Note 493 — Chapter I · BEFORE DANTE.

Indeed, such a passage as the elaborate criticism of the literary work of Lampridius, however exaggerated and out of focus, is of quite priceless value to us. It is the kind of thing of which we have only too little from classical antiquity, and if it were not for the Halicarnassian and Longinus, should have quite wofully little. It is the kind of thing of which we have as nearly as possible nothing from the Middle Ages, and hardly anything, of equal directness to the individual, from the Renaissance; while, though it has been plentiful enough for the last two hundred and fifty years, and especially for the last hundred, the very abundance of it diminishes the individual significance of the expressions.