But, as it happened, no inconsiderable part of the newly disinterred classics dealt with this very subject of Literary Criticism, [Sidenote: _Recovery of Ancient Criticism._] and, having been most neglected, was certain to be most attended to. Later mediæval practice had provided the examples of disease: earlier classical theory was to provide the remedy. Plato, the most cherished of the recovered treasures, had—in his own peculiar way, no doubt—criticised very largely; the _Poetics_ and the _Rhetoric_ were quickly set afresh before the new age in the originals; Horace had always been known; Quintilian was, since Rhetoric had not yet fallen into disfavour, studied direct;[4] and, before the sixteenth century was half over, Longinus himself had been unearthed and presented to a world which (if it had chosen to attend thereto) was also for the first time furnished with Dante’s critical performance.[5] With such an arsenal; with such a disposition of mind abroad; and with such real or imagined enemies to attack, it would have been odd if the forces of criticism, so long disorganised, and indeed disembodied, had not taken formidable shape. ----- Footnote 4: The _complete_ text was, as is well known, not discovered (by Poggio at St Gallen) till the fifteenth century had nearly filled its second decade, but the book had been studied long before. Footnote 5: Very great influence on sixteenth, and even on seventeenth, century criticism has also been frequently, and perhaps correctly, assigned to the grammatical works and Terentian Scholia of Donatus. -----