The few μελέται of Adrianus, the successor and funeral eulogist of Herodes Atticus, are whole declamations, not [Sidenote: _Minors._] brought under any of the heads. The _Diegemata_ and _Ethopœiæ_ of Severus, after what has been said of these kinds, will need no special characterisation; and the _Progymnasmata_ of George Pachymeres (who was nearly contemporary with Dante) and of the Anonymus are, like so many of the others, pure examples, indeed (as the former are well called in one MS.) _Meletæ_ on the Progymnasmata themselves. No great resumption or amplification of the scattered comments already made on these works can be necessary. They form a by no means contemptible group of "Composition [Sidenote: _General remarks on the Progymnasmata._] books," creditably distinguished from some more modern examples of the same kind by being busy with something better than mere grammar, but not as a rule showing any of that conception of style which is visible as early as Dionysius, distinct in Quintilian, and present in a form at once vigorous and exquisite in Longinus. They are by no means ill calculated to excite an interest in literature, and even to facilitate the production, in not contemptible form, of certain kinds of it. But there is upon all of them the curse of beginning at the wrong end—of constructing an elaborate skeleton system of forms, and kinds, and sub-kinds, and then classifying literature under these, instead of beginning with the literature, separating the good from the bad, and examining, as far as may be possible, the sources of goodness and badness. A man trained in them would have many advantages over our heaven-born, but hardly even earth-instructed, reviewers and students of literature. But he would be very apt to miss the finer touches, to lose the nobler gusts, of literature; and he would be especially disposed towards that worst disease of criticism, so often manifested in its history, which leads men to ignore, or even blaspheme, great work, because it refuses to be classified, or to obey the arbitrary rules which have been foisted into, or encrusted upon, the classification.