frequently almost driven me

wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful

indifference!”

“... but you _would_ give him Cowper.”

“Nay, mamma, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!”—_Sense and

Sensibility_, chap. iii.

[Sidenote: The _De Genealogia Deorum_.]

Nor will this be less borne out by an examination of Boccaccio’s

principal “place” of criticism, which will be, perhaps somewhat

unexpectedly, found in the two last books, the fourteenth and fifteenth,

of that singular monument of learning, the _De Genealogia Deorum_.[609]

After laboriously searching out all the mythological stories of

antiquity within his reach, and co-ordinating them into a regular family

history, from Demogorgon, through Erebus and his twenty-one sons and

daughters by Night, to Alexander and Scipio (whom, however, he declines,

as a strict genealogist, to admit as sons of Jove), Boccaccio, at the

beginning of his fourteenth book, takes up the cudgels for Poetry

against her enemies. The style is decidedly rhetorical, and faint

remembrances of Clodius as an accuser (or, to be less pedantic and less

hackneyed, of Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of incontinence) may

possibly occur, as we find the author of the _Decameron_ indignantly

denouncing those who sneer at poets and learned men, _meretriculis

gannientes_, and holding cups of foaming wine in their hands. But he is

perfectly serious: if a man has not proved his seriousness by writing a

Latin genealogy of the gods in four hundred large and closely printed

folio pages, what is Proof? There was always, he says, a quarrel between

Learning and Licentiousness. Even some graver folk sneer at, or find

fault with, poetry. Lawyers do so: and the lawyers are properly rebuked

and bid to look at the example of Cicero. Monks do: and there is

expostulation likewise with them. But he will attack the question in

form. Poetry is a noble and useful thing. Its meaning, its antiquity,

its origin are discussed. There is nothing wrong or harmful in a “fable”

as such; but in all its kinds it can be made of positive utility. Poets

do not retire into solitude out of any misanthropy or wrong motive, but

simply for the sake of meditation: and they have often been the friends

of most respectable people—Ennius of the Scipios, Virgil of Augustus,

Dante of King Frederick and Can de la Scala, Francis Petrarch of the

Emperor Charles, of King John of France, of King Robert of Jerusalem and

Sicily, and of any number of Popes.

Footnote 609:

There is said, to the discredit of modernity, to be no modern edition

of this most remarkable and interesting book. Of the three folio

issues (1494 and later) which are in the library of the University of

Edinburgh, I have used that of Hervagius (Basle, 1532.)

But, some say, poetry is obscure. It is certainly written for the

learned and people of wit, not for the common herd; but it is none the

worse for that. It is entirely false that poets are liars: poetry and

lying are two quite different things (Virgil is here particularly

cleared in the matter of Dido). It is foolish to condemn what you do not

understand: and this is generally done by those who abuse poetry. And it

is intolerable that men should speak against Homer, Hesiod, Virgil,

Horace, Juvenal, when they have hardly read them. The “seduction” of

Poetry is all nonsense: and the accusation that poetry is the ape of

philosophy, greater nonsense still. It would be better to call poets the

apes of Nature.[610]

Footnote 610:

Mr Courthope must, I should think, have overlooked this passage when

he denied (_loc. cit._) that Boccaccio and other mediæval writers held

the doctrine that poetry should follow Nature.

He does not fear to contest the authority of Jerome when he said that

verses were _Dæmonum cibus_, of Plato himself, and of Boethius when he

called the Muses “scenic meretricules.” He grapples with the two first

at great length, and points out that Boethius was thinking chiefly of

the naughty theatre. An allocution to the King (Hugh of Cyprus and

Jerusalem), to whom the whole treatise is dedicated, and a milder

deprecation to the enemies of poetry, conclude this book.

The Fifteenth at first seems to launch out into still deeper waters. You

must not insist too much on _use_. What is the use of the beard? Yet men

of a certain age are ashamed to be beardless. And as for the duration of

work, that is in the hand of God. But this turns to a mere excuse of his

own actual book. His work has been done as well as he can do it, both

for matter and for style. He refers to divers living or recent authors,

Dante and Petrarch among them, of whom he gives little descriptions that

raise, but hardly satisfy, our curiosity to see whether he will really

criticise. Dante was _peritissimus circa poeticam_, and what he was is

shown by his _inclytum opus_, “which he wrote with wonderful art, under

the title of a Comedy, in rhyme of the Florentine idiom, and in which he

certainly showed himself not a mythologer but rather a catholic and

divine Theologian. And while he is known to almost all the world, I know

not whether the fame of his name has come to your latitude.” Petrarch is

dealt with much more fully. “Even that remote corner of the earth

England knows him as a principal poet,”[611] and here Boccaccio no

longer _nescit utrum_, but _haud dubitat quin_, his fame has reached

Cyprus. His “divine” _Africa_, his Bucolics, his Epistles in verse and

prose, and a good many other things, are noticed.

Footnote 611:

By favour of one Geoffrey Chaucer?

Next he recurs to antiquity, mentioning Homer especially, and defending

his own practice of mixing Greek words with Latin by the examples of

Cicero, Macrobius, Apuleius, and Ausonius. He has a good deal to say

(entirely in a Renaissance spirit) on the importance of the Greeks and

of Greek; defends, against clerical prejudice, his description of the

heathen poets as the theologians of mythology, argues once more that

Dante may be called a theologian proper, contends at great length that

there is no harm in the study of heathen matters by Christians, and,

after purging himself of other objections, concludes.

A most interesting document; indeed a document upon which, with

reference both to its general tenor and to individual expressions (of

which it has been possible to mention but one or two here), it would be

pleasant to spend much more time. But a document which, for our present

purpose and plan, seems to establish in the main two things, both of

them rather negative than positive. The first is that Boccaccio can

hardly be appealed to either as helping Dantes Aligerus to remove the

reproach from mediæval criticism, in the sense in which we here

understand it, or even as a representative proper of mediæval criticism

at all—that his criticism, such as it is, is of a purely Renaissance

type, and results, not from the application of mediæval ideas to ancient

matter, but from the application of resuscitated ancient ideas to matter

which, though not wholly, is preferably chosen from ancient material. It

is not to be forgotten that even in that creative work which has been

referred to above, Boccaccio has always preferred the _matière de Rome_,

the classical side of the mediæval storehouse. From this he has drawn

the _Teseide_, from this the _Filostrato_, and if in the _Filocopo_ he

has made a more purely mediæval choice, let it be remembered that

_Floire et Blanche-fleur_, his original, is of all Romances the most

like a Byzantine novel, and has even been thought to have been directly

inspired by one.

Secondly, when we examine the character of this criticism of his in

detail, we find it differing from Dante’s in this, that while Dante

undoubtedly does consider the general and abstract points of poetry and

of literature, Boccaccio practically considers nothing else. His

descriptions of Dante himself and of Petrarch would suffice to prove

this: but, in fact, it is proved by every page, every paragraph, every

sentence, almost every word. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth

books of the _Genealogy_ Boccaccio is really pleading _pro domo sua_—for

the _status_ and craft of the story-teller generally, not of the poet as

such. And further, he is pleading for free trade in the story, not for

any special process of art or craft in its manufacture. He had possibly,

if not certainly, read the _De Vulgari_, but, as he read it, it must

have been in the first part of the first book only that he found much

that was germane to his own tastes and principles. If we could but have

had from himself such an _examen_ of the _Decameron_ as Corneille and,

still more, Dryden have given of their work! But the time simply did not

admit of any such thing: and though Boccaccio was very much in advance

of his time in some ways, these ways were not of the some.

Nor does the Fifteenth Century proper necessitate any revision of the

general doctrine of this chapter. There are here and there blind

stirrings of the Renaissance spirit; but, once more, they do not concern

us. There is everywhere the dogged or unconscious adherence to the

uncritical promiscuousness of the past; and that has been sufficiently

commented upon. If it be, as perhaps it is, desirable to take a single

example, and deal with it as we have dealt with others, there can hardly

be a better than Gavin Douglas, who at the very end of the period shows,

side by side with Renaissance tendency (which certainly exists, though

to me it does not seem so great as it has seemed to some), the strongest

symptoms of persistent mediævalism.

Nobody can deny that the good Bishop of Dunkeld (uneasiest to him of

bishop-stools!) not only would have liked to be a [Sidenote: _Gavin

Douglas._] critic, but shows both his critical and his Renaissance sides

in the well-known and violent onslaught on poor Caxton in the first of

the very agreeable Prologues to his own translation of the _Æneid_. In

fact, those to whom the woman who killed Abimelech with a stone or slate

is the patron saint of criticism, must regard him as a very considerable

critic. How Caxton’s work and Virgil’s are “no more like than the Devil

and Saint Austin”; how the author “shamefully perverted” the story; how

the critic read it “with harms at his heart” that such a book “without

sentence or engine” should be entitled after so divine a bard; how such

a wight never knew three words of what Virgil meant; how he, Gavin, is

“constrained to flyte,”—all this is extremely familiar. We seem to hear

the very voice of the modern “jacket-duster,” of the man who finds his

pet task anticipated, his pet subject trespassed upon, and is determined

to make the varlet pay for it. Douglas, to be sure, is not quite in the

worst case of this class of critic. He can render some reasons, neither

garbled nor forged, for his censure. He has (and this is a sign that

criticism was stirring) lost taste for, lost even comprehension of, the

full, guileless, innocent, mediæval licence of suppression, suggestion,

and digression. He protests (quite truly) that Neptune did not join with

Æolus in causing the storm that endangered Æneas, but on the contrary

stilled that storm. He is indignant at the extension given to the true

romantic part of the poem, the Tragedy of Carthage in the Fourth Book,

and only less indignant at the suppression of the “lusty games” and

plays palustral in the Fifth. Most of all does he tell us of that

aggravation of the critical misuse of allegory which was to be one of

the main Renaissance notes. The “hidden meaning” of poetry is the great

thing for Douglas, and he has much to say about it before he “turns

again” on Caxton. Will it be believed that Caxton wrote "Touyr for

Tiber"! Alas! alas!

“For Touyr divides Greece from Hungarie,

And Tiber is chief fluide of Italy.”

But all this, and a great deal more like it, as the setting up of the

old Rhetoric-Poetic theory of a poem as the story of a perfectly noble

character, and the rebuke even to Chaucer not merely for being too

literal, just as Caxton was too loose, but for actually saying (the more

Chaucer he!) that Æneas was _not_ a perfectly noble character but a

forsworn traitor,—all this argues no real relinquishment of the mediæval

ideal except in a special case. Douglas shows in his own work that he is

after all a chip of the old block, and not fresh hewn from a virgin

quarry.

In the Prologue to the Sixth Book he returns to the

allegorical-philosophical interpretation of Virgil, and shows himself a

hundred leagues to leeward of the critical port by urging, in Virgil’s

favour, that St Augustine is always quoting him against Paganism. Not in

the whole range of mediæval literature is that pell-mell cataloguing,

which, with more truth than reverence, has been assimilated to that of

the “Groves of Blarney,” better shown than in the _Palice of Honour_.

Solomon, “the well of sapience,” Aristotle, “fulfillit of prudence,”

“Salust, Seneca, and Titus Livius” jostle Pythagoras and Porphyry,

Parmenides and “Melysses,” “Sidrach, Secundus, and Solenius,”

“Empedocles, _Neptanabus_, and Hermes,” “wise Josephus and facund

Cicero,” with other miraculous couples and trinities. The procession of

the Court of Venus huddles classical, Biblical, and mediæval in the

same, but a more pardonable, fashion; and when the Muses intervene to

save the peccant poet, Dictys and Dares still march unblushingly with

Homer and Virgil. “Plautus, Poggius, and Persius” must have looked only

less oddly, the first and last at the second, than “Esop, Cato, and

Allane” (Alanus de Insulis of the _Anti-Claudianus_ and the _De planetu

Naturæ_) each at other. Such a capital phrase as “the mixt and subtle

Martial,” the valuable naming of contemporary poets that follows, and

other things, may much more than atone for, but cannot hide, the

higgledy-piggledy character of the cataloguing, or the odd repetition of

the same thing with a difference at the end of the Second Part, and the

yet further development in the Third. The note of criticism is

discrimination—the note of the Middle Age, as of this, almost its latest

exponent, save in the few places where he has chipped his shell, is the

indiscriminate.

It can scarcely be necessary, though it might not be uninteresting, to

take any more examples. We need not [Sidenote: _Further examples

unnecessary._] wander in Hercynian forests with those rules of latest

Middle High German poetry, which have all the formality of the French

“Arts” and none of the charm of their products. The Marquis of

Santillana and his comrades, in castle or convent of Spain, concern

national rather than general history, history of literature rather than

history of criticism; and they, like others, will best be glanced at

retrospectively in the Renaissance section. From the French

_rhétoriqueur_ period we might pick out much that would illustrate, over

and over again, what has been sufficiently illustrated already, little

that would give us anything new, nothing or next to nothing that would

be at once new and important.[612] As will be shown, a little more in

detail, in the Interchapter which follows, the service which the Middle

Ages rendered to Criticism was indeed inestimable; but it was by way of

provision of fresh material, not by way of examination, either of that

material or of anything older.

