John Lyly Part 4

[80] This touches upon the famous dispute between Dr Schwan and Dr Goodlet which is excellently dealt with by Mr Child, p. 77.

I write loosely of "style," but strictly speaking the euphuists paid especial attention to diction. And here again the poetical and aristocratic tendencies of euphuism show themselves. For diction, which is the art of selection, the selection of apt words, is of course one of the first essentials of poetic art, and is also more prominent in the prose of Court literature than elsewhere. The precision, the _finesse_, the subtlety, of French prose has only been attained by centuries of attention to diction. English prose, on the other hand, is singularly lacking in this quality; and for this cause it would never have produced a Flaubert, despite its splendid achievements in style. Had euphuism been more successful, it might have altered the whole aspect of later English prose, by giving us in the 16th century that quality of diction which did not become prominent in our prose until the days of Pater and the purists.

And yet, though it failed in this particular, the influence of the general qualities of its style upon later prose must have been incalculable. The vogue of euphuism as a craze was brief; but _Euphues_ received fresh publication about once every three years down to 1636, and long after its social popularity had become a thing of the past, it probably attracted the careful study of those who wished to write artistic prose. The only model of prose form which the age possessed could scarcely sink into oblivion, or become out of date, until its princ.i.p.al lessons had been so well learnt as to pa.s.s into common-places.

The exaggerations, which first gave it fame, were probably discounted by the more sincere appreciation of later critics, to whom its more sterling qualities would appeal. For some reason, the musical properties of euphuism do not appear to have found favour among those critics, and this was probably a loss to our literature. "Alliteration," as Professor Raleigh remarks, "is often condemned as a flaw in rhymed verse, and it may well be open to question whether Lyly did not give it its true position in attempting to invent a place for it in what is called prose[81]." Possibly its failure in this respect was due to the growth of that intellectual asceticism, and that reaction against the domination of poetry, which are, I think, intimately bound up with the fortunes of Puritanism. The beginning of this reaction is visible as early as 1589 in the words of Warner's preface to _Albion's England_, which display the very affectation they protest against: "onely this error may be thought hatching in our English, that to runne on the letter we often runne from the matter: and being over prodigall in similes we become lesse profitable in sentences and more prolixious to sense." But, however this may be, it was the formal rather than the musical qualities which gave _Euphues_ its dynamical importance in the history of English prose. Subsequent writers had much to learn from a book in which the principle of design is for the first time visible.

With euphuism, ant.i.thesis and the use of balanced sentences came to stay. We may see them in the style of Johnson and Gibbon, while alliterative ant.i.thesis reappears to-day in the shape of the epigram.

Doubtless Lyly abused the ant.i.thetical device; but his successors had only to discover a means of skilfully concealing the structure, an improvement which the early euphuists, with all the enthusiasm of inventors, could not have appreciated.

[81] Raleigh, p. 47.

Moreover, in aiming at elegance and precision, Lyly attained a lucidity almost unequalled among his contemporaries. His attention to form saved him from the besetting sin of Elizabethan prose,--incoherence by reason of an overwhelming display of ornament. His very ill.u.s.trations were subject to the restraint which his style demanded, being sown, to use his own metaphor, "here and there lyke Strawberries, not in heapes, lyke Hoppes[82]." Arcadianism came as a reaction against euphuism, attempting to replace its artificiality by simplicity. But how infinitely more preferable is the novel of Lyly, with its artificial precision and lucidity, to the conscious artlessness of Sidney's _Arcadia_, with its interminable sentences and confused syntax. As a modern euphuist has taught us, of all poses the natural pose is the most irritating. In accordance with his desire for precision, Lyly made frequent use of the short sentence. In this we have another indication of his modernity: for the short sentence, which is so characteristic of English prose style to-day, occurs more often in his work than in the writings of any of his predecessors. And, in reference to the same question of lucidity, we may notice that he was the first writer who gave special attention to the separation of his prose into paragraphs,--a matter apparently trivial, but really of no small importance. Finally, it is a remarkable fact that the number of words to be found in _Euphues_ which have since become obsolete is a very small one--"at most but a small fraction of one per cent.[83]" And this is in itself sufficient to indicate the influence which Lyly's novel has exerted upon English prose. As he reads it, no one can avoid being struck by the modernity of its language, an impression not to be obtained from a perusal of the plays. The explanation is simple enough. The plays were not read or absorbed by their author's contemporaries and successors; _Euphues_ was. In the domain of style, _Euphues_ was dynamical; the plays were not.

[82] _Euphues_, p. 220.

[83] Child, p. 41.

