tion, friendship, and other virtues, with a great many love-passages. The book suited the taste of the time, and was popular: according to Blount the bookseller, "all our Ladies were then his Scholars; and that Beauty in Court which could not parley Euphuism was as little regarded as she which now" (1632) "speaks not French." With all his popularity the ingenious, gentle, humorous little man received no solid patronage. There are extant two petitions of his to the Queen complaining of his deferred hopes of favour. He had hung on for thirteen years in hopes of getting the Mastership of the Revels; and in his second petition (1593), despairing of this, he begs "Some land, some good fines, or forfeitures that should fall by the just fall of these nost false traitors, that seeing nothing will come by the Revels, I may prey upon the Rebels. Thirteen years your Highness' servant, but yet nothing. Twenty friends that though they say they will be sure I find them sure to be slow. A thousand hopes but all nothing; a hundred promises but yet nothing. Thus casting up the inventory of my friends, hopes, promises, and times, the summa totalis amounteth to just nothing. My last will is shorter than mine invention: but three legacies, patience to my creditors, melancholy without measure to my friends, and beggary without shame to my family.' What were his fortunes after this, whether Elizabeth heard his petition, is not known. Probably the frugal Queen gave him some relief. His admiring bookseller says, though without express reference to the petition, that he was heard, graced, and rewarded." He died at the comparatively early age of fifty-two. The interest in Lyly was revived in this century by Sir Walter Scott's attempt to reproduce a Euphuist in the person of Sir Piercie Shafton. In the heat of attacking and defending Lyly and his style, of arguing as to whether he invented Euphuism or only fell in with a ruling taste, whether he vitiated our language or caught a taint, the disputants have not always kept in view what peculiarly belongs to Lyly's mannerism and what does not. His style has good points and bad points, peculiar affectations and affectations common to the age. A discussion on Euphuism becomes hopelessly tangled and complicated unless the leading elements of his manner are kept distinct. Here it may be well, without pretending to give an exhaustive analysis, to distinguish some particulars that should not be confused. Three or four may be specified. (1.) Neatness and finish of sentence.-Lyly's sentences are remarkably free from intricacy and inversion, much shorter, more pithy and direct than was usual. We must come down at least a century before we find a structure so lucid. To be sure, his matter was not heavy, and did not tempt him to use either weighty sentences or learned terms: still, credit to whom credit is due; his sentences, as sentences, though not in perfect modern form, are the most smooth and finished of that time. His chief fault is the want of variety, 66 an eternal affectation of sententiousness," says an old critic, "keeps to such a formal measure of his periods as soon grows tiresome, and so by confining himself to shape his sense so frequently into one artificial cadence, however ingenious or harmonious, abridges that variety which the style should be admired for." (2.) Fanciful antithesis and word-play.-The passage above quoted from his petition to Elizabeth is an extreme example. In the Euphues' there are few passages so fantastically antithetical; the antithesis of the 'Euphues' is more a kind of balance in the clauses, with or without opposition in the matter. Thus, when young Euphues is counselled by aged Philautus, he replies: "Father and friend (your age showeth the one, your honesty the other), I am neither so suspicious to mistrust your goodwill, nor so sottish to mislike your good counsel. As I am therefore to thank you for the first, so it stands upon me to think better on the latter. I mean not to cavil with you as one loving sophistry: neither to control you, as one having superiority; the one would bring my talk into the suspicion of fraud, the other convince me of folly." When Euphues rejects the good advice, Lyly moralises thus: "Here ye may behold, Gentlemen, how lewdly wit standeth in his own light, how he deemeth no penny good silver but his own, preferring the blossom before the fruit, the bud before the flower, the green blade before the ripe ear of corn, his own wit before all men's wisdoms. Neither is that reason, seeing for the most part it is proper to all those of sharp capacity to esteem of themselves as most proper: if one be hard in conceiving, they pronounce him a dolt; if given to study, they proclaim him a dunce: if merry, a jester; if sad, a saint: if full of words, a sot: if without speech, a cipher. If one argue with them boldly, then he is impudent: if coldly, an innocent: if there be reasoning of divinity, they