Such clumsy handling makes obvious the misapplications of rhetoric to poetic that are current among John’s contemporaries. Another perversion equally general is that of the _narratio_[33] of a speech to narrative. After exhibiting quite properly the statement of facts in a letter as an application of _narratio_, John deviates as follows: But since _narratio_ is common to prose and meter, we must enumerate its kinds [the three kinds of poetry taken by Bede from Diomedes[34]].... Under the second falls the _narratio_ which is distinguished by Tully thus: there is a kind of _narratio_ remote from legal pleading ... _fabula_, _historia_, _argumentum_ (926). Brunetto Latini shows not only the same deviation,[35] but also that “natural order and artificial order” which John (905) and the other pedagogues had perverted from Martianus Capella’s _narratio_ to narrative, and, behind both, the general misconception of the ancient _dispositio_.[36] Terms traditional in ancient rhetoric for the processes of composition are deviated at once to poetic and to style because the consideration never extends beyond figures, feet, or clauses. Thus John is able to add (928) to the “three poetic styles ... four other styles in modern use: (1) the Gregorian, (2) the Tullian, (3) the Hilarian, (4) the Isidorian. By the first he means the Roman style in _dictamen_.”[37] The second he distinguishes not by rhythm, but by _colores_, and as “used both by poets when they write prose and by teachers in school exercises.” The third, defined metrically, is exemplified both by an ancient hymn[38] and (929) by a letter. The fourth, that of Augustine’s _Soliloquies_, marks the balance of clauses not by equality of length, but by chiming cadences. To the usual list of figures are added the ten commonplaces (939) for the description of a person;[39] to a lust-and-blood plot (_tragedia_), further specimens of _dictamen_. Rhetoric and poetic are merged in one scheme of style. The scheme is confused; but the intention is single. The final section, _ars ritmica_, is significant, as Évrard’s is, by its very presence in a schoolbook. It shows (56)[40] the same school assignment of a stanza framed to end on a familiar quotation. Its classification of examples, though not illuminating, is much clearer than the subdivisions of the chapters preceding. _Rhythmus_, the verse of the hymns, distinguished from _metrum_ though discussed in some of the ancient metrical terms, is presented for study and practise. For the schoolboys who used it, as for the modern explorer, this section must have offered the relief of an active poetic after the drill of deviated rhetoric.[41] 5. Common Traits