Its small critical value 321 CHAPTER II. THE ITALIAN DECADENCE AND THE SPANIARDS. Decadence of Italian Criticism 323 Paolo Beni 324 Possevino: his _Bibliotheca Selecta_ 325 Tassoni: his _Pensieri Diversi_ 326 Aromatari 328 His _Degli Autori del Ben Parlare_ 329 Boccalini and Minors 329 Influence of the _Ragguagli_ 330 The set of Seicentist taste 331 Spanish criticism: highly ranked by Dryden? 331 The Origins—Villena 333 Santillana 333 Encina 335 Valdés 335 The beginning of regular Criticism. Humanist Rhetoricians 336 Poetics: Rengifo 337 Pinciano 338 La Cueva 341 Carvallo 341 Gonzales de Salas 341 The _Cigarrales_ of Tirso de Molina 343 Lope’s _Arte Nuevo_, &c. 344 His assailants and defenders 346 The fight over the Spanish drama 347 Cervantes and Calderon 347 Gongorism, Culteranism, &c. 349 Quevedo 349 Gracián 349 The limitations of Spanish criticism 350 CHAPTER III. GERMAN AND DUTCH CRITICISM. The hindmost of all 352 Origins 353 Sturm 353 Fabricius 354 Version A. 354 Version B. 354 Jac. Pontanus 355