cry, Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos; if of humanity, sententias loquitur carnifex,' Lyly did not invent this measured balance: like Johnson, he only took up, trimmed, and carried to excess a structure that others used in a rougher form and less frequently. A more measured, neat, pointed, and ornate style of prose was imported from Italy in Henry VIII.'s reign by scholars and travelled men of fashion (p. 189). It appears in our literature long before Lyly. It would seem to have been encouraged by Elizabeth. We see how Lyly strained his wit to gain her favour; and in 1567, a quarter of a 6 1 An able monograph by Herr F. Landmann (Der Euphuismus, Giefsen, Keller, 1881) traces Lyly's Euphuism' back to Antonio de Guevara's 'Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius' (see ante, p. 198). Of this Spanish prose romance Herr Landmann regards Euphues' as an imitation both in matter and in manner. This is so far true: still Lyly's "Euphuism" has distinction enough to deserve credit as something more than an imitation-as a marked variety in a peculiar kind. century before, we find Roger Ascham exerting himself as follows. The letter is addressed to Elizabeth, though she is in the third person, and it has the same object as Lyly's petition : "I wrote once a little book of shooting: King HENRY, her most noble father, did so well like and allow it, as he gave me a living for it; when he lost his life I lost my living; but noble King Edward again did first revive it by his goodness, then did increase it by his liberality; thirdly, did confirm it by his authority under the great seal of England, which patent all this time was both a great pleasure and profit to me, saving that one unpleasant word in that patent, called during pleasure,' turned me after to great displeasure; for when King EDWARD went, his pleasure went with him, and my whole living went away with them both." Here we have the same striving at verbal conceits-differing from Lyly's only in being less ingenious and polished. Lyly, it is clear, cannot be charged either with inventing this affectation or with introducing it to Court. (3.) Excess of similitudes, parallels, and instances. This is the most striking part of Lyly's mannerism. It is for this that he is censured by Sidney, and accused of "rifling up all Herbarists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes." To the same effect he is attacked by Michael Drayton: while Sidney is praised because he "Did first reduce Our tongue from Lillie's writing then in use; Not only does Lyly ransack natural history for comparisons, he even goes the length of inventing natural history; at least, whether he is the inventor or not, many of his comparisons refer to fabulous properties. The following are examples. Take first “Euphues to the Gentlemen Scholars of Athens." "The merchant that travelleth for gain, the husbandman that toileth for increase, the lawyer that pleadeth for gold, the craftsman that seeketh to live by his labour-all these, after they have fatted themselves with sufficient, either take their ease, or less pain than they were accustomed. Hippomanes ceased to run when he had gotten the goal. Hercules to labour when he had obtained the victory. Mercury to pipe when he had cast Argus in a slumber. The ant, though she toil in summer, yet in winter she leaveth to travail. The bee, though she delight to suck the fair flower, yet is she at last cloyed with honey. The spider that weaveth the finest thread ceaseth at the last when she hath finished her web. But in the action and study of the mind (Gentlemen) it is far otherwise, for he that tasteth the sweet of learning endureth all the sour of labour. He that seeketh the depth of knowledge, is as it were in a Labyrinth, in the which the farther he goeth, the farther he is from the end or like the bird in the lime-bush, which, the more she striveth to get out, the faster she sticketh in. And certainly it may be said of learning as it was feigned of Nectar, the drink of the Gods, the which the more it was drunk, the more it would overflow the brim of the cup; neither is it far unlike the stone that groweth in the river of Caria, the which the more it is cut the more it increaseth. And it fareth with him that followeth it as with him that hath the dropsy," &c. Euphues having been rather sharply reproached with inconsistency by his friend Philautus, makes the following reply :— "The admonition of a true friend should be like the practice of a wise physician, who wrappeth his sharp pills in fine sugar; or the cunning Chirurgeon, who lancing a wound with an iron, immediately applieth to it soft lint; or as mothers deal with their children for worms, who put their bitter seeds into sweet raisins. If this order had been observed in thy discourse, that interlacing sour taunts with sugared counsel, bearing as well a gentle rein as using a hard snaffle, thou mightest have done more with the whisk of a wand, than