of an eloquent period, alleging that he feels in himself "such an alteration that he can scarce utter one word." This judicious display of emotion has the effect of causing Lucilla "to fry in the flames of love," and both she and Euphues retire to their chambers, where-though there is nobody to hear them but the reader-they deliver themselves of more discourses equally long, learned, and logical. Don Ferardo, on his return to Naples, requires his daughter to fulfil her contract with Philautus, but finds that she will have nobody but Euphues. This makes him exceedingly angry, while the jilted Orestes not unreasonably addresses to his Pylades a letter full of bitter reproaches and classical allusions. With all this Euphues remains unmoved, but, in just reward of his perfidy, Lucilla, not long afterwards, transfers her affections to "one Curio, a gentleman of Naples, of little wealth and less wit," leaving her learned lover to moralise on all the circumstances of his misfortune. His reflections inspire him with a wish to benefit his neighbours; accordingly he sits down to compose "a certain pamphlet," which he chooses to call "a cooling card for Philautus"—for with Philautus he is now reconciled; and from this he is led on to an Educational Treatise, entitled "Euphues and his Ephoebus." Vires acquirit eundo. His discourse obtains him great credit, and he becomes public Reader in the University, "with such commendation as never any had before him"; but finally, having printed his secular lectures in three volumes, he takes to the study of Divinity, and publishes, as a specimen of his powers, a Dialogue with Atheos: he is also moved to write various moral letters to different friends, one of them containing an instructive narrative of the subsequent fortunes and unhappy end of Lucilla, and another addressed to his old acquaintance, Livia.

In continuation of his novel Lyly wrote a second "romance" called Euphues and his England, the plot of which need not be described, as in all essential features the construction resembles the first part, though it has perhaps rather more action in proportion to the discourses.

What has been already said will suffice to give the reader an idea of the character of the whole composition, and will probably cause him to wonder that such a book should have so powerfully influenced the taste of the times. Viewed as a novel, Euphues is utterly devoid of constructive ingenuity, human interest, dramatic situation, just eloquence, and it deserves the neglect to which the judgment of posterity has condemned it. But in contemporary opinion and long afterwards it held a very different place. Writing in 1586 of the recent improvements in the English language, William Webbe, author of the Discourse of English Poetry, says :

A manifest example thereof may be the great good grace and sweet vein which eloquence hath attained in our speech, because it hath had the help of such rare and singular wits as from time to time might still add some amendment to the same. Among whom I think there is none that will gainsay but Master John Lilly hath deserved most high commendations, as he hath stepped one step further than any either before or since he first began the witty discourse of his Euphues. Whose works surely in respect of his singular eloquence and brave composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make trial thereof through all the parts of Rhetoric in fit phrases, in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plain sense, and surely, in my judgment, I think he will yield him that verdict which Quintilian giveth of both the best orators, Demosthenes and Tully, that from the one nothing may be taken away, to the other nothing may be added.1

Euphues was as much esteemed by polite society as by the critics. It was accepted with the Arcadia as fixing the standard of eloquence at Court.

Hoard up (advises Dekker, in his Gull's Horn Book) the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your lean wit may most savourly feed for want of other stuff, when the Arcadian and Euphuesed gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you.2

How readily this advice was followed may be inferred from the ridicule poured upon the fashionable style by 1 Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays, vol. ii. p. 46.

2 Gull's Horn Book, chap. vi. p. 36. (Reprinted for W. M'Mullen, 1862.) VOL. II

the dramatists, notably by Shakespeare in his Love's Labour Lost, and by Ben Jonson in Every Man out of his Humour.

Lyly's manner long continued to excite admiration. Edward Blount, a bookseller, in 1632 republished an edition of his plays, of which, addressing the reader in a preface, he says:

Our nation are in his debt for a new English which he taught them. Euphues and his England began first that language 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 there speaks not French.1

The English aristocracy, even in the latter part of the seventeenth century, appreciated the Euphuistic style, and the dedications to Dryden's plays are all composed in a modification of this manner, contrasting strongly with the style adopted by the poet in his critical prefaces, where, addressing the public at large, he discards affectation and trusts entirely to the natural resources of the language and to his own vigorous imagination and tuneful ear. The causes of this very remarkable revolution of taste are well worthy of consideration by the historian and the critic. For it will be observed that in all the critical passages just cited the quality for which Euphues is chiefly valued is eloquence. This is indeed the leading characteristic of the book; it is an example of rhetoric in the language of Love composed to suit the taste of the Court. The subject of the story is Love; not the physical love which is treated of in Ovid's De Arte Amatoria, but the metaphysical Love of the first part of the Roman de la Rose. Treatises on the rhetoric and casuistry of this art began, as we have already seen, to appear in Europe at a very early date, and the practice of chivalric lovepoetry was modified according to the circumstances of each society in which it flourished. The lyrics of the Troubadours developed in Italy into the love-poetry of Petrarch and his successors; in France and England, into the chivalric Love allegory which grew out of the Romance