Footnote 612:

Considerations of something the same kind may partly excuse a further

omission—which I know will be deplored by some, and which I daresay

will be denounced by others—that of any notice of rhetorical and

metrical writings in the Celtic and Scandinavian languages. I shall

very frankly acknowledge that there is another reason for this

omission. I have the greatest dislike to writing about anything at

second-hand; and while I have as yet had time to acquire only a slight

knowledge of Icelandic, I do not know anything at all of the Celtic

languages. With the help of Fors Fortuna, I may be yet able to make

these defects in some measure good; but I do not think it necessary to

delay the present volume indefinitely in order to do so. “There is no

staying,” as Johnson says, “for the concurrence of all conveniences.

We will do as well as we can.” So far as I have been able to inform

myself, the rhetorical writing of Icelandic is not extensive or

important, even though some may have come from the interesting hand of

Snorri Sturluson. The early Irish metrical treatises are, no doubt, of

great importance for the history of metre. But being purely

particularist, and out of the general current of European literature,

their critical importance can hardly be regarded as of the highest

kind. And Welsh, while anything of the sort in it must be much later,

is necessarily in the same position.

INTERCHAPTER III.

§ I. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MEDIÆVAL PERIOD TO LITERARY CRITICISM.

§ II. THE POSITION, ACTUAL AND POSSIBLE, OF LITERARY CRITICISM AT THE

RENAISSANCE.

I.

In perhaps no part of a work of the present kind is it more important

than it is here to distinguish between the different kinds of value, for

the special purpose, of the period in question. If you judge this by its

positive contributions to the standard literature of literary criticism,

it has absolutely nothing of consequence to advance but the _De Vulgari

Eloquio_. There is not very much else at all; and what there is consists

mainly of agreeable babblings, of schoolbooks, and of incidental

utterances, which at best can be taken as a kind of _semeiotic_.

Yet, in the _De Vulgari_ itself, the Middle Ages lodged such a

diploma-piece as has been scarcely half-a-dozen times elsewhere seen in

the history of the world. And, what is still more important, their

contributions to productive literature were such that they take, from

the catholic point of view, equal rank as a whole with those of

classical and those of modern times, while, for the special critical

purpose, they are almost more valuable than either. Enforced and

necessary ignorance of what the Middle Ages had to teach accounts in

almost every case for whatever shortcomings we find in the Classics;

wilful or careless ignoring of this accounts for most of the

shortcomings of the moderns; recourse to it accounts for most of the

merits, such as they are, of the criticism of the nineteenth century.

The critic who knows his Middle Ages, knowing also ancient and modern

literature, and he alone, has the keys of the criticism of the world.

Of the excellent and astonishing accomplishment of the _De Vulgari

Eloquio_ enough has been said already, and it will not require extensive

surveys to show the small accomplishment in criticism of the Middle Ages

elsewhere. It is almost enough to consider, as we have done, the work of

Chaucer, their next man to Dante in genius[613] as a known personality.

Chaucer had all or almost all the necessary qualifications of a critic—a

real knowledge of literature, a distinctly satirical humour, a large

tolerance, a touch, decided but not too frequent, of enthusiasm, an

interest in a very wide range of different subjects and forms. And he is

actually a critic in embryo, and more, throughout his work. The

_Boethius_ and the _Astrolabe_, the _Rose_ and the _Troilus_, half the

_Canterbury Tales_, more than half the minor works, are saturated with

literature—could have come from no author but one who was saturated with

literature. There is uncrystallised criticism on every page; there is

even some crystallised criticism in the _Sir Thopas_, and perhaps

elsewhere. But almost always “it is not so expressed,” and for once

Shylock is justified of his refusal to find it. In Chaucer, the strange

mediæval levelling of authors, not merely in respect of trustworthiness,

but in respect of positive value, continues. Macrobius is as Cicero;

Dares is much more than Homer. If he gives an opinion, it is a moral

one. He puts the rejection of alliteration on a mere local ground; and

they will not even let us believe that he laughed at French of

Stratford-atte-Bowe from any literary point of view.

Footnote 613:

If, as is still possible, and most probably can never be disproved,

Walter Map fashioned the perfect Arthur stories, by dint of combining

the Lancelot-Guinevere romance and the Graal Legend, composed the _De

Nugis_, and wrote an appreciable quantity of the Goliardic poems, he

will run Chaucer hard in all but the claims impossible to his time.

But the “if” is a great if.

Yet while the persistent study of Rhetoric is of great importance, as

exhibiting the keeping up of a critical treatment—such as it is—of

literature, the growth of the vernacular Poetics is of much more, as

developing a side of formal criticism which was destined to become of

more and more importance as time went on, and to have a connection with,

and an influence upon, criticism not merely formal, to which there is no

parallel in ancient times. So far as we have any trustworthy evidence,

Greek prosody was born like Pallas—full-grown and fully armed. It has no

known period of infancy or pupilage: the poets may devise—may even give

their names to—ingenious combinations, but all these combinations obey

one prearranged system. If the case of Latin is not quite the same, the

periods where it is most significantly different happen to be periods

when criticism had either not come into being or had abdicated its

functions. A _De Prosodia Latina_, by Nævius must have been as

interesting as Gascoigne’s _Notes of Instruction_, and might have been

as interesting as the _De Vulgari Eloquio_. A treatise on _Latin

Rhythms_ by Prudentius might, in its different way, have had an interest

which is difficult to parallel by anything modern in actual existence.

The Middle Ages, however, were constrained to grapple with their problem

as it arose. They had, as we have seen, been constant to _Artes Poeticæ_

dealing with Latin: at last they had begun to face the more difficult

question, how to construct and regulate their own growing vernacular

prosody. No doubt, in these latter attempts, the mechanical

prescriptions of the Provençal and French _Arts_ appear more frequently

than the philosophical-scientific consideration of poetical capacities

visible in the _De Vulgari_; but there is no reasonable fault to find

with this. Nor can it be reasonably contested that the extreme variety,

licence, and (if any one likes the word) irregularity of the greater

modern prosodies have given wider range to individual poetical

development than was allowed by the prosodies of the ancients. Here, as

elsewhere, uniformity rather than variety was probably the aim, and is

certainly the achievement, of the Classics. For one individual and all

but inimitable thing, like the Æschylean modulation of the chorus (so

different from the grave but less throbbing music of Sophocles, and from

the Euripidean tune) or like the Lucretian Hexameter, we find a dozen

resemblances; and, with elaborate combinations like the Alcaic or

Sapphic, the result is, as in the parallel case of our Spenserian, or

the Jonson-Herbert-_In Memoriam_ quatrain with enclosed rhyme, mainly

uniform. But the greater or less licence of equivalent substitution in

the staple English lines—the octosyllable and decasyllable, for

instance—admits of the impression of a singular personal stamp, and,

unless rejected by the mistake of the individual or the moment, has

rarely failed to produce it.

Still one returns, and must necessarily return, to the admission that,

to justify the claims here put forward as to the critical importance of

the Middle Ages, one cannot go to their own explicit and deliberate

exercises in criticism. To apply Johnson’s not quite inspired remark on

Fielding and Richardson, they neither did, nor in all probability could,

explain the mechanism of the timepiece. But they told the time of day

with unerring accuracy; and their records of it have been neglected, and

will be neglected by succeeding ages, only at the peril—which has

already sometimes led to actual shipwreck—of miscalculating the whole

literary reckoning. When the critics of the Renaissance, followed more

or less blindly by those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

either contumeliously or in the sheer generous mistake of desire for

improvement, turned their backs, as far as they could, on the products

of Mediæval literature, they not merely shut themselves out from a vast

volume of delight, they not only mistook disastrously the value of many

individuals, but they recklessly deprived themselves once more—and with

far less excuse and greater loss than had resulted from the similar

refusal of the later Greeks—of an inestimable opportunity for

Comparison. And so they once more barred for themselves the one gate and

highway to really universal criticism of literature.

For the great, the immense, value of the literature of the Middle Ages

consists in its freshness and independence, and the consequent fashion

in which new literary bents and faculties of the human mind were

manifested. The Greeks had, at any rate so far as we know, neither the

advantage nor the disadvantage of any precedent literature before them;

but their spirit of theory and of philosophising, while it helped to

concentrate and intensify the peculiar virtue of their product, tended

also to narrow and stereotype their range. Latin suffered from the

double drawback of system and model. And modern literature itself has

not, with all its achievements, been able to free itself from the

inevitable consequences of ancestry. It is a great deal too literary; it

has, in almost all cases, the obsession of the library, and the printed

book, upon it. It is deliberate, preoccupied, interested; it has all

sorts of cants, prejudices of education or emancipation, purposes,

reminiscences, unacknowledged and often unconscious trammels and

twitches. Its fountains are very rarely of living water; they are fed

from carefully constructed and collected reservoirs, if not by positive

distillation from the great sea of older literature.

Now, with all their slavish docility, all their writing in schools and

groups and batches, all their adoption of tags and texts, the Middle

Ages and their literature present a spectacle which is exactly the

reverse of this. The authors have the appearance of following; they are

really straying, each at the dictation of his own tastes and instincts

only. You may as well try to teach a cat to do anything in any but her

own way as a mediæval writer. When he copies a Romance, he will change

the names if he does nothing else: but probably he will do much else,

writing it in sixains if his model is in couplets, in decasyllabics if

his original is octosyllabic, and so forth. Nothing shall induce him to

keep historical distinctions or philosophical differences. His hero[614]

shall be as beautiful as “Paris of Troy, _or_ Absalom, _or_ Partenopex”;

his story of Alexander shall blend sober history and the wildest

fiction, with a coolness which is only not reckless because it does not

see anything to reck. Formal restrictions of the minor kind, prosodic

and other, he will observe devoutly, because they come naturally to him

and are of his own devising; but any restrictions of literary theory he

utterly ignores. His Muse will wear no stays, though she does not

disdain ornaments.

Footnote 614:

As is actually the case with Floire or Florice, the lover of

Blanchefleur.

The reward of this obedience to Nature was signal. In the first place

the Middle Ages created, or practically created, the STORY. Of course

there were stories before; of course the _Odyssey_ would be the best

story in the world if, of the main elements of Romance—Passion and

Mystery—one were a little more developed, and is almost the best story

in the world as it is. Of course there are capital _fabliaux_ in

Herodotus, fine apologues in Plato, good things of other kinds

elsewhere. But the ancients not only hampered themselves by almost

always telling their longer stories in verse, but seldom knew how to

manage them in verse or prose. The _Iliad_ is such a bad story that it

has tempted the profanity of those who would make it not one but a dozen

stories; the _Æneid_ is a story, dull _à dormir debout_ as such, with

some good rambling and fighting, a great descent to Hades, a capital

boxing-match, not a bad regatta, and a famous but borrowed episode of

passion. Out of Herodotus, till we come to the very verge of the

classical period with Apuleius and Lucian, it is almost impossible to

find a Greek, quite impossible to find a Roman, who knows how to tell a

story at all. The exquisite substance of mythology receives no due

honour from the story-teller as such. Read Ovid (who had as much of the

story-telling spirit in him as any ancient except Herodotus), and then

turn to what is often the mere doggerel and jargon of the mediæval Latin

story-tellers in prose and verse. The gift, no matter whether it came

from the East or from the West, from the North or from the South, from

the Heaven above or the earth beneath, or rose a new Aphrodite from the

Atlantic sea, is here and is not there.

Without this gift of story-telling there could not have appeared—though

it would not by itself have been enough to produce—the greater gift of

the Romance. It would be as unnecessary as it would be foolish to enter

here into the secular and truceless war as to the origin, the nature,

and so forth of this famous thing. It is sufficient to observe, once

more, that the thing is here and is not there, except almost by

accident. And the gift of the Romance—in that wide historical sense in

which it could be, and was, in the Middle Ages applied to almost every

manner of subject—was a gift to literature so inestimable that perhaps

no other has ever quite equalled it. At once, with that nonchalance

(they called it _nonchaloir_) in which no time has ever equalled these

Ages, they swept away the Doctrine of the Subject, with all the cants

and heresies which pullulate round its undoubtedly noble articles of

original faith. Romance was perfectly prepared to deal with any subject,

from religion to stag-hunting, from chronology to love. It depended no

doubt on the individual craftsman whether the result was good or bad;

but the method has, in the right hands, triumphed over the most

intractable materials, added charm to the most commonplace, made the

most grotesque acceptable. Could anything be thinner and more ordinary

than the subject of _Floire et Blanchefleur_? Can anything be more

charming, not merely than its most perfect outcome in _Aucassin et

Nicolette_, but even than the diffuser and less happily phrased

verse-forms? In the Arthurian Legend the success is greater still.

Romance takes a dim personality, and a handful of cacophonous

place-names, out of a suspicious compilation of pseudo-history, and

spins it, in a single lifetime, into a story the most elaborate, the

most artful, the most variedly interesting, the fullest of meaning (if

men _must_ have meaning) in the whole literary world.

