JULIUS CÆSAR SCALIGER—THE ‘POETIC’—BOOK I.: ‘HISTORICUS’—BOOK II.: ‘HYLE’—BOOKS III. AND IV.: ‘IDEA’ AND ‘PARASCEVE’—BOOKS V. AND VI.: ‘CRITICUS’ AND ‘HYPERCRITICUS’—BOOK VII.: EPINOMIS—GENERAL IDEAS ON UNITY AND THE LIKE—HIS VIRGIL-WORSHIP—HIS SOLID MERITS—CASTELVETRO—THE OPERE VARIE—THE ‘POETICA’—ON DRAMATIC CONDITIONS—ON THE THREE UNITIES—ON THE FREEDOM OF EPIC—HIS ECCENTRIC ACUTENESS—EXAMPLES: HOMER’S NODDING, PROSE IN TRAGEDY, VIRGIL, MINOR POETRY—THE MEDIUM AND END OF POETRY—UNCOMPROMISING CHAMPIONSHIP OF DELIGHT—HIS EXCEPTIONAL INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE—TASSO AND THE CONTROVERSIES OVER THE ‘GERUSALEMME’—TASSO’S CRITICAL WRITINGS AND POSITION—PATRIZZI: HIS ‘POETICA’—THE ‘DECA ISTORIALE’—THE ‘DECA DISPUTATA’—THE ‘TRIMERONE’ ON TASSO—REMARKABLE POSITION OF PATRIZZI—‘SED CONTRA MUNDUM’—THE LATEST GROUP OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY CRITICS—PARTENIO—VIPERANO—PICCOLOMINI—GILIO—MAZZONI—DENORES—ZINANO—MAZZONE DA MIGLIONICO, ETC.—SUMMO. In the remarkable little book, a notice of which concluded the last chapter, Lilius Giraldus, as we observed, includes—for their verse-work nominally, as became his title, but, with his usual acuteness, obviously perceiving that their importance lay elsewhere—both of the most famous and influential critics of the central sixteenth century in Italy. [Sidenote: _Julius Cæsar Scaliger._] His reference to Julius Cæsar Scaliger (who was, indeed, not more than six years younger than himself) contains some touches (such as the mention of him by the name he took, but with the addition “qui primus Bordonus cognomine fuit,” and the description of his book on Comic Metres, as “arranged with such wonderful subtlety as not to be intelligible save to a reader well versed in the subject”) which are of doubtful friendliness, but allows the Veronese gladiator to be _apprime eruditus_ and capable of _carmina elegantia_. For us nothing of Scaliger’s needs detailed notice except the once world-famous and still famous _Poetices Libri Septem_,[97] which appeared in 1561 after the death of Giraldus, and indeed after his own. ----- Footnote 97: My copy is the second edition (apud Petrum Santandreanum, _s. l._, 1581). -----