1 Cited in Arber, Euphues, p. 18,

of the Rose. Both styles, but particularly the latter, commended themselves to the feudal nobility of the castles, who aimed at forming a standard of language and manners distinct from that of the vulgar. When chivalry decayed, and the quintessence of the institution was concentrated in the Court, the old allegorical artifices of chivalric poetry dropped out of fashion. Men and women no longer cared to regulate their mutual intercourse by references to Danger, and Pity, and Wicked - Tongue; and though Wyatt and Surrey introduced into the Court the traditions of Petrarch, the attempt was only an expiring flash of the spirit of chivalry. It was generally felt that in some way the science of aristocratic lovemaking must accommodate itself to the requirements of the New Learning. This was the demand of courtly taste which Lyly deliberately set himself to supply.

Everything in Euphues shows that the author knew very well what he was about. "In these days," says Fidus, a retired courtier in Euphues and his England, "it [Love] is thought the signs of a good wit, and the only virtue peculiar to a courtier, for love they say is in young gentlemen, in clowns it is lust, in old men dotage, when it is in all men madness." Though it was a scholar of the Universities who was pointing out a new path to the Gay Science, he knew that he must adapt his pedantry to the taste of his audience. Euphues," says Lyly, in an address to the Ladies and Gentlewomen of England, "had rather lie shut in a Lady's Casket, than open in a Scholar's study; » 1 and all the efforts of the writer were directed to form a style, the mechanism of which could be readily mastered and universally applied at Court.

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The first duty of a good courtier of the new style was of course flattery, and in this art the author of Euphues showed himself an adept. Here is his description of Queen Elizabeth, which may be compared with that of Ascham

In questioning not inferior to Nicaulia the Queen of Saba, that did put so many hard doubts to Solomon; equal to Nico

1 Euphues (Arber), p. 220.

strata in the Greek tongue, who was thought to give precepts for the better perfection; more learned in the Latin than Amalasunta; passing Aspasia in philosophy, who taught Pericles; exceeding in judgment Themistoclea, who instructed Pythagoras; add to these qualities those that none of these had, the French tongue, the Spanish, the Italian, not mean in every one, but excellent in all; readier to correct mistakes in those languages than to be controlled; fitter to teach others than to learn of any; more able to add new rules than to err in the old: insomuch that there is no Embassadour that cometh into her Court, but she is willing and able to understand his message, and utter her mind, not like unto the kings of Assyria who answer Embassadors by messengers, while they themselves either dally in sin or snort in sleep. Her godly zeal to learning, with her great skill, hath been so manifestly approved, that I cannot tell whether she deserve more honour for her knowledge, or admiration for her courtesy, who in great pomp hath twice directed her progress into the Universities, with no less joy to the students than glory to her state. Where after long and solemn disputations in Law, Physics, and Divinity, not as one wearied with scholars' arguments, but wedded to their orations, when every one feared to offend in length, she in her own person with no less praise to her Majesty, than delight to her subjects, with a wise and learned conclusion, both gave them thanks and put self to pains. . . . Her wit so sharp that if I could repeat the apt answers, the subtle questions, the fine speeches, the pithy sentences, which on the sudden she hath uttered, they would rather breed admiration than credit. But such are the gifts that the living God hath endowed her withal, that look in what art or language, wit or learning, virtue or beauty, any one hath excelled most, she only hath generally exceeded every one in all, insomuch that there is nothing to be added that either man could wish in a woman, or God doth give to a creature.1

It was fitting that the "Ladies and Gentlewomen" of England should imitate at a humble distance the accomplishments of their learned Sovereign. Accordingly, in devising the rhetoric of the new Art of Court Love, the ingenious author of Euphues was careful to give prominence to those features in the Code of Chivalric Love on which the Sovereign would set the highest value. The Queen was fond of logic and disputation; the Court ladies must therefore learn to analyse their emotions in the scholastic fashion, as indeed their grandmothers had

1 Euphues and his England (Arber), p. 459. Compare pp. 129, 130.