Even to Dante it did not occur to subject the methods and the results of

this new and potent kind to such an examination as that which Aristotle

had partly given to the older literature. Nor, at that time and in those

circumstances, was even Dante likely to have led such an inquiry to a

good end. The Middle Ages, while consciously abandoning, almost or

altogether, the old aim at Action, had not arrived at the modern command

of Character. They worked at and by mediate things—Incident, Atmosphere,

Description, Manners, Passion—and they made all these and others

subserve a Romantic Unity of plot which, instead of being circular like

the Classical Unity, was calculated for indefinite prolongation, not

merely in straight line, but after the manner of a tree, with branches

and inarchings skyward, earthward, and horizontal. The scheme admitted

adornments of various kinds, which must have been difficult if not

impossible to reconcile with the more sober and exacting classical

model. It permitted a much greater indulgence of the resort to the

methods of other arts, especially painting, than classical literature

had, until its latest days, thought proper. It paid very little

attention to mere probability. All these points invited the comparative

critic, but they did not find him. In three respects, however, the

difference between classical and mediæval Imitation or Representation

was almost more striking than in any other, and all of these presented

the most tempting opportunities for criticism. These were the attitude

of the new literature to Religion, its attitude to the passion of Love,

and its use of an implement which, though by no means unknown to

Classical literature, had been more sparingly used therein, the method

of Allegory.

On the first point it would be very easy to enlarge beyond the widest

toleration of this treatise; it is here only necessary to point out how

delicate, and how important, are the new duties prescribed to the critic

of mediæval literature in regard to it. The “blinded Papist” view (which

makes itself felt even in some observations of such a man as Scott now

and then) may not be so common as it once was, but it is not entirely

obsolete. And it may be doubted whether that to which it has given

place—a philosophical pity, contemptuous or sympathising, for

“superstition” generally—is not even more hampering, while there can be

no doubt of the hamper imposed on the yet earlier Renaissance by the

superior contempt which it felt for mediæval childishness and ignorance.

In this literature, and in the romantic branch of it more particularly,

allowance has to be made at every moment, in every respect and

condition, for the omnipresence of an elaborate creed which nobody

doubted, with which everybody indeed was so saturated and familiar that

he could jest with it and at it, as one jests with and at a best-beloved

and best-known person and friend. It supplies subject, it affects

treatment, it colours phrase and image. Although it is very easy to

underrate the amount of actual religious feeling in antiquity, yet this

feeling, at its noblest and sincerest, was unquestionably of an entirely

different character from that of the “Ages of Faith.” Take, at their

best and strongest, the sincere fetichism of the ancient equivalent of

the “charcoal-burner,” the beautiful mythology of the poet, the sublime

mysticism of the Platonist, and the exalted if slightly Pharisaical

morality of the better Stoic—combine them with all the art of the

student of development. But you will not succeed in making anything in

the least like the creed of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with

Christ, or rather with the Virgin and the Devil, fighting perpetually

for Mansoul, with Angels and Deadly Sins under their command, with a

miracle possible at every moment, Death and Fortune ruling affairs

subject to, but not always interfered with by, the higher influences,

the Sacraments to be resorted to at will or neglected at peril,

Purgatory to be faced or anticipated and won through, Hell or Heaven for

final goal. It is almost impossible to allow too much in degree (though

it is extremely possible to allow wrongly in kind) for the influence

which this ever-present set of thoughts, beliefs, feelings, which was

absent from antiquity and present in the Middle Ages, had upon the

literary utterance of the latter. The unnatural gloom and the

half-inarticulate gaiety which have been discovered in this literature

(the latter at least as truly as the former), its occasional

irrationality, as we are pleased to call it (perhaps “irrationalism”

would be a better word), its shuddering attraction for the horrible and

loathsome, its delight in dream, its quaint and almost flighty

revulsions and contrasts—all are due to this.

Equally a commonplace, and yet still more important to, and still more

neglected by, criticism, is the attitude of the Middle Ages to

Love—which is very mainly conditioned by their attitude to Religion. The

not infrequent, though very idle, debate as to whether the Venus of

chivalry was Urania or Pandemos is, of course, best avoided by the frank

acknowledgment that she was (as indeed Her Divinity always has been)

both. The distinction from antiquity, and its influence upon literature,

do not lie in the least in this direction, or in the fact of the

mixture, but in its nature and character. With exceptions, of course,

the tone of antiquity in literature, as to love and to its objects, is

either the tone of slightly unreal philosophising, or the tone of the

naughty story, or that of half-paraded, half-confessing contempt. The

two former require no treatment here; the latter is important. Love and

its objects are, to an average serious man of letters of the Classics

when not a subject for conventional escapades, a rather regrettable

incident attached to humanity, something not in the least _spoudaion_,

something only not among the _parerga_ of life because it is almost

impossible to avoid them, something useful, not unpleasant, rather

better than a constitutional or a bath, but affording a much less worthy

employment than talking in a porch, or declaiming in a school. This is

undeniably the average attitude of the average man of letters of old.

That of his mediæval brother need hardly be described; but its causes

come within our view. You have to reckon, not merely with the cult of

the Virgin, as has often been done, but with the whole Christian

(especially mediæval-Christian) theory of morals and of sin. Why excite

yourself about actions indifferent at best, always rather below the

attention of a serious man, and at worst leading to unpleasant and

dubious consequences? Excitement becomes easy when the consequence of a

moment’s guilty indulgence may be the Inferno for eternity. Nay, from a

less purely selfish point of view there are reasons enough.

Imagination—the real Imagination of Apollonius or Philostratus, not the

mere image-furnishing faculty of the ancients generally—had “come to

town,” and brought a transformed Love with her. The sense of mystery, of

miracle, of the invisible, grafted itself upon the strongest of the

merely physical instincts, and the result pervaded literature. The

trumpery subject, proper for comedy, for epic episodes, for a carefully

kept-under seasoning to tragedy, for light trifles, became, with

Religion, the subject of nearly all poetry, and of not a little prose,

and made its influence felt in all manner of ways. It even, although the

Middle Age was confessedly not strong in character, paved the way to

that last grace, thanks to the fancy of the time for rehandling the same

subjects and persons. Trace Briseis-Briseida, a fashion-plate in Dares,

a slave-girl in Benoist, to the Cressida of Chaucer and of Henryson;

trace Guanhumara, a handsome Roman damsel of good family and nothing

more, down to the complex woman and Queen of the complete _Lancelot_,

and you will see how character-drawing arose.

But undoubtedly one of the greatest, and perhaps the most

characteristic, of the influences of the love-motive on literature, and

the development of literary methods through this and other motives, is

the mediæval use of Allegory. The thing, of course, is not new—nothing

ever is in the strict sense. It may actually have dwelt upon the banks

of Nile: it certainly did on those of Ilissus and Tiber. But the very

strong prominence of it in the Scriptures, and in ecclesiastical

writings generally, could not fail to develop it in the younger

vernaculars; and its alliance (a dangerous one no doubt, but a real and

natural) with Imagination could not long be missed. Many ingenious and

industrious hands have traced its origin from Homer to Claudian, and

from Claudian to the _Romance of the Rose_. How it thence coloured all

literature is sufficiently known. But no critic has even yet exhausted,

nor are a hundred critics likely to exhaust, the subtle and innumerable

ramifications of its literary influence and manifestations.

These things and others showed themselves no doubt mainly in the

Romance—the chief, the most characteristic, and, so far as anything is

original, the most original of the literary products of the Middle Ages.

But the Romance was far indeed from being the only new development in

literary morphology that the period had to offer. Until nearly its

closing time, no great change or advance was made in History, though the

artificial speech, which ancient exaggerations of oratory had imposed on

the historian, was to a great extent dropped, and the purview of the

writer was insensibly widened in other directions. But the immense

cultivation of the short tale—first in verse, then in prose—was a matter

closely connected, but by no means identical, with the progress of

Romance itself. And, as in another matter glanced at above, the restless

character of the time, and its constant tendency to reproduce with

slight alteration, had, here also, a great influence. In all these

alterations the arts and crafts of the future novelist and dramatist

were insensibly exercising themselves. But the drama itself demands at

least a glance. That the modern play owes nothing to the mediæval is the

foolishest of critical delusions; but it would hardly be rash to say

that the mediæval drama owes nothing to the ancient. When the horror

with which (for not such very bad reasons) the Church regarded stage

plays altogether had been a little relaxed, the natural and the

artificial dramas followed entirely different lines. Hroswitha’s work,

and _Christus Patiens_, and the rest, have absolutely nothing to do with

Miracle or Mystery or Farce, which are the romance and the short story

thrown, according to the natural histrionic bent of man, into

presentation by personages instead of by continuous narration. And the

laws which they developed, and by which they helped the greater and more

genuine modern drama to be what it was, were natural likewise, and had

nothing to do with Aristotle or with Horace, with Plato or with

Aristophanes.

This would by itself have sufficed to give the new drama a very

different nature, and therefore a most important comparative critical

influence, when contrasted with the old. The Greek drama (which the

Roman more or less slavishly copied) may have had its infancies; but we

possess it only in its riper age. Nor is it even possible that these

infancies, granting their existence, could have shown anything like the

multiform influences which betray themselves in the mediæval drama. Both

may have been originally liturgic; but there is such an infinite

difference in the complexity of the liturgies! Both may have been

preceded by epic and perhaps lyric; but in other respects the Greek

drama was certainly among the first—as the mediæval drama was nearly the

last—to take rank among literary kinds. And these differences, putting

others aside, would have accounted, in great part, for the singularly

undulating and diverse character which (in company, no doubt, with an

imperfection as great as the diversity) distinguished the new drama from

the splendid, but somewhat narrow, perfection of the old. Even in the

stock types, in the Vices and Fools of the new form, there was little or

nothing of the fixed character of the Roman—we can say little of the

Greek—"comedy of art."

And so, not merely in more kinds of literature than one, but in every

kind of literature, with hardly a single exception, the Middle Ages

provided their successors with the material for an entirely new Calculus

of Critical Variations—for a complete redressing of whatever positive

errors or mere relative gaps had existed in the older criticism, by

reason of the absence of opportunities for observation.

II

Nor can it be regarded as any great drawback to the critical position of

the Renaissance to which we are coming—and the grounds and data of which

it is desirable to survey in advance, by way of retrospect over the

contents of the present volume—that this immense provision of new

critical material was not accompanied by many, or indeed (with the one

great exception, soon to be known, but to be hardly in the least heeded)

any, accomplished exercises in critical method. For these, as has been

pointed out, were not likely to have been very good; and, good or bad,

they were nearly sure to have been neglected, or to have done positive

harm by way of mere reaction. Moreover, it was easily and perfectly open

to the Renaissance to create for itself in this department. By its

recovery—no longer in half-measure, and less than half-light, but in

full—of the literature of antiquity, it had been put in possession, not

merely of the other great masses of literary material, but of quite

admirable examples of critical method itself. Quintilian, Horace,

Cicero, the Greek and Latin Rhetoricians, were among its inherited

possessions, and it had certainly had the _Poetics_, though little

attention had for a long time been paid to them. But they were soon put

before it afresh: and, what is more, the discovery of Longinus also was

soon made. Horace, with his arbitrary rules, and his enforced, but

probably not at all unwelcome, abstinence from any dry exhibition of

material and examples, was no doubt, with all his merits, a very

dangerous mentor. But with Aristotle, Quintilian, and Longinus at hand

as preceptors of method, and practically all then existing literature,

classical and mediæval, at hand as storehouse of matter, a man of the

mid-sixteenth century had only himself to blame if he did not hit upon

at least the main and general articles of the critical Catholic Faith.

He might not anticipate the magnificent and almost unbelievable new

developments of literature which were actually to take place, in the

three western countries of Europe, within a very few years; but he would

have been none the worse critic for that. The critic is, by his

profession, not in the least bound to be a prophet. But he had every

document necessary to correct the chief shortcomings of the ancients, to

enlarge the classification of literary kinds, to rearrange the nature,

degrees, and methods of the literary assault on the senses and the soul.

It would be undue anticipation to discuss what he did instead of this;

or to give in detail the positive influences which worked upon him in

preferring his actual alternative. But it is matter of undoubted history

that he did not do what he might have done, and it is matter of

relevance here to give the reasons, as far as they are retrospective,

why he did not do it.

To a considerable extent the explanation, and if not the justification,

the excuse, of his failure lie in a well-known and constantly repeated

phenomenon which, on this particular occasion, showed itself with

unusual, indeed with elsewhere unexampled, distinctness and power. Every

age and every individual (it has been said often, but can never be said

too often), unless it or he is a mere continuation of predecessors, is

unjust to these predecessors. Examples are not necessary; the merest

moment’s thought will supply them in profusion. But there were numerous

and powerful conditions and forces which made this injustice certain to

be more violent and more lasting here than in almost any other case. No

known “dispensation” exists historically of anything like the same

length, the same intensity, the same uniformity as that which

characterises in all things, and certainly not least in matters

literary, the thousand years of the Middle Age at its widest stretch.

