The First Book has the special title, _Qui et Historicus_, which it deserves, if not exactly or exclusively in our sense of History. [Sidenote: _Book I._: Historicus.] The critic begins, scholastically enough, with a distribution of everything into necessary, useful, or delightful, and proceeds to apply the classification in a beneficial manner to literary expression in general and Poetry in particular, ending the chapter with a characteristic gibe (for Scaliger is far from unhumorous) at the moderns who confine the appellation “Makers” to candle-makers.[98] Then he follows the safe road by discussing the causes (material, formal, &c.) of poetry; and indulges in a free review (for Scaliger, to do him justice, is _paratus nullius jurare in verba_) of ancient opinions. Hence he sets off to a full enumeration and examination, not merely of the kinds of poetry, but (in connection more especially with the drama) of the theatres and games of the ancients. Nothing escapes the extensive view of his observation, neither palinodes nor parodies, neither centos nor enigmas. And he is intensive as well as extensive. He rebukes, in his usual magisterial manner, the _Græculas nugas_ of Plutarch, who explains the number of the Muses by that of the letters in the name of their mother, Mnemosyne; and as for Plato’s blame of poetry, _respiceat ipse sese quot ineptas quot spurcas fabellas inserat_.[99] The distinction of _Poesis_, _Poema_, and _Poeta_, which follows (and which many grave writers, including Ben, copy), we have often met in kind or in itself before, nor is it quite so meticulous as it looks. For Scaliger utilises it to stop the blunder of Plutarch and others, who make a distinction in kind between great poems and smaller ones. It is tempting but impossible to follow him through the multitudinous, though far from mazy, ramifications of his plan. It must be enough to say that he leaves few items of the dictionary of his subject untouched, and (however inclined one may be to cry “Halt and fight!” at not a few of his definitions) formulates them with a roundness and a touch of confident mastery which fully explain, and to some extent justify, the practical dictatorship which he so long enjoyed. As thus (at the opening of chap. vi. p. 27), “Tragedy, like Comedy established in examples of human life, differs from it in three things—the condition of the persons, the quality of the fortunes and actions, the end. Whence it is necessary that it should also differ in style.” And this legislative calmness is accompanied and fortified by a profusion of erudite example, which might well awe the disciple. ----- Footnote 98: This joke requires a little explanation and adaptation to get it into English. The Latin is _miror majores nostros sibi tam iniquos fuisse ut factoris vocem maluerint_ oleariorum cancellis _circumscribere_. In fact, _Fattojo_ and _Fattojano_, if not _fattore_, do mean in Italian “Oil-Press” and “Oil-Presser.” Footnote 99: