Theon, with greater space at his command, employs a different method. It is uncertain whether he preceded or followed [Sidenote: _Theon._] Aphthonius; but the former theory is favoured by the fact that he, like Hermogenes, has twelve subjects only, those which Aphthonius put asunder being still united. He begins with a general disquisition on, and encomium of, the Progymnasmata, widening them somewhat, so as to bring in Figures to some extent, but also describing some of these as “contentious” or “disputed.” Then he has a rather curious chapter, nearer to our special purpose than usual, showing how, not merely the great orators, but the great writers of old, used these forms, or rather things which can be brought under these forms, citing the famous speech of Sophocles as to his emancipation from love in the _Republic_, the fable of the flute-player in Herodotus, others in other historians, and a very great many more things, not a few of which are lost. This enumeration is not only interesting as pointing to these _desiderata_, but as showing how unhappy the Greek was unless he could arrange and classify and ticket, as well as, distinguish and enjoy, the parts and characteristics of literature. The spirit is not dead yet: it has prompted a much-respected living author on Rhetoric to describe _In Memoriam_ as “a combined Hyperbole of Affection and Sorrow.” And this may undoubtedly be said in its favour, that its exercise does really require and promote a certain intellectual alertness and activity. But the question is, Do this alertness and this activity exert themselves in actual progress, or in mere marking-time? Is the comprehension (one can hardly even ask Is the enjoyment) of _In Memoriam_ furthered by its orderly arrangement in the case generally labelled “Hyperbole,” and in the compartment labelled “Combined Hyperboles,” and in the further pigeon-hole labelled “Of Affection and Sorrow”? Is it really important to decide whether Sophocles’s variation on “sour grapes” is a χρεία or an apophthegm, and which are the most remarkable examples of διήγημα in the orators and the historians respectively? Such things may appear to some specially and fatally to underlie the Platonic curse on the appearance of knowledge without the reality. But they have, as we see, very strong and long prescription, and there are still some who bitterly resent the exclusion of them from the teaching, not merely of technical Rhetoric, but of literature—who regard a system of “leaden rules,” of individual appreciation without classes and compartments and indorsements, as dilettante, unscientific (which it would certainly allow itself to be), and effeminate. Between the two, opinion, a little assisted by Logic and History, must be left to decide.