And this would of itself be sufficient to bring about a reaction of

corresponding violence and duration. But to this general aspect of the

whole period must be added the particular aspect of its final stage.

Except in Italy (which had never been intensely or characteristically

mediæval, and which had practically ceased to be so, in any sense not

external, soon after Dante’s time) the fifteenth century had been a

period of decadence, or of transition, or of stagnation, in almost every

European country. It is possible, though it is not probable, that minds

in which the critical spirit was reawakening might have taken a juster

view of things if the fresh examples then before them, to be compared

with Homer, Lucretius, Thucydides, had been Dante, Chaucer, Froissart.

But there was some excuse for an indignant pooh-poohing of the mere

possibility of comparison, when the persons, to be compared immediately

with the great writers of antiquity, were the dreary and bombastic

_rhétoriqueurs_ of the French, or the shambling versifiers of the

English, fifteenth century.

The Renaissance, moreover, was likely to be led wrong by that constant

delusion of matter, that fatal attraction towards the subject, which, as

this _History_ endeavours to show, has led Criticism wrong a dozen times

for once that it has led her right. The mediæval forms of literature

were identified, allied, in fact saturated, with certain beliefs and

modes of thought—scholastic philosophy, Catholic religion, aristocratic

politics. To the pure Platonist on the one hand and the thorough-going

Aristotelian on the other, to the reformer on the one hand and the

freethinker on the other, to the democrat on the one hand and the

believer in Machiavellian statecraft on the other, all these things were

partly horrible, partly idiotic, altogether to be shaken off and

refused. The natural, but in the main irrational and frivolous,

weariness of an old fashion was supplemented, inspirited, made far more

vehement and dangerous, by the deliberate and reasoned, if not

reasonable, antipathy to, and revolt against, an old faith. It has been

acknowledged already that the _Morte d’Arthur_ would have fared as badly

with Augustine as it did with Ascham; but the moral provocation would

not have been aggravated to Augustine, as it was perhaps to Ascham,

certainly to more thorough-going Protestants than he, by the distinct

connection between the Graal Legend and the doctrine of

Transubstantiation.

Accordingly, the Renaissance indulged itself, and left to its

successors, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (different as they

were from itself in many ways), an amount of “unintelligent scorn” of

the past which, if it does credit to nothing else, does credit at least

to the vigour and intensity of the time. Sometimes this scorn was vocal

and argumentative, as in Ascham himself, in Du Bellay, in others. More

often, and with a subtler mischief still, it was silent, implicit,

apparently exchanged for mere negligence. The childish things were

simply put away, despatched to the lumber-room, and left there. And it

was this negligence, rather than the scorn, which did harm to the

criticism of the periods that followed. It does not do the critic

unmitigated harm to take the wrong side now and then; he exercises

himself at his weapons, he can acquire dexterity in them, and very often

(Dryden is a notable example) he teaches himself orthodoxy in the very

act of fighting for the heterodox. But when he allows himself to ignore,

great gulfs or smaller pits open for him at once. That is what he can

never afford to do; that is the cause of all the errors which have beset

his kind, from the beginning of critical things until the present day.

One of the most excellent and admirable of librarians once replied to a

childish question of the present writer, “What do you do with the

rubbish?” “It is rather difficult, you see, to know what is rubbish

to-day; and quite impossible to know what will be rubbish to-morrow.”

And while this is more especially true of the critic, who can with

safety pass nothing, at least unexamined, as rubbish, his case is more

dangerous still than that of the librarian, who has but to arrange what

he has got in orderly fashion, and prepare plentiful shelves for what is

coming.

With the critic, as we have seen, it is different. He must always

generalise at his peril, and subject to the upset of his generalisations

by fresh discoveries. But he can at least be careful of the “without

prejudice,” and he can at least neglect nothing that is within his

reach, in his processes of observation and comparison. The earlier Greek

critics erred, as we have seen, partly because of a necessary and

guiltless deprivation. But their venial sin became more of a mortal one,

when they not only assumed that there was nothing save what they knew in

Greek, but deliberately ignored the opportunities, not of sovereign but

of considerable efficacy, which were offered them by Latin. The Latin

critics erred, partly by the same assumption, and partly by converting

the despite of Latin into a slavish and unintelligent adoration of

Greek, and not always the best Greek. The Middle Age was innocent, as

hardly indulging in criticism at all. But the Renaissance critics at

first committed, and to far too great an extent handed on, a combination

of the sins of their classical teachers. They assumed the stationary

state of literary kinds and qualities, as both Greeks and Romans had

done; they adulated classical literature, like the Romans in regard to

Greek; they despised mediæval literature, like the Greeks in relation to

Latin. And, as we shall see, they had their reward.

But I should be sorry to end not merely a chapter but a Book, not merely

a Book but a volume, without a _caveat_ against possible misconstruction

of the words “fault,” “error,” “sin,” “mischief,” “misfortune,” and the

like, which have just been used, not merely in this context, but

throughout the volume itself. There have been, I believe, persons

unfortunate enough to be dissatisfied with the moral and physical

government of the universe—persons who have sadly pronounced it “a crank

machine” in many ways. These things are not my trade. But, in matters

literary, I must plead guilty to being something of an optimist. Not

that I think all literature good—that is not precisely the conclusion to

which a thirty years’ practice of criticism brings one. In the critical

land, as in the _pays des amours_, the shore where one always loves is a

shore of which it must be said that _on ne la connaît guère_. There is,

indeed, a certain critical delight in reading even the worst books, so

long as they are positively and not merely negatively bad—but that is

another matter.

The point on which I am contented to be called a critical Pangloss is

this, that I have hardly the slightest desire to alter—if I could do so

by the greatest of all miracles, that of retro-active change—the

literary course of the world. No doubt things might have been better

still—one may there agree with the pious divine on his strawberry. But

one may also be perfectly contented with the actual result. I have

endeavoured to show that, however we may feel bound to pronounce Greek

literature incomplete in this or that department, and still more Greek

criticism imperfect in its assumptions and of questionable adequacy in

its methods, yet Greek criticism was the criticism which was wanted, to

register and to preserve the qualities which have made Greek literature

perhaps the most indispensable possession among the now goodly list of

the literatures of the world. I have endeavoured further to show that

the two conflicting strains or streams in Latin criticism correspond, in

a manner “necessary and voluptuous and right,” on the one hand, to the

ordered correctness and _venustas_ which are the notes of the Latin

spirit on its Academic side; on the other, to the under-current of

half-barbaric gorgeousness which there, as elsewhere, now and again

asserted itself—with no small benefit to the world’s letters.

And so, also, in this chapter and the Book which precedes it, I have

tried to show that the immense provision of new kinds of literature by

the Middle Age, side by side with its almost total abstinence from

criticism, was the best thing that could have happened. Nor is it

impossible that, if we are able to pursue the inquiry, we shall find

that the new differentia of the Renaissance period and that which

followed to the Romantic revival—the curious fact that almost all its

criticism went one way, while almost all its best creation went dead in

the teeth of that criticism—has again worked mainly if not wholly for

good. But this is for the future. _Si laisse ore à tant li contes à

parler!_

INDEX.

Academics, the, 66.

Acatalepsy (the Pyrrhonist doctrine of agnosticism), 64.

Accius or Attius, L. (_b._ 170 A.C., _d._ (?)), tragic poet, 326.

_Achilleid_, the, 269, 410.

Achilles Tatius (_fl. c._ 500 A.D. (?)), novelist, 119 _note_, 180.

_Acyrologia_ = “improper or inexact expression,” 338.

Addison, 83, 118.

_Ad Herennium_, 213, 217.

Adrianus (_d. c._ 192 A.D.), rhetorician, 95.

_Æneid_, the, see Virgil.

_Ærumna_, objections to, 251 and _note_, 297.

Æschylus (_b._ 525 A.C., _d._ 456), tragic poet, 22, 39, 112, 133, 155,

206, 308.

Æsopus, (? ?), fabulist, 409.

_Æthiopica_, the, 180, 181.

Afranius, L. (_fl. c._ 100 A.C.), Roman comic poet, 311.

_Africa_, Petrarch’s, 462.

African euphuism, 362.

_Against the Dogmatists_, 64-66.

_Agave_, the, of Statius, 255 and _note_.

_Agon_, the contentious or argumentative part of a speech, 101.

C (12th cent.), moralist, &c., in verse, 411, 414 _note_, 466.

Albinovanus Pedo (_fl. c._ 1 A.D.), poet, 310, 311.

Albinus, _see_ Alcuin.

Albucius, Silius (_fl._ 1st cent. A.C.), declaimer, &c., 238, 360, 432.

Alcæus (_fl. c._ 600), poet, 133 _note_.

Alcidamas (_fl._ end of 5th cent. A.C.), rhetorician, 45.

Alcuin? (or Albinus?) (_b. c._ 735, _d._ 804), theologian and

rhetorician, 375-377.

Aldhelm (_b. c._ 650 A.D., _d._ 709), poet and divine, 400 _note_.

Alexander (2nd cent. P.C.?), rhetorician, 102, 105.

Allegory, its appearances in, and influences on, Criticism, 10-12,

67-70, 300, 301, 392 _sq._

ἁμαρτία.

(1) The peculiar tragic “sin” on which Aristotle’s idea of tragedy

partly hinges, 34 _sq._

(2) “Fault” generally in the critical sense; but in this ἁμαρτία is

perhaps commoner, 44 _sq._, 168, 285, Bk. II. chap. iii. _passim_.

_Amblysia_, “blunting” or “toning down,” 338.

Ammæus (correspondent of Dion. Hal.), 129 _sq._

Amplification (_auxesis_), rhetorical term, sometimes for “raising,”

sometimes for “varying,” the subject, 164.

_Ampulla_, 271 and _note_.

_Anabasis_, the, 309, 318.

Anacreon (_c._ 560 A.C.–480), poet. Criticism of him in the Anthology,

82.

ἀναίσχυντος (“anæschyntos”), “the shameless one.” One of the artificial

distinctions of case in which the plaintiff seems impudent, 347.

ἀνασκευή, refutation, one of the subject divisions of the

Progymnasmata, 92 _sq._

_Anatomy of Melancholy, the_, 144 _note_, 194.

Anaxagoras (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C.), philosopher, criticised Homer? 11.

Anaximenes of Lampsacus (_fl._ 4th cent. A.C., with Alexander, 334),

historian and rhetorician, 17 _note_.

ἀντέγκλημα. Acceptance and vindication: “justification,” 98.

Anthology, the Greek, literary epigrams of, 81-86, 147.

—— the Latin, 344, 345.

_Anti-Claudianus_, 410, 414 _note_.

Antimachus of Colophon (or Claros) (_fl. c._ 400 A.C.), poet, 20

_note_, 85 _note_, 133, 307 _note_.

_Antimetathesis_ = “putting the reader in the place of an actor or

spectator by vivid narrative,” 157.

Antiphanes (_fl._ 4th cent. A.C.), middle comic poet, 25 and _note_.

Antoninus Pius (Emperor, 138-161 A.D.), 272, 273.

Aper, M. (character in _Dial. de Clar. Orat._), 280 _sq._

ἀφελής, simple, plain, 99 _sq._

Aphthonius (_fl. c._ 315 A.D.), rhetorician, 90, 92, 93.

Apollinaris, see Sidonius.

Apollodorus of Pergamus (_fl._ 1st cent. A.C.), rhetorician, 302.

_Apollonius, Life of_, 119-121, 388.

Apollonius Rhodius (_fl. c._ 200 A.C.), 307, 318, 338.

_Apology_, the Platonic, 237.

_Apparebit repentina_ (hymn), 404.

Appian (_fl._ 2nd cent. P.C.), historian, 178.

Apsines (_fl. c._ 235? or _c._ 300?), rhetorician, 105.

Apuleius (_fl._ 2nd cent. P.C., _b. c._ 130), novelist, &c., 151, 321,

352, 353, and _note_.

Aquila Romanus, rhetorician, 346.

Aquilius Regulus, M. (_fl. c._ 100), orator, 272 _note_, 357.

ἀρχαῖοι, οἱ. In Arist., &c., “the early philosophers”; in Photius, &c.,

“the classics” generally. Uncertain when this latter use came in.

MSS. of Dion. Halicarn. have in the same pass, some this word and

some παλαιοί, 186.

Archaism, 45.

_Architrenius_, 410 and _note_, 414.

Arellius Fuscus (_fl._ just before C.), rhetorician, 236.

Argentarius, Marcus (?), epigrammatist and declaimer, 86, 234.

Aristarchus (_fl. c._ 150 A.C.), critic and grammarian, 74-76, 85, 214.

Aristides of Smyrna (P. Aelius A. Theodorus) (_b._ 117 A.D., _d. c._

180), rhetorician, 82(?), 105(?), 109, 113-116, 183.

—— the _Rhetoric_ of, 105.

