Still more unmixed praise can be given to him from other points of view. To any scholar his scholarship is singularly refreshing in its thoroughness and range; he really neglects nothing proper to his subject, though he may define that subject with a somewhat arbitrary hand. Agree with him or differ with him as we may, it is an infinite comfort to be brought thus in contact and confrontation with the actual texts—to exchange the paper symbols of “the poet,” “the dramatist,” “the satirist” in the abstract, for sound ringing coin of actual poetry, drama, satire, told down on the counter, and tested by file and acid if required. The literary atlas of the _Hypercriticus_ is, as has been said, the first attempt at a complete thing of the kind since Quintilian, and of necessity far more complete than his. In fact, Scaliger taught the school opposed to him—the school which after many a generation of desultory fighting at last worsted his own—the way to conquer. History and Comparison—the twin lights of criticism, the only road-makers across the abyss—are resorted to by him fearlessly. That he loses the best of their light, and twists the road in the wrong direction, by following Will-o'-the-wisps like his Virgil-worship, matters in detail but not in principle. He has practically come back to the safe way which Aristotle entered, but was precluded from treading far enough, which Quintilian and Longinus trod, but on which most of the ancients would not set foot. He has not found the last secret—the secret of _submitting_ to History and to Comparison; he still looks upon both as instruments to be used merely under the direction of, and in subordination to, the purposes of _a priori_ theory. His neglect of the vernaculars is not only wrong, but by his time absurd. His minor prejudices (as against Erasmus) are sometimes contemptible. His actual taste, as has been said, was probably neither delicate nor versatile. But he has learning, logic, lucidity within his range, laborious industry, and love of literature. The multitude which followed him followed him partly to do evil; but it would have been a surprise, and almost a shame, had so bold and capable a leader lacked a multitude of followers.