On the contrary, I should say that it was not only useful as criticism, but that it was at the moment, and for the men, the _unum necessarium_ therein. Why the Time-Spirit chose Hurd[148] for his mouthpiece in this instance I know no more than those who have used this harsh language of him; this Spirit, like others, has a singular fashion of blowing where he lists. But, at any rate, he does not blow hot and cold here. Scraps and orts of Hurd’s doctrine may of course be found earlier—in Dryden, in Fontenelle, in Addison, even in Pope; but, though somebody else may know an original for the whole or the bulk of it, I, at least, do not. The three propositions—that Goths and Greeks are to be judged by their own laws and not by each other’s; that there are several unities, and that “unity of _Action_” is not the only one that affects and justifies even the fable; and that “follow Nature” is meaningless if not limited, and pestilent heresy as limited by the prevailing criticism of the day—these three abide. They may be more necessary and sovereign at one time than at another, but in themselves they are for all time, and they were for Hurd’s more than for almost any other of which Time itself leaves record. [Sidenote: _Alleged imperfections of the group._] Literary currishness and literary cubbishness (an ignoble but hardy and vivacious pair of brethren) have not failed almost from the first to growl and gambol over the mistakes which—in most cases save that of Gray—were made by these pioneers. Some of these mistakes they might no doubt have avoided, as he did, by the exercise of a more scholarly care. But it may be doubted whether even Gray was not saved to a great extent from committing himself by the timidity which restrained him from launching out into extensive hypotheses, and the indolence or bashfulness which held him back from extensive publication, or even writing. It was indeed impossible that any man, without almost superhuman energy and industry, and without a quite extraordinary share of learning, means, health, leisure, and long life, should have at that time informed himself with any thoroughness of the contents and chronological disposition of mediæval literature. The documents were, to all but an infinitesimal extent, unpublished; in very few cases had even the slightest critical editing been bestowed on those that were in print; and the others lay in places far distant, and accessible with the utmost difficulty, from each other; for the most part catalogued very insufficiently, or not at all, and necessitating a huge expense of time and personal labour even to ascertain their existence. At the beginning of the twentieth century any one who in these islands cannot find what he wants in a published form could in forty-eight hours obtain from the librarians at the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Cambridge Library, that of Trinity College, Dublin, and that of the Faculty of Advocates in