The first is that, to some extent unavoidably, but to a greater extent than that excuse will cover, the criticism which we have reviewed is criticism of poetry only. Most of it is quite openly and avowedly so. _Poetica_, _Poetice_, _De Poetica_, _Della Poetica_, _Della Vera Poetica_, _Art Poétique_, _Art of Poetry_, _Apology for Poetry_—these are the very titles of the books we have been discussing. When prose comes in at all, except on rare and mostly late occasions, it is only on questions more abstract or less abstract connected with poetry—“Whether Tragedy and Comedy may be written in Prose,” “Whether Verse is necessary to Poetry,” and the like. If poetry in ancient days was, though it received plenty of attention, sometimes injuriously postponed to oratory, it certainly now has its revenge. Oratory itself, though occasionally handled, obviously is so as a sort of legacy from the ancients themselves, from a sort of feeling that it would not be decent to say nothing about a subject on which Aristotle, and Cicero, and Quintilian have said so much. The formal Letter, being rather a favourite Italian institution, is not quite neglected; it receives some attention among ourselves from Ben. Whether History can or must give subjects for poetry is keenly debated; but the question is approached entirely from the side of interest in Poetry, not in History. At the very close of our period, we find so great a prose writer as Bacon doubting the solvency of vernacular prose; a little earlier we find Montaigne taking note of it chiefly, if at all, in regard to matter, Pasquier hardly taking notice of it at all. This is unfortunate, because it tends further to perpetuate the mischievous absorption in Kinds, and to postpone the attainment of the position from which, though the difference between prose and poetry may be seen more sharply than ever, the common literary qualities of both, and the way in which they affect the delight of the receiver, are at last perceived. It is unfortunate, further, because it tends to prevent the enjoyment of the full advantages which the modern literatures are gradually giving to the critic in the very departments—the prose romance, the essay, and others—where ancient criticism suffered most from the absence of material.