Yet although all this is, according to my opinion at least, absolutely true; although literary criticism has not much more to do with æsthetics than architecture has to do with physics and geology—than the art of the wine-taster or the tea-taster has to do with the study of the papillæ of the tongue and the theory of the nervous system generally, or with the botany of the vine and the geology of the vineyard; although, finally, as we have seen and shall see, the most painful and earnest attention to the science of the beautiful appears to be compatible with an almost total indifference to concrete judgment and enjoyment of the beautiful itself, and even with egregious misjudgment and failure to enjoy,—yet we cannot extrude this other _scienza nuova_ altogether, if only because of the almost inextricable entanglement of its results with those of criticism proper. And it is more specially to be dealt with in this particular place because, beyond all question, the direction of study to these abstract inquiries did contribute to the freeing of criticism from the shackles in which it had lain so long. Any new way of attention to any subject is likely to lead to the detection of errors in the old: and as the errors of Neo-classicism were peculiarly arbitrary and irrational, the “high _priori_ way” did certainly give an opportunity of discovering them from its superior height—the most superfluous groping among preliminaries and foundations gave a chance of unearthing the roots of falsehood. As in the old comparison Saul found a kingdom when he sought for his father’s asses, so it was at least possible for a man, while he was considering whether poetry is an _oratio sensitiva perfecta_, or whether there is a separate Logic of Phantasy, to have his eyes suddenly opened to the fact that Milton was not merely a fanatic and fantastic, with a tendency to the disgusting, and that Shakespeare was something more than an “abominable” mountebank. CHAPTER VI. THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. BEARINGS OF THE CHAPTER—ENGLAND—THE STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE—OF SPENSER— CHAUCER—ELIZABETHAN MINORS—MIDDLE AND OLD ENGLISH—INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH ABROAD—THE STUDY OF FRENCH AT HOME AND ABROAD—OF ITALIAN— ESPECIALLY DANTE—OF SPANISH—ESPECIALLY CERVANTES—OF GERMAN. [Sidenote: _Bearings of the chapter._]