Aristophanes (_b. c._ 444 A.C., _d. c._ 380; Plays, 425-388; _Frogs_,

405),

comic poet, 9, 17, 21-23, 30, 82, 146, 147, 294.

—— and Menander, Plutarch’s comparison of, 143.

—— of Byzantium (_fl. c._ 264), critic, 74-76.

—— (4th cent. A.C.) (client of Libanius), 122.

—— the Scholiasts on, 76.

Aristotle (_b._ 384 A.C., _d._ 322), philosopher, Bk. I. chap. iii.

(for headings see Contents), 5, 83 _note_, 130, 136, 155, 166, 173,

185, 192, 193, 224, 226, 241, 290, 294, 295, 306, 309, 444.

Armstrong, 167, 296.

Arnold, Matthew (_b._ 1822, _d._ 1888), poet and critic, 23, 55, 62

_note_, 146, 320.

Arrian (_fl._ 2nd cent. P.C.), historian, 178, 179, 270.

Arruntius, L., name of two persons, father and son, one consul 22 A.C.,

the other 6 A.D. Either might be the person referred to by Seneca,

238.

_Ars Poetica_ of Horace, 221 _sq._

Arthur and Arthurian Legend, 423 _note_ and _sq._, 475, 483.

Ascham, Roger, 213, 483.

_Ataraxia_ (the Epicurean calm), 63, 64.

Athenæus (_fl. c._ 230 A.D.), 144, 145 _note_, 186.

_Athetesis_ = “marking as spurious,” 80.

Atticism, 315.

Atticus, Herodes (Tib. Claudius) (_b. c._ 104 A.D., _d._ 180),

rhetorician, 323.

—— T. Pomponius (_b._ 109 A.C., _d._ 32), friend of Cicero, 214.

Attius, see Accius.

_Atys_ or _Attis_, the, 305.

_Aucassin et Nicolette_, 475.

Augustinus, Aurelius (St Augustine) (_b._ 354 A.D., _d._ 430),

rhetorician, theologian, and bishop, 349, 377-380, 401, 483.

Augustus, the Emperor (_b._ 63 A.C., _d._ 14 A.D.), his epigram on

Fulvia and Martial’s praise of it, 258.

Aulic, the, in language, 425 _sq._

Aungervyle, see Bury.

Aurelius, Marcus (M. A. Antoninus) (_b._ 121 A.D., Roman Emperor, 161,

_d._ 180), 62 and _note_, 246 _note_.

Ausonius, D. Magnus (_b. c._ 310 A.D., consul 379, _d. c._ 390), poet,

professor, and prefect, 342, 343, 387.

Avienus or Avianus (_fl. c._ 300 A.D. ?), fabulist, 409.

Bacchylides (_fl. c._ 470 A.C.), poet, 168.

_Bailiff of Love_, the (_Le Bailli d’Amour_), 455 and _note_.

Bassus, see Cæsius Bassus and Saleius Bassus.

Bede, the Venerable (_b. c._ 673, _d._ 735), presbyter, historian, &c.,

374, 375, 402-405.

Bentley (?) on Philostratus, 119.

Blair, Dr Hugh, vi, 154 _note_.

“Blunder,” Aristides’ defence of his, 115, 116.

Boccaccio, Giovanni (_b._ 1313, _d._ 1375), poet, tale-teller, and

scholar, 417, 457-464.

Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (_b. c._ 470 A.D., _d. c._ 524),

statesman and philosopher, 390, 406, 462.

Bolognese dialect, 424, 425.

Bossuet, 199.

Boswell, 271 _note_.

_Broad Stone of Honour_, the, 372.

Browne, Sir T., quoted, 118.

rowning, Mr, 226, 424 _note_.

_Brunellus_, 414 _note_.

_Brutus_, the, 218, 219.

Burke, his “Amplification,” 164, 165.

Burton, R., 119;

the _Anatomy_, 144 _note_.

Bury, Richard of, 455, 456 and _note_.

Butcher, Prof. S. H., his _Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_,

31 _note_ and Bk. I. ch. iii. notes, _passim_.

Butler, S., on Rhetoric, 43.

_Cacozelon_ = “affected excess,” 297 and _note_.

Cæcilius Statius (_d._ 168 A.C.), comic poet, 213 _note_, 324.

Cæcilius (_fl. c._ 1 A.D. ?), rhetorician, 73, 138, 153 _sq._, 186

_note_, 302.

Cælius, M. C. Rufus (_d._ 48 A.C.), orator, 312.

Cæsar, C. Julius (_b._ 100 A.C., _d._ 44), 312.

Cæsius Bassus (_d._ 78 A.D.), poet, 253 _note_.

Callimachus (_fl._ 240-260 A.C.), poet, 273.

Calvus, C. Licinius Macco (_b._ 82 A.C., _d. c._ 46), poet and orator,

312.

“Cambridge the Everything,” 271 and _note_.

Campbell, George (18th cent. divine and rhetorical writer), Preface, p.

vi; 295 _note_.

_Can Grande, Letter to_, 441, 442.

“Canons” of writers, 213 _note_.

_Canzone_, the, Bk. III. ch. ii. _passim_.

Capella, see Martianus C.

Cardinal, the, in language, 425 _sq._

_Carmina Burana_, 377 _note_, 405 _note_.

Cassiodorus, Magnus Aurelius (_b. c._ 468 A.D., _d. c._ 568), statesman

and polyhistor, 349, 391, 406.

Cassius Severus (_b. c._ 50 A.C., _d._ 33 A.D.), orator and lampooner,

236.

Castor (_fl. c._ 150 A.C.), rhetorician, 102.

Cato, Dionysius (_fl._ 2nd cent. P.C. ?), moralist, 409.

Catullus, Valerius (_b. c._ 87 A.C., _d. c._ 47), poet, 212, 258, 265,

267, 273, 294, 311, 317, 356.

Causeret, M. C., 220.

Caxton, 464, 465.

Celtic Rhetoric, Early, 467 _note_.

“Centimeters,” 404 and _note_.

Cento, the, 343, 401.

Châtillon, Gautier of (12th cent.), poet, 410.

Chaucer, Geoffrey (_b._ 1340 ?, _d._ 1400), poet, 5, 55, 390 _note_,

450-452, 470.

Chirius Fortuniatianus, see Curius F.

Chœrilus of Samos (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C.), epic poet, 20.

_Choragia_, 25 _note_.

Chorus, the, Dion Chrysostom, 112-113.

_Chreia_ (χρεία), the Rhetorical “use” or maxim, often of a figurative

character, 91 _sq._

Chrysostom, Dion, see Dion Chrysostom.

Cicero, M. Tullius (_b._ 106 A.C., _d._ 43 A.C.), orator, 5, 165, 186,

212, 213-221, 229 _note_, 270, 289, 294, 302, 312, 314, 333, 384.

Cinna, C. Helvius (_d._ 44 A.C.), poet, 264, 265.

Claudian—Claudius Claudianus (_fl. c._ 400 A.D.), poet, 83, 383, 393,

409 _sq._

—— (friend of Sidonius), 383.

_Cléomadès_, 455 and _note_.

Cocheris, M., 414 _note_, 455 _note_.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), “logician, metaphysician, bard,”

and critic, 5, 23, 118, 174, 419 _note_, 436, 438.

Comedy, Greek, Criticism of Literature in, 21-26;

Aristotle on, 32;

Aristides on, 115, 116;

general ancient views of, 294.

_Comento_, Boccaccio’s, on Dante, 458 _sq._

“Commatic,” 386 and _note_.

_Commedia, Divina, La_, Bk. III. ch. ii., _passim_.

Commodianus (3rd cent. P.C.?), bishop and versifier, 364 and

_#note:f454_.

“Common” syllables, Martial on, 263 and _note_.

Comparison in relation to criticism, 241.

Composition in relation to Rhetoric and Criticism, 129 _sq._, 304.

_Confessions_, the, of St Augustine, 378-380.

_Consolatio Philosophiæ_, 390.

_Constructionis Elatio_, 428 _sq._

_Contention of Phyllis and Flora_, the, 377 and _note_.

_Controversies_, the, of Seneca the Elder, 334 _sq._

_Convito_, Dante’s, 417, 441-443.

Cope, E.M., his ed. of the _Rhetoric_, 40 _note_, 46.

Corax (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C.), traditional founder of rhetorical

teaching, 16, 17 _note_.

Corbinelli, Jacopo, 417.

Corneille, Pierre (_b._ 1606, _d._ 1684), 5.

Cornelius Severus (_fl. c._ 1 A.D.), poet, 235, 310 and _note_.

Courthope, Mr W. J., 457 _note_, 462 _note_.

Cowper, 460.

Crabbe, 166.

Crates of Mallos (_fl._ 2nd cent. A.C.), grammarian and critic, 74, 85.

Critic, Quintilian’s sketch of the duty of the, 292, 293.

“Cross-poems,” 396 _sq._

_Crotchet Castle_, 372.

Ctesias (_fl. c._ 480 A.C.), physician and historian, 178.

Cumberland on Philostratus, 119.

Curial, the, in language, 425 _sq._

Curiatius Maternus (_fl. c._ 100?), 280 _sq._

Curius (or Chirius) Fortunatianus (_fl. c._ 450 A.D.), rhetorician and

lawyer, 346, 347.

Cynics, the, 62.

Cyril of Alexandria (bishop 412-444 A.D.), 177.

Cyrus (date?), rhetorician, 102 _note_.

Dante, Alighieri (Dantes Aligerus) (_b._ 1265, _d._ 1321), poet. The

_De Vulgari Eloquio_, Bk. III. chap. ii. See Contents. Also 5, 133,

172, 173, 354, 404, 406, 416-446, 462.

Dares Phrygius (probably no such person, book written _c._ 11th-12th

cent. P.C. (?)), fabulous historian of Troy, 392, 410.

Darmesteter, Madame, 453, 454.

_De Admiranda Vi Demosthenis_, 129 _sq._

_De Antro Nympharum_, 68-70.

_De Causis corruptæ Eloquentiæ_, 280 _sq._

Declamations, 230 _sq._, 279 _sq._

_De Compositione_, 129 _sq._

_De Dictamine Rhythmico_, see _Dictamen_.

_De Genealogia Deorum_, 457 _sq._

_De Herodote Malignitate_, 142, 143.

_De Interpretatione_, 89, 103, 104.

_De Inventione_ (Longinus), 105-107.

—— (Cicero), 217.

Deinarchus (_b. c._ 361 A.C., _d. c._ 280), Attic orator, 129 _sq._

δεινὸς and δεινὸτης, how used, 97, 129.

_Deipnosophistæ_, 144, 145 _note_.

Delille, 167, 296.

Demetrius Phalereus (_b. c._ 345 A.C., _d._ (?)), statesman and orator,

71, 89, 103, 104, 196.

Democritus of Abdera (_b. c._ 460 A.C., _d._ 361), philosopher and

humourist, 14, 15.

Demosthenes (_b. c._ 385 A.C., _d._ 322), orator, 129, 165, 166 _sq._,

187 _note_, 277, 294, 312.

_De Nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii_, 349-354, 377.

_De Optimo Genere Oratorum_, 218.

_De Oratore_, 217, 218.

De Quincey, 121 _note_, 244 _note_, 296.

Deschamps, Eustache (_b._ 1328, _d._ 1415), poet, &c., 454.

_De Vulgari Eloquio_, 406, 416-446.

_Dialogus de Claris Oratoribus_, 279 _sq._, 317 _note_, 357.

_Dictamen_, the, 407 _sq._

Diction, see under Aristotle, Dionysius, Longinus, Quintilian, Dante.

—— Poetic, see Aristotle, Dante, Wordsworth.

Diderot, 119.

διήγημα, a story of a real event introduced into a speech, 90 _sq._

(διήγησις is the setting forth of the circumstances of the case).

Diogenes Laertius (_fl._ 2nd cent. P.C.), historian of philosophy, 14,

15 and _notes_, 89.

Dion Cassius (_b._ 155 A.D.), historian, 180.

Dion Chrysostom (_b. c._ 50 A.D., _d. c._ 117), rhetorician, 108-113,

195, 231.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus (_b._ (?) came to Rome _c._ 29 A.C., _d._ 7

A.C.), rhetorician, historian, and critic, 5, 23, 70, 72, 96, 108,

127-137, 155 and _note_, 156 _note_, 185, 195, 219, 289, 444.

—— of Thrace (_fl. c._ 80 A.C.), grammarian, 65.

_Disertus_, 274 _note_.

Dobson, Mr Austin, 271 _note_.

Domitian—Martial on his modesty, 261, 262;

Statius on his horse, 269;

Quintilian on the poetry he would have written if he had written any,

311.

Douglas, Gavin (_b. c._ 1474, _d._ 1522), bishop, poet, and translator,

268, 406, 464-466.

Doxopater (11th cent. (?)), rhetorician, 97;

(13th cent. (?)), 188.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,” 119.

Dryden, John (_b._ 1631, _d._ 1700), poet and critic, 5, 23, 48, 56,

156 _note_.

