The defense is sufficient abstractly, though it does not quite meet the fact that in practise both teachers and students of rhetoric have not infrequently frittered away much time in minute analysis of _compositio_. Such analysis easily becomes over-minute, easily deviates from the paramount consideration of the idea or the image. That it is properly the work of revision, not of the first draft, Dionysius often implies, but might well have stated explicitly. So applied, given common sense and the honest determination to say what one means, analysis of prose rhythms is distinctly valuable and often necessary. FOOT-NOTES: [1] For Cicero, see Chapter III, for Quintilian and Tacitus, Chapter IV; for Dio Chrysostom and Apuleius, Chapter VIII. [1a] For biography and bibliography of Dionysius see Roberts, W. Rhys, _Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Three Literary Letters_, Cambridge, 1901, pages 1-50, 209-219. To the latter should be added: Egger, Max, _Essai sur la critique littéraire et la rhétorique chez les grecs au siècle d’Auguste_, Paris, 1902; Mætzke, Karl, _De D. H. Isocratis imitatore_, Wratislaw, 1906; Kremer, Emil, _Ueber das rhetorische system des D. von H._, Strassburg, 1907; Geigenmüller, Paul, _Quæstiones Dionysianæ de vocabulis artis criticæ_, Leipzig, 1908; Nassal, Franz, _Æsthetisch-rhetorische Beziehungen zwischen D. von H. und Cicero_, Tübingen, 1910; Hubbell, H. M., _The Influence of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius, and Aristides_, Yale University Press, 1914. The best edition of the _De compositione verborum_ is that by Roberts, W. Rhys, _Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Literary Composition_ (text, introduction, translation, notes, glossary, appendices), London, 1910. A current summary of the _De compositione_ will be found in Roberts, _Three Literary Letters_, pages 8-19; a more detailed summary, with a tabular analysis, in his edition, pages 1-10; a commented summary in Egger, pages 67-111. The rhetorical system of Dionysius is tabulated from all his works by Ammon, George, _De D. H. librorum rhetoricorum fontibus_, Monachii, 1889. In English equivalents, the pertinent parts of his analysis are as follows: A. subject-matter I. investigation (inventio) selection (iudicium) II. arrangement (dispositio) 1. division 2. order 3. revision and elaboration B. style I. choice of words (electio) 1. precision 2. imagery II. sentence movement (compositio) 1. nature 2. force 3. processes a. in phrases b. in clauses c. in periods 4. charm and beauty a. melody b. rhythm c. variety d. aptness 5. kinds a. strong b. smooth c. blended 6. verse and prose