now thou canst with the prick of the spur, and avoid that which now thou mayest not, extreme unkindness. But thou art like that kind judge which Propertius noteth, who condemning his friend, caused him for the more ease to be hanged with silken twist. And thou like a friend cuttest my throat with a razor, not with a hatchet, for my more honour. But why should I set down the office of a friend, when thou, like our Athenians," &c. The following is what we may suppose to have been imitated by the gallants of the Court :— "For as the hop, the pole being never so high, groweth to the end, or as the dry beech kindled at the root never leaveth until it come to the top or as one drop of poison disperseth itself into every vein, so affection having caught hold of my heart, and the sparkles of love kindled my liver, will suddenly, though secretly, flame up into my head, and spread itself into every sinew. "What cruelty more unfit for so comely a lady than to spur him that galloped, or to let him blood in the heart, whose vein she should have staunched in the liver? But it fared with me as with the herb basil, the which the more it is crushed, the sooner it springeth; or the rue, which the oftener it is cut the better it groweth; or the poppy, which the more it is trodden with the feet, the more it flourisheth." It serves no good purpose to apply the term Euphuism to anything but the tricks of style characteristic of Lyly, the author of 'Euphues.' We only make confusion when we apply the name to quaint punning and antithesis, or to superabundance of illustration and exemplification. These faults, such as they were, Lyly shared with his time. His peculiarity lay not so much in hosts of parallels and instances, as in the sententious pointed way of expressing them. That is the Euphuistic form: the Euphuistic substance is the copious illustration of everything pertaining to man from animals, plants, and minerals, real or fabulous. The form and substance taken together constitute Euphuism proper, the real invention of Lyly, and, it would appear, for some short time the fashionable affectation at Court. If by Euphuism we understand, as seems most reasonable, the peculiar manner of the author of 'Euphues,' we cannot accept Mr Marsh's statement that "the quality of style called Euphuism has more or less prevailed in all later periods of English literature." It is quite true that ingenious playing upon words has been a favourite practice "in all later periods of English literature." But Lyly's style had very little influence on literature, either for evil or for good. All sorts of antithetical pranks with words prevailed before he wrote, especially in the language of gallantry, ridiculed in 'Love's Labour Lost.' To this affectation he probably added nothing but greater polish of form. His similitudes from nature, whether simple, far-fetched, or spurious, were so overdone that the evil wrought its own cure. There were probably Euphuists in private circles and among inferior writers; but in higher, and even in middling literature, the affectation was too excessive to last, too characteristic to be imitated. Further, even the good points were not imitated. Mannerists like Johnson, Macaulay, or Carlyle, have an influence for good on many that do not adopt their most startling peculiarities. But Lyly's example carried no weight; his lucid neatness of sentence, and orderly way of producing instances, perished with his worthless affectations. English style immediately after him was not less prolix and intricate, nor less overburdened with clumsy quotations, than it was before him. It is hardly necessary to say that the style of Scott's "Piercie Shafton" is far from being a reproduction of Euphuism as it is in Lyly. Perhaps the nearest prototype of Shafton is Sidney's caricature of a pedantic schoolmaster "Rhombus" in 'The Lady of the May.'1 OTHER WRITERS, CHURCH CONTROVERSIALISTS-1580-1600. Some of the writers now to be mentioned wrote before the year 1580; all of them wrote after it. The struggle between the two Church parties passed through a crisis in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. Hooker, as we have seen, was the chief literary champion of Episcopacy in their capacity as writers, the others may be clustered round him. John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1530-1604, did probably more than any one man to establish the Church of England. He was born in Lincolnshire, and studied at Cambridge. During the first half of Elizabeth's reign he rose to distinction, filling important offices in the University. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583, and distinguished himself by his rigorous 1 Lyly's Euphues' is issued in Mr Arber's series of English Reprints, with a useful Introduction, containing several notices of Euphuism at different dates. Mrs Humphrey Ward has made a careful study of Lyly for the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' |