“Earinos,” 263.

Eberhard of Bethune (_fl. c._ 1200?), author of _Labyrinthus_ (?), 406.

Education, Plutarch on, 139 _seq._

Egger, Émile, his _Essai sur l’Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs_

(1st ed., 1850), 6, Bk. I., _notes_, _passim_.

_Eikones_, the, of Philostratus, 119.

εἰσφορὰ νόμου, the “introduction” and discussion of law. One of the

Progymnasmata, 91 _sq._

ἔκφρασις, a set description intended to bring person, place, picture,

&c., vividly before the mind’s eye. It is found largely in the

Epideictic rhetoricians, and still more largely in the Greek

Romances, 119 _note_.

Elevation, 46.

Empedocles (_fl. c._ 444 A.C.), philosopher, his fragments, 13, 14,

156.

Empiricus, see Sextus Empiricus.

Ennius, Q. (_b._ 239 A.C., _d._ 169), poet, 213 _note_, 310, 324, 401.

_Epanodos_ = “deliberate repetition,” 303.

Epicheireme (form of rhet. argument), 100 and _note_.

Epictetus (_fl. c._ 100 A.D.), philosopher, 62.

Epicurean, the, 62 _sq._

Epicurus (_b. c._ 342 A.C., _d._ 270), philosopher, 63.

Epideictic (the third kind of oratory—the rhetoric of display), Bk. I.,

chap, iv., _passim_.

ἐπιμέλεια, rhetorically and critically = “exactness,” 99 and _note_.

_Epistle to Can Grande_, 441, 442.

_Epistola ad Pisones_, 221 _sq._

Erinna (_fl. c._ 612 A.C.), poetess, criticisms on her “Distaff,”

82-85.

ἑρμηνεία (_interpretatio_), used in Rhet. rather ambiguously.

Generally, as in the treatise of Dem. Phal. (103 _sq._), it is

nearly equivalent to “Theory of Prose Style.” _Interpretatio_ in

Latin is also used of a particular Fig. = _conduplicatio_,

“explaining the thing over again, in different words.”

_Espinette Amoureuse, L’_, 454.

_Ethopœia_, “character-drawing.” This, which was one of the subjects

of the Progymnasmata, is sometimes used generally, sometimes for a

special technical exercise in making speeches suited to characters

and situations (Aphth. distinguishes it from _eidolopœia_, and

includes both in _prosopopœia_), 90 _sq._ = Quintilian’s

“ethology,” 292.

_Etymologiæ_ of Isidore, 400 _sq._

Eunapius (_b._ 347 A.D.), sophist, 181.

“Euphemesis,” a Fulgentian word = “ritual” (?), 395.

_Euphues_ and Euphuism, 139, 389, 394.

Eupolis (_b. c._ 446 A.C., _d. c._ 411), comic poet, 166.

εὕρεσις = _inventio_, the _devising_ of topics, arguments, &c.,

suitable to the case; what the orator adds of his own to the facts

and the law, 99 _sq._

Euripides (_b._ 480 A.C., _d._ 406), dramatist, 22, 24, 112, 133, 211,

308.

_Excellentia vocabulorum_, 428 _sq._

_Expositio Virgiliana_, 392-396.

Fable, the, 90, 401.

Faultlessness, 168 _sq._, 285 _sq._

Favorinus (_fl. c._ 120 A.D.), rhetorician, 323, 327, 328.

Ferrers-Howell, Mr, 417 _note_ and _sq._

“Figures,” 43, 53, 102, 103 (and Bk. I. ch. iv. _passim_), 156 _sq._,

166 _sq._, 291 (Bk. II. ch. iii. _passim_), 360 _sq._, 374 _sq._,

432.

_Filocopo_, the, 457, 463.

_Filostrato_, the, 457, 463.

Flaccus (a critical friend of Martial), 260, 262.

—— poets, see Horace and Valerius.

_Floire et Blanchefleur_, 463, 475.

Florentine Dialect, 421 _sq._

_Florida_, the, 363 and _note_.

Foix, Gaston de, 455.

Forms, the artificial, of French poetry, 449.

Fortunatianus, see Curius.

Fortunatus, see Venantius.

“Four, the,” Aristides’ speech for, 115, 116.

“Frigidity,” 43, 156.

_Frogs_, The, 6, 21-23, 270 _note_.

Froissart, 453-455.

Fronto, M. Cornelius (consul, 146 A.D.), rhetorician, 288 _note_.

Fulgentius, Fabius Planciades (6th cent. P.C.), 392-396, 459.

Galliambic metre, 305 and _note_.

Garland, or de Garlandia, John, see John of G.

Gascoigne, George (_b._ 1525 (?), _d._ 1577), 86, 471.

Gautier, Théophile, 62 _note_

Gellius, Aulus (_fl. c._ 150 A.D.), grammarian and man of letters, 186,

322-329.

Geoffrey of Vinsauf, see Vinsauf.

Georgius Choeroboscus (4th and 5th cent. P.C.), rhetorician, 103.

Georgius Pachymeres (_b. c._ 1242, _d. c._ 1310), Byzantine historian

and rhetorician, 95.

_Gesta Romanorum_, the, 187, 394.

Gibbon, 384 and _note_.

Gifford on Philostratus, &c., 116.

_Gnomæ_, “sentences,” “maxims,” 91 and _note_, 298.

Gorgias of Athens (_fl._ 1st cent. A.C.), rhetorician, 346.

Gorgias of Leontini (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C. at Athens, 427), rhetorician

and sophist, 16, 45, 159, 160.

γοργότης, rhetorical and critical term = “nervousness,” “poignancy,”

&c., 99.

Gracchus, Sempronius (_b. c._ 160 A.C., _d._ 121), demagogue, his

style, 229 _note_, 325.

Grammar, Quintilian on, 291, 292;

in Martianus, 353.

Grammarians, the Greek, the Roman, 361, 362.

_Grammatica_ (and “grammar”), Dante’s meaning of, 419 _sq._

_Grammaticus_ = more than mere “grammarian,” 343.

Grand Style, the, 336.

_Graphica lexis_, written as opposed to spoken style (_v._ Aristotle,

_Rhetoric_, iii. 12. 1), 201, 202.

_Gryll Grange_, 381 _note_.

Guest’s _English Rhythms_, 405.

Hall (17th cent. translator of Longinus), 154.

Halliwell, J. O., 407.

Hardie, Professor, Preface, 263 _note_, 305 _note_.

Havell, Mr H. L., 153 _note_.

Hawes, Stephen (_fl. c._ 1500), poet, 406.

Heine, H., 202.

Heliodorus (_fl. c._ 400 A.D.), bishop and novelist, 180, 181.

Hermagoras (_fl_. 1st cent. A.C.), rhetorician and teacher of Cicero,

349, 377.

Hermogenes (_fl. c._ 170), rhetorician, 89-92, 97-100, and Bk. I. ch.

iv. _passim_, 196.

Herodian (Aelius Herodianus) (2nd cent. P.C.), rhetorician and

grammarian, 103.

Herodotus (_b._ 484 A.C., _d. c._ 406), historian, 130 _sq._, 142, 143,

178-180, 296, 312.

_Heroica_, or _Heroic Dialogue_ of Philostratus, 120.

Herondas (?) (“Herodes”) (? 3rd cent. A.C.), mimiambic poet, 273.

Herrick, 324 _note_.

Hildebrand of Padua, 424 _note_.

Hillard, Miss K., 441 _note_ and _sq._

Himerius (_fl._ 4th cent. P.C.), sophist and rhetorician, 125 _note_,

183.

Hippolytus, the Latin, 247.

_Hirsuta_ = “shaggy words,” Dante on, 429 _sq._

_History, How to Write_, 147, 148.

Homer, Criticism of, 10-12, 27, 49, 50, 79-81, 82-87, 100, 130 _sq._,

156 _sq._, 206, 307, 343, 410, 463.

—— and Plato, Max. Tyrius on, 117, 118.

—— scholia on, 78-81.

_Homeric Allegories_, 187.

_Homeric Problems_ (Aristotle’s), 49, 50, 185 _note_.

_Homeric Questions_ (Porphyry’s), 68-70.

“Homilies” of Doxopater, 97;

of Longinus, 187;

Isidore’s use of the word, 402 _note_.

Horace (Q. Horatius Flaccus) (_b_. 65 A.C., _d._ 8 A.C.), poet, 212,

221-230, 258, 294, 301, 311, 356, 360 _sq._, 432.

Hugo, Victor, 202, 365.

_Hyperbaton_ = “alteration of order for rhetorical purposes,” 137.

Hyperides (_b. c._ 390? A.C., _d._ 322), orator, 169.

_Hypodiæresis_ = “distribution of indictment,” 98.

Hypotheses, not admitted, 6.

Iamblichus the romancer (_fl. c._ 100 A.D.), 176, 180;

_not_ Iamblichus the philosopher (_fl. c._ 300 A.D.)

Ideas, the Platonic, their bearing on criticism, 18 _sq._, 67 _sq._;

rhetorical sense of, 99 _sq._

_Iliad_, the scholia on, 80, 81, 474 (see also Homer and _Odyssey_).

“Illustrious Vulgar Tongue,” the, Bk. III. ch. ii. _passim_.

Impressionism, 54. This term has as yet been very loosely defined. As

used, for instance, by the late Mr R. A. M. Stevenson in his

_Velasquez_, it carries an almost Aristotelian sense of

generalisation from _mere_ impression. But this is certainly not the

general theory, and even less the usual practice, of the

“Impressionist.”

_In Memoriam_, 93, 94.

_Institutiones Oratoriæ_, 289-321.

_Ion_, the, of Plato, 19, 20

Isæus of Chalcis (_fl. c._ 420, 348 A.C.), one of the Ten Orators, 49,

129 _sq._

—— the Assyrian (_fl. c._ 100 A.D.), orator and rhetorical teacher,

272.

Isidore of Seville (bishop from 600 A.D. to 636), 375, 400.

Isocrates (_b._ 436 A.C., _d._ 338), orator or rhetorician, 17, 6-28,

129 _sq._, 160, 169, 182, 190, 214, 312.

Italian Dialects, the, 423 _sq._

Jerome, St, 462.

Jevons, Mr F. B., 144 _note_.

John of Garlandia (12th cent.), metrical writer, 407 _sq._

John of Hauteville (12th cent.), poet, 410 _sq._

John of Salisbury (12th cent.), philosopher, &c., 414 _note_.

John of Sicily (13th cent.), scholiast on Hermogenes, &c., 102 _note_,

106, 171 _note_, 175, 187-190, 432.

John Philoponos (_fl. c._ 600 A.D.), grammarian, 177.

John Tzetzes (12th cent.), grammarian, &c., 102.

Johnson, Dr, 467 _note_, 472.

Jonson, Ben (1573-1637), poet and critic, 86, 119, 120, 236 _note_, 244

_note_, 263 _note_.

Josephus, Flavius (_b._ 37 A.D., _d. c._ 100), soldier and historian,

177.

Josephus Rhacendyta (13th cent.), rhetorician, 101.

Julian (the Apostate) (_b._ 331 A.D.; Emperor, 361-363, _d._ 363), 109,

125, 126.

Juvenal (Dec. Junius Juvenalis) (_fl._ late 1st cent. P.C.), satiric

poet, 252-250, 409.

κάθαρσις, purgation or purification, 38.

κατεστραμμένη (= periodic), 48 _note_.

Keats, 252.

Keil, Herr, 403.

Kingsley, C., 270.

_Labyrinthus_, 406 _sq._

Lampridius (friend of Sidonius), 388, 389.

Lang, Mr Andrew, 153 _note_.

Language, European, Dante on, 421 _sq._

Latro, M. Porcius (_d._ 4 A.C.), rhetorician, 236 _sq._

_Laws_, the, of Plato, 19, 20.

λήκυθος and ληκύθιον, 270 _note_.

_Letters_, the, of Philostratus, 119.

—— of Libanius, 121 _note_, 123, 124.

—— of Pliny, 270-279.

—— of Seneca, 247.

_Lexiphanes_, 148, 149.

_Lexis_ (meaning varies from “diction” to “style”), see Diction.

Leyser, Polycarp (1690-1728), motto on reverse of half-title, 403, 407

_sq._

Libanius (_b. c._ 314 A.D., _d. c._ 395), rhetorician, 109, 121-124,

181.

_Lives_, Plutarch’s, 137, 138;

of Orators, 141, 142.

Livy (T. Livius) (_b._ 59 A.C., _d._ 17 A.D.), historian, 212, 306,

312.

Longinus, Cassius (assumed as the author of the Περὶ Ὕψους) (_b. c._

213 A.D., _d._ 273), statesman, rhetorician, and critic. Bk. I. ch.

v. (for headings see Contents), 5, 23, 25, 61, 72, 73, 96, 105-107,

113, 120, 131, 136, 138, 150, 151, 152-174, 185, 187 _note_, 190

_note_, 197, 219, 226, 241, 285, 290, 296, 301, 306, 320, 431, 432,

438, 444.

