Partly by mere induction from actual Greek practice, and partly no doubt also as a genuine result of Greek [Sidenote: _Defects and drawbacks in the_ Poetics.] taste and literary philosophy, we find the importance and the character of certain kinds of literature treated with some extravagance. The importance of Tragedy (as we are enabled to see clearly by the invaluable though rather unfair aid of the historic estimate) is altogether exaggerated. It never, as a matter of fact, has held anything like the position here assigned to it, save twice in two thousand years and more, on each occasion for a generation or two only. And there is no reason, in the order and logic of thought, why it should hold such a position. It is again clearly evident (though we owe the clearness again not to our own wits, but to time and chance) that part of this importance is attained by an illegitimate sacrifice, or an accidental ignoring, of the just claims of other branches of literature—by making lyric a mere playhouse handmaid, by converting the stage into a pulpit, and by blocking out, not merely the existence, but the very possibility, of the prose novel. We can see further that the glorious achievements of the three great tragedians whom we in part possess, and of others, probably not much inferior, whom we have almost wholly lost, seduced their critic into taking what he found in them too hastily for what ought to be found in all—induced him (aided no doubt by the Greek taste generally) to exalt Plot, to depress Character, to put quite undue stress on artificial Unity. Lastly (to keep to the _Poetics_), we perceive a most unfortunate, though by no means inexplicable, tendency to give insufficient weight to Metre, and a decided inclination, on the one hand not to give quite enough importance to Diction, and on the other to lay down arbitrary rules about it.