_Lubrica_ = “slippery” words, 429 _sq._, 439 _sq._

Lucan (M. Annæus Lucanus) (_b._ 39 A.D., _d._ 65), poet, 265 _note_,

269, 311, 410.

Lucian (_b. c._ 120 A.D., _d. c._ 200), satirist, 105, 108, 146-152,

181, 182, 195, 294, 321.

—— (4th cent. P.C.), subject of a speech of Libanius, 123.

Lucilius, C. (_b._ 148 A.C., _d._ 103), satiric poet, 229 and _note_,

230.

Lucius of Patræ (?), romancer, 181.

Lucretius (T. L. Carus) (_b._ 95 (?) A.C., _d._ 51 (?) 52 (?)), poet,

13, 212, 214-217, 267, 268, 269, 310, 318, 356.

Lullius, Lully, or Lull, Raymond (_b._ 1235, _d._ 1315), scholastic

philosopher, 371 _note_, 446 _note_.

Lupus, see Rutilius.

Luxorius (6th cent. P.C.), African epigrammatist, 344.

Lycophron (rhetorician of 5th cent. B.C., _not_ Alexandrian poet of

3rd), 45.

Lyly, 139.

_Lyrical Ballads_, preface to, _Pref._, vii, 436.

Lysias (_b._ 458 A.C., _d._ 378), 21 _note_, 99, 129 _sq._

Macer, Æmilius (_d._ 16 A.C.), didactic poet, 310, 410.

Macrobius, Ambrosius Aurelius Theodorius (_fl. c._ 400 A.D.),

grammarian, 329-334.

“Maidens in the Eyes,” the, 160, 161.

Malatesta, Sig. Pand., 123 _note_.

Mallius Theodorus, F. (_fl. c._ 400 A.D.), metrical writer, 404. His

definition of rhythm is that it appears in those places of the lyric

and tragic poets where _certa pedum conlatione neglecta, sola

temporum ratio considerata sit_.

Malory, Sir T., 453.

Map or Mapes, Walter (12th cent.), poet, &c., 405, 407 _sq._, 470.

Mari, Signor G., 407 _sq._

Marius Victorinus, C. (_fl. c._ 350 A.D.), grammarian and rhetorician,

348, 380.

Marlowe, 252.

Marsus, Domitius (_fl. c._ 1 A.D.), poet, &c., 262, 264, 295.

Martialis, M. Valerius (_b._ 43 A.D., _d._ 104(?)), poet, 256-268, 269,

272, 273, 285, 294, 356.

Martianus Capella (M. Minneius Felix C.) (_fl. c._ 450 (?)),

grammarian, &c., 349-354, 377, 406.

_Master of the Orators_, Lucian’s, 150, 151.

Maternus, see Curiatius Maternus.

Matius or Mattius, C., mimiambic poet, 324 _note_.

Matthias, Vindocinensis (12th cent.?), poet, 411 and _note_.

Maximianus (_fl._ 5th or 6th cent. P.C.), elegiac poet and

epigrammatist, 409.

Maximus Tyrius (_fl. c._ 170 A.D.), rhetorician and philosopher, 109,

117, 118, 457 _note_.

_Meiosis_, “passing reference,” 297 and _note_.

Meleager (_fl._ 1st cent. A.C.), poet, 83.

_Méliador_, 453.

Menander the dramatist (_b._ 342 A.C., _d._ 291), 82;

Plutarch’s comparison of him with Aristophanes, 143, 206, 308, 324,

343, 387.

Menander the rhetorician (_fl._ end of 5th cent. P.C.), his book on

Epideictic, 104, 105.

Menelaus (mentioned by Longinus, therefore _before_ 3rd cent. (?)),

poet, 189.

Messal(l)a (M. Valerius M. Corvinus) (_b. c._ 70 A.C., _d. c._ 1 A.D.),

soldier, statesman, poet, and orator, 239.

—— L. Vipstanus, 282 _sq._

_Metalepsis_ = “exchange of words,” one of the most difficult of these

figure-terms. Sometimes it is mere _metonymy_, as “Hephæstus” for

“fire”: sometimes it expresses a much more complicated and arbitrary

process, 300.

_Metaplasm_ = “change of letters or syllables,” 400.

Metaphor, Aristotle on, 43 _sq._;

Longinus on, 167 _sq._;

Quintilian on, 299 _sq._, 376.

Metre, definition of, 47 _note_.

Metrodorus (_b. c._ 330 A.C., _d._ 277), Epicurean philosopher, 63.

“Milesian Tales,” the, 21.

Milton, 50, 286, 404.

Mimes, the prose Greek, 21 _note_, 22.

_Mimesis_, “Imitation,” Bk. I. ch. iii., _passim_.

Mimiambic poetry, 208, 276, 324.

Minucianus (date?), rhetorician, 105.

Moore, Dr, 417 _note_ and _sq._

Moore, T., 199, 315.

_Moralia_, Plutarch’s, 63, 137 _sq._

Morley, Prof. H., 455 _note_.

_Moyen de Parvenir_, the, 243.

Munro, Mr H. A. J., 229 _note_.

Murredius, a foolish declaimer in Seneca the Elder, 233 _sq._

Mycterism = “suppressed sneering,” 301 and #_note_:f396.

Nævius, Cn. (_b. c._ 270 A.C., _d. c._ 200), poet, 471.

Neo-Platonists, the, 66-70.

Neoptolemus of Parium (?), 221 _note_.

Nero’s poetry, 250 _sq._

Nettleship, Mr Henry, 61 _note_, 211 _note_, 213 _note_, 218, 219, 221

_note_, 229 _note_, 230 and _note_, 240, 283 _sq._, 288 _note_, 320.

Nicephorus (11th cent.), rhetorician, 95.

Nicolaus or Nicolas (_fl. c._ 900 A.D.?), rhetorician, 95.

_Noctes Atticæ_, 241 _note_, 322-329.

_Nova Poetria_, 406, 412 _sq._

_Oc_, _oil_, and _si_, Dante on, 422, 423.

_Octavia_, the Senecan, 247.

_Odyssey_, the, scholia on, 69, 70;

Longinus on, 156, 162, 163 (see also Homer), 340, 473, 474.

οἰκεῖα ἡδονή, Aristotle’s doctrine of, 55.

_Oil_, _oc_, and _si_, Dante on, 422, 423.

“Olympic,” Dion Chrysostom’s, 112.

_Orator_, Cicero’s, 218.

_Origines_ of Isidore, 400 _sq._

_Orithyia_, the, of Æschylus, 155, 159, 187, 190.

Orosius, Paulus (_fl. c._ 413 A.D.), historian, 386, 391, 429.

Oscus (?), declaimer, 234, 235.

Ovid, P. Ovidius Naso (_b._ 43 A.C., _d._ 18 A.D.), poet, 212, 216

_note_, 230 _note_, 310.

Pacuvius, M. (_b. c._ 220 A.C., _d._ 130), tragic poet, 326.

Pæan or pæon (foot, 3 short 1 long), 47, 305.

Palæmon, Q. Remmius (_fl._ 1st cent. P.C.), schoolmaster and

rhetorician, 387 and _note_.

Pamphilus (_d._ 307 A.D.), scholar, book collector, and martyr, 401,

409.

_Pange Lingua_ (hymn), 396.

Panther, note on the, 425.

_Paradiastole_ = “antithetic distinction,” 303.

“Parallel Passage,” the, 322 _note_, 331 _sq._

_Parasiopesis_ = “affected reticence,” 303.

Parenthesis, 178 _note_, 296.

παρένθυρσον, τὸ, 156, 160.

Paris, M. Paulin, 415 _note_.

Parmenides (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C.), Eleatic philosopher, his fragments,

13.

_Paromologia_ = “insidious concession,” 303.

“Passions,” Longinus’s lost treatise on, 150.

_Pasti Cadaveribus_, 232.

“Patavinity,” 235 _note_, 296.

Patristic view of Criticism, 380-382.

_Phantasia_, 119.

Phidias, Dion Chrysostom’s discourse for, 112.

Philippus of Thessalonica (_fl. c._ 100 A.D.), epigrammatist, 85, 86.

Peacock, T. L., 381 _note_.

Periodic Style, 48.

Periphrasis, 167.

περὶ μιμησέως, 133 _note_.

Περὶ Ὕψους, the, 106, 146, 151, 152-174, 197.

Persius (A. P. Flaccus) (_b._ 34 A.D., _d._ 62), satiric poet, 247-253,

409.

Perspicuity, 296.

Petrarch, Francis (_b._ 1304, _d._ 1374), poet, &c., 432 _note_, 456,

462.

Petronius Arbiter, C. or T. (?) (_b._ (?), _d._ 66 A.D.), 242-245, 246.

_Pexa_ = “combed-out words,” 429 _sq._, 439 _sq._

_Phædrus_, the, 18-21.

Pherecrates (1st prize 438 A.C.), comic poet, 13 _note_.

_Philobiblion_ or _Philobiblon_, the, 414 _note_, 455, 456 and _note_.

_Philoctetes_, Dion Chrysostom on plays about, 109, 110.

Philodemus of Gadara (_fl._ 1st cent. A.C.), epicure and philosopher

and poet (?), 63, 64.

_Philological Homilies_, the, of Longinus, 171 _note_, 187.

_Philosophy of Rhetoric_, Campbell’s, 295 _note_.

Philostratus, Flavius (son of a Lemnian professor of the same name in

the 2nd century, and grandfather of a third Philostratus, who, like

him, wrote _Imagines_ in the late 3rd cent.) (_b. c._ 182 A.D., _d.

c._ 250), rhetorician and miscellanist, 109, 118-121, 147.

Phœbammon (_fl. c._ 400 A.D.?), rhetorician, 103.

Photius (_fl._ 9th cent. P.C., Patriarch of Constantinople, 858-886,

with interval), lexicographer and literary historian, 121 _note_,

175-186.

Phrynichus (_fl._ 2nd cent. P.C.), sophist and grammarian, 183.

_Physiologus_, the, 411 and _note_.

Pindar (_b. c._ 522 A.C., _d. c._ 442), poet, 131, 132, 308, 327, 333.

Piron, 260.

Pisistratean redaction of Homer, the, 6, 9.

_Pistis_, 41, 58.

“Placing” in Criticism, 291.

Plato (_b. c._ 429 A.C., _d._ 347), philosopher, 5, 7, 13, 17-21 and

_note_, 51, 66, 83, 108, 112, 145 _note_, 188, 192, 299, 305, 309,

462.

—— and Homer, Max. Tyrius on, 117, 118.

Plautus, T. Maccius (_b. c._ 254 A.C., _d._ 184), 213 _note_, 240, 294,

311, 356.

Pliny the Elder (C. Plinius Secundus) (_b._ 23 A.D., _d._ 79),

encyclopædist.

Pliny the Younger (C. Plinius Cæcilius Secundus) (_b._ 61 A.D. _d._

(?)), advocate, statesman, and letter-writer, 264, 270-279, 357,

358.

Plotinus (_b. c._ 203 A.D., _d._ 262), philosopher, 67, 68.

Plutarch (_fl. c._ 90 A.D.), biographer and moral philosopher, 63, 66,

108, 137-146, 153, 195.

_Poema del Cid_, 422.

Poetic Diction, 436.

_Poetics_, the, 32-39, and Bk. I. ch. iii. _passim_, 432.

Poetry and Philosophy, Max. Tyrius on, 117, 118;

Boccaccio on, 457.

Pollio, C. Asinius (_b._ 76 A.C., _d._ 4 A.D.), orator, poet, &c., 235

and _note_, 237, 238, 239.

Polus (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C.), rhetorician and sophist, 16.

Polybius of Sardis (date?), rhetorician, 103.

_Polyptoton_ = “variation of rhetorical effect by using different

_cases_,” 157.

Porphyry (-ius) (_b._ 233 A.D., _d. c._ 306), philosopher and

commentator, 68-70, 80.

Prior, Mat., 259.

_Prison Amoureuse, La_, 454.

_Pro Archia_, 221 _note_.

_Procatastasis_ = “introduction to narrative,” 98.

Proclus (_b._ 412 A.D., _d._ 485), philosopher, 67.

_Prodiegesis_ = “preliminary statement,” 98.

_Progymnasmata_, partial declamations: preliminary exercises in the

chief parts of a speech, 89 _sq._

_Pro Juvene contra Meretricem_, 232, 233.

_Prometheus Es_, the, of Lucian, 149.

Prompt, Dr, 417 and _note_.

Propriety, 46.

Prose Rhythm, see Rhythm.

Prosody, Greek, 201, 202.

Protagoras (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C., at Athens), 430, rhetorician and

sophist, 14, 15.

Provençal arts of Poetry, 407 _note_.

——, Dante on, 422 _sq._

Prudentius, Aurelius Clemens (_b. c._ 350 A.D., _d. c._ 420), 364, 365

and _note_, 471.

Psellus (one in 9th, another in 11th cent.), rhetorician, 102.

_Psychagogia_, 66 and _note_.

Puritanism and Literature, 380 _sq._

“Purity,” 46.

Puttenham, G., List of Figures in his _Art of Poetry_, 44.

Pyrrhonists, the, 62 _sq._

_Quadrivium_, the, 351, 366, 367, 432.

_Questions, Roman_, Plutarch’s, 144.

Quintilian (M. Fabius Quintilianus) (_b._ 40 A.D., _d. c._ 118),

advocate and Professor of Oratory.

His _Institutes_ thereof, Bk. II. chap. iii.

For headings see Contents.

Also, 5, 61, 72, 73, 96, 131, 133, 136, 155, 185, 212, 232-234, 242,

246, 248 and _note_, 251 and _note_, 256, 258, 279, 288, 289-321,

359, 409.

Rabelais, 168, 190, 249, 394.

Rabirius (_fl._ 1st cent. A.C.), 310.

Rajna, Signor P., 417 _note_.

Rapin, 173 and _note_.

Reading, Plutarch on, 139 _sq._

_Rebecca and Rowena_, 451 _note_.

_Reburra_ ( = “words with hair the wrong way”), 429 _sq._, 439 _sq._

_Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, 407 and _note_, 411 _note_.

_Republic_, the, of Plato, 18-21 and _note_.

_Rex æterne domine_, hymn, 404.

Rhetoric, Aristides’ defence of, 115, 116;

Martianus Capella’s personification of, 351, 352.

_Rhetoric_, the, of Aristotle, Bk. I. chap. iii. _passim_.

—— of Dionysius, 129 _sq._

—— of Hermogenes, 90 _sq._

_Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, 17 _note_.

_Rhétoriqueurs_, the French, 467, 483.

Rhythm, prose, Aristotle on, 47;

Dionysius on, 131;

Quintilian on, 304 _sq._

Richard of Bury (Aungervyle), 455, 456.

Roberts, Prof. Rhys, 9 _note_, 153 _note_, 171 _note_.

Roman dialect, the, 423.

_Roman Questions, The_, 144.

Romance, 379 _note_, 474 _sq._

—— languages, Dante on, 422 _sq._

_Romance of the Rose_, the, 187, 393.

Romantic Criticism, 172, 286.

Ruskin, Mr, 305, 424 _note_.

Rutherford, Mr, 74 _note_.

Rutilius (P. R. Lupus) (_fl. c._ 1 A.D.), rhetorician, 346.

Rymer, 173.

Saint Augustine, see Augustine.

Saleius Bassus (_fl. c._ 80 A.D.), poet, 281.

Salimarius _or_ Solinarius (date ?), poet, 410.

Sallust (C. Sallustius Crispus) (_b._ 86 A.C., _d._ 34), historian,

212, 305, 306, 312.

Sappho (_fl. c._ 600 A.C.), poetess: the _Anthology_ on her, 81-87;

her _Hymn to Aphrodite_, 132;

her _Ode to Anactoria_, 154, 163, 164.

Satirists, Roman, and Criticism, 247-268.

_Saturnalia_, the, 329-334.

_Satyricon_, the, 242-245.

Scandinavian Rhetoric, Early, 467 _note_.

Scholastic Philosophy and Criticism, 446 _note_.

Scholiasts, the Greek, 73-81.

Scott, Sir Walter, 121.

Seneca, the Father (M. Annæus S.) (_b. c._ 61 A.C., _d. c._ 35 A.D.

(?)), rhetorician, 230-240.

Seneca, the Son (L. Annæus S.) (_b. c._ 10 A.C., _d._ 65 A.D.),

statesman and philosophical writer, 62, 245-247;

Quintilian on, 313;

A. Gellius on, 325, 326, 347 (?).

Seneca, the Tragedian (?), 245 _sq._

“Sentences,” Quintilian on, 298, 299.

Servius, Marius or Maurus Honoratus (_fl. c._ 400 A.D.), grammarian and

Virgilian commentator, 334-340, 459.

Severus (_fl._ 5th cent. P.C.), rhetorician, 95.

—— Cassius, see Cassius Severus.

—— Cornelius, see Cornelius Severus.

Sextilius Ena (_fl._ just A.C.), poet, 235.

Sextus Empiricus (_fl. c._ 225 A.D.), physician and Pyrrhonist, 64-66.

Shakespeare, 39, 118, 120 _note_, 173, 286, #389 _note_;f491#, 404.

Shelley, 199, 215.

_Si_, _oil_, and _oc_, Dante on, 422, 423.

Sicilian School of Greek rhetoric, 16, 41;

of Italian poetry, 423 _sq._

Sidonius Apollinaris (C. Sollius S.A.) (_b. c._ 431 A.D., bishop 472,

_d._ 482 (?), 484 (?)), 344 _note_, 383-389, 404 _note_.

“Sieve, the Chapter of the,” 439 _sq._

Silius Italicus, C. (_b. c._ 25, consul, 68 A.D., _d._ 100), poet, 258.

Simonides (_fl. c._ 664 A.C.), poet, 308.

Simylus (_fl. c._ 355 A.C.), middle comic poet, 25 and _note_, 51, 54,

198.

_Sinonis and Rhodanes_, 176.

_Sir Thopas_, 450-452.

Snorri Sturluson, 467 _note_.

_Somnium Scipionis_, 329.

Sopater (6th cent. P.C. ?), rhetorician, 102 _note_.

Sophocles, (_b._ 495 A.C., _d._ 406), tragic poet, 112, 133, 169, 200,

308.

——, scholia on, 77, 78.

_Speculum Stultorum_, 414 _note_.

_Stasis_ and _staseis_ = “states of case,” 72, 97 _sq._

Statius (P. Papinius) (_b. c._ 61 A.D., _d. c._ 96), 216 _note_, 255,

268-270;

poet, 409, 410.

Stesichorus (_fl. c._ 600), 308.

Stilo, L. Ælius Præconinus (_fl. c._ 100 A.C.), 240.

Stohæus, John (_fl. c._ 500 A.D.), compiler, &c., 183, 185.

Stoics, the, 62, 246.

Style, Aristotle on, 42 _sq._

_Suasoria_, 234 _sq._

“Sublimity” and the Sublime, 153 _sq._;

sources of, 161 _sq._

Sulpicia (_fl. c._ 100 A.D.), poetess, 265 and _note_.

_Super Thebaiden_, 394.

_Superbia Carminum_, 428 _sq._

_Sylvæ_ of Statius, 268, 269.

Symmachus, Q. Aurelius (_præf. urb._, 384 A.D.), 330 _sq._

_Symposiacs_, Plutarch’s, 144-146.

Synesius (_fl. c._ 400), bishop, poet, and philosopher, 176, 177.

Tacitus, C. Cornelius (_b._ (?), consul, 97 A.D., _d. c._ 120 (?)),

historian, 212, 219, 270, 271, 274 _note_:, 277, 280-284 (?), 312,

387.

Taine, M., 241, 283 _note_.

_Tapeinosis_ = “mean language,” 297 and _note_.

Tennyson, 241, 252, 326.

Terence (P. Terentius Afer), (_b._ 195 A.C., _d._ 159), comic poet, 213

_note_, 311, 387.

Terentianus Maurus (_fl. c._ 100 A.D.), metrical writer, 404 _note_.

Thackeray, 266, 338.

_Thebaid_, the, 269, 394, 410.

Themistius (_fl._. 4th cent. P.C., prefect of Constantinople, 384),

rhetorician, philosopher, and statesman, 109, 123.

Theocritus (_fl._ 3rd cent. A.C.), poet, 307.

Theodolus (12th cent.), writer, 409.

Theodorus (author of phrase _parenthyrson_) = _probably_ Th. of Gadara,

very famous as rhetorician just before and about the Christian era

(there was another Th. of Byzantium in Plato’s time), 156 _note_.

Theon, Aelius (3rd cent. A.D. (?)), rhetorician, 93-95.

Theophrastus (_b._ (?) _d._ in very old age, 287 A.C.), philosopher, 61

and _note_, 235 _note_, 296, 309.

Théry, Augustin François (_b._ 1796, _d._ 1878), _Histoire des opinions

Littéraires_, vi _note_, 9 _note_, 320 _note_.

Thomson, James, 296.

Thucydides, son of Olorus (_b._ 471 A.C., _d. c._ 401), 111, 129 _sq._,

190, 305, 312.

Tiberius (date ?), rhetorician, 103.

Timæus (_fl. c._ 350-250 A.C.), historian, 160.

Tisias (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C.), rhetorician, 16.

Translation, Dante on, 442, 443.

“Transport,” Longinus on, 155 _sq._

_Trattatello_, Boccaccio’s, on Dante, 457 _sq._

Trench, Archbishop, 68, 69.

Trissino, 417.

_Tristram Shandy_, 243.

_Trivium_, the, 351, 366, 367, 432.

“Trojan Oration,” Dion Chrysostom’s, 111.

Trope, distinction of, from Figure, 301 _note_.

Troy, the Tale of, 120.

Tuscan Dialect, 420 _sq._

Twelve Wise Men, the, 344.

_Twice Accused Man_, Lucian’s, 150, 151.

Tynnichus of Chalcis (_fl._ 5th cent. A.C. (?)), poet, 20 and _note_.

Tzetzes, John (12th cent.), grammarian, 175.

_Umbraticus doctor_, 244 _note_.

Unity of Action the only true Aristotelian “Unity,” 37.

Valerius Flaccus (_fl._ 1st cent. P.C.), poet, 310.

Varro, Terentius (_b._ 116 A.C., _d._ 28), grammarian and miscellaneous

writer, 240, 241.

—— P. V. Atacinus (_b._ 82 A.C.), poet, 310.

Venantius Fortunatus (V. Honorius Clementianus F.) (_b._ 530 A.D., _d.

c._ 610), presbyter and poet, 396-399, 406.

Vergilius Romanus (_fl. c._ 100), comic and mimiambic poet, 276.

_Vexilla Regis_, hymn, 396.

Victor, Sulpicius (?), rhetorician, 349.

Victorinus (Marius) (_fl._ 4th cent. P.C.), rhetorician, 348, 349, 380,

405.

Vinsauf, Geoffrey of (_fl. c._ 1200), poet, 406.

Virgil (P. Virgilius or Vergilius Maro) (_b._ 70 A.C., _d._ 19), 212,

214, 216 _note_, 248, 269, 310, 324-340 _passim_, 344, 377, #378

_note_:f465:, 465, 466.

Volcatius Sedigitus (_fl. c._ 100 A.C.), poet (?), 213 _note_, 241.

Walpole, Horace, 271 _note_.

Wireker, Nigel (_d._ 1188), monk and poet, 414 _note_.

Wit, Quintilian on, 293-295.

Wordsworth, W., 39, 296, 436.

Wright, Thomas, 377 _note_, 405 _note_, 410 _note_.

Xenophanes of Colophon (_fl._ 6th cent. A.C.), philosopher, 11;

his fragments, 12, 13.

Xenophon (_b. c._ 444 A.C., _d. c._ 354), historian, historical

novelist, and miscellaneous writer, 161, 309.

Youthfulness, mediæval, 470 _sq._

Zenodotus (_fl. c._ 208), grammarian and critic, 74, 75.

Zoilus (_fl._ 4th cent. A.C.), 75, 79, 302.

Zonæus (date?), rhetorician, 103.

ζῷον, meaning of, in the _Poetics_, 33 _note_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

There was no opening half-title in the source used to prepare this text.

No attempt was made to check the validity of each index entry’s

references, however several of them seem spurious:

“Antimachus” is referred to a note on p. 20, but it is unclear which

note that may be. He is mentioned by name on the page itself.

“Mimes, the prose Greek”, is not mentioned either in a note on p.

21, nor on p. 22 itself.

“Plato” is not mentioned in any note on p. 145.

Notes

49.20: The word ‘curial’ on p. 49 (“a =curial= instance of that

commentatorial _lues_...”) seems odd. ‘Crucial’ may have been

intended, but seems more likely to have been ‘curious’.

Corrections

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and

are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

109.24 He travelled over[ a] great part Added.

158.note Longi[un/nu]s Transposed.

195.32 Sword of Sharpness itself[,] but he is Added.

201.6 to so much advantage as with Greek[.] Added.

203.26 oratory in Greece is not[,] nor is Restored.

205.25 for personal genealogy[;] Added.

209.3 Quintil[l]ian Removed.

212.note in reference to Latin Criticism[.] Added.

215.3 is very unlikely[.] Added.

229.note Satires (second series[)], Added.

234.11 “Suasories[’/”] Replaced.

237.22 seemed to Aristotle himself himself[.] Added.

251.note the confusion of tragic and epic style[.] Added.

266.8 by no means i[n/m]maculate Replaced.

267.11 every kind of poetry[.] Added.

307.note a substantial portion of Antimachus[.] Added.

406.28 of the present chapter[.] Added.

457.11 is not yet there[.] Added.

462.note when he [(denied /denied (] (_loc. cit._) Moved

parenthesis.