But the true value of Lyly's prose lies not so much in what it achieved as in what it attempted; for the qualities, which euphuism, by its insistence upon design and elegance, really aimed at, were strength, brilliancy, and refinement. For the first time in the history of our literature, men are found to write prose with the purpose of fascinating and enticing the reader, not merely by what is said, but also by the manner of saying it. "Lyly" (and, we may add, his a.s.sociates), writes his latest editor, "grasped the fact that in prose no less than in poetry, the reader demanded to be led onward by a succession of half imperceptible shocks of pleasure in the beauty and vigour of diction, or in the ingenuity of phrasing, in sentence after sentence--pleasure inseparable from that caused by a perception of the nice adaptation of words to thought, pleasure quite other than that derivable from the acquisition of fresh knowledge[84]." The direct influence of the man who first taught us this lesson, who showed us that a writer, to be successful, should seek not merely to express himself, but also to study the mind of his reader, must have been something quite beyond computation. And that his direct influence was not more lasting was due, in the first place, to the fact that he had not grasped the full significance of this psychological aspect of style, if we may so call it, which he and his friends had been the first to discover. As with most first attempts, euphuism, while bestowing immense benefits upon those who came after, was itself a failure. The euphuists perceived the problem of style, but successfully attacked only one half of it. More acute than their contemporaries, they realised the principle of economy, but, as with one who makes an entirely new mechanical invention, they were themselves unable to appreciate what their discovery would lead to.

They were right in addressing themselves to the task of attracting, and stimulating, the reader by means of precision, pointed ant.i.thesis, and such like attempts to induce pleasurable mental sensations, but they forgot that anyone must eventually grow weary under the influence of continuous excitation without variation. The soft drops of rain pierce the hard marble, many strokes overthrow the tallest oak, and much monotony will tire the readiest reader. Or, to use the phraseology of a somewhat more recent scientist, they "considered only those causes of force in language which depend upon economy of the mental _energies_,"

they paid no attention to "those which depend upon the economy of the mental _sensibilities_[85]." This is one explanation of the weariness with which _Euphues_ fills the modern reader, and of the speed with which, in spite of its priceless pioneer work, that book was superseded and forgotten in its own days. It is our duty to give it its full meed of recognition, but we can understand and forgive the ungratefulness of its contemporaries.

[84] Bond, I. p. 146.

[85] H. Spencer, Essays, II. _Phil. of Style_.

Another cause of the oblivion which so soon overtook the famous Elizabethan novel, has already been suggested. Euphuism was too antagonistic to the general current of English prose to be successful.

Lyly and his Oxford clique were attempting a revolution similar to that undertaken, at the same period, by Ronsard and his _Pleiad_. Lyly failed in prose, where Ronsard succeeded in poetry, because he endeavoured to go back upon tradition, while the Frenchman worked strictly within its limits. The attempt to throw Court dress over the plain homespun of our English prose might have been attended with success, had our literature been younger and more easily led astray. As it was, prose in this country, when euphuism invaded it, could already show seven centuries of development, and, moreover, development along the broad and national lines of common or vulgar speech. Euphuism was after all only part of the general tendency of the age to focus everything that was good in politics, religion, and art, on the person and immediate surroundings of the sovereign; and the history of the eighteenth century, which saw the last issue of the series of _Euphues_ reprints, is the history of the collapse of this centralization all along the line, ending in the complete vindication of the democratic basis of English life and literature.

With these general remarks we must leave the subject of euphuism. No history of its origin and its influence can be completely satisfactory: such questions must of necessity receive a speculative and tentative solution, for it is impossible to give them an exact answer which admits of no dispute. The age of Lyly was far more complex than ours, with all our artistic sects and schisms; the currents of literary influence were mult.i.tudinous and extremely involved. As Symonds wrote, "The romantic art of the modern world did not spring like that of Greece from an ungarnered field of flowers. Troubled by reminiscences from the past and by reciprocal influences from one another, the literatures of modern Europe came into existence with composite dialects and obeyed confused canons of taste, exhibited their adolescent vigour with affected graces and showed themselves senile in their cradles." In the field of literature to-day the standards are more numerous, but more distinctive, than those of the Elizabethans. Our ideals are cla.s.sified with almost scientific exactness, and we wear the labels proudly. But the very splendour of the Renaissance was due to the fact that in the same group, in the same artist, were to be found the most diverse ideals and the most opposite methods. They worshipped they knew not what, we know what we worship. Yet this difference does not prevent us from seeing curious points of similarity between our own and those times. The 16th, like the 19th century, was a period of revolt from the past: and at such moments men feel a supreme contempt for the common-place in literature. The cry of art for art's sake is raised, and the result is extravagance, euphuism. A wave of intellectual dandyism seems to sweep over the face of literature, aristocratic in its aims and sympathies. Then are the battle lines drawn up, and the spectators watch, with admiration or contempt, the eternally recurrent strife between David and the Philistines; and whether the young hero be clad in the knee-breeches of aestheticism, or the slashed doublet of the courtier; whether he be armed with epigram and sunflower, or with euphuism and camomile; variation of costume cannot conceal the ident.i.ty of his personality--the personality of the fop of culture.

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST ENGLISH NOVEL.

Despite the disproportionate attention given to euphuism by so many of Lyly's critics, _Euphues_ is no less important as a novel than as a piece of prose. We can, however, dismiss this second branch of our subject in fewer words, because the problem of _Euphues_ is much simpler and more straightforward than the problem of euphuism. It can scarcely be said that Lyly has yet been thoroughly appreciated as a novelist; indeed, the whole subject of the Elizabethan novel is very far from having received a satisfactory treatment at present. This is not surprising when we consider that the last word remains to be said upon the Elizabethan drama. The birth of modern literature was so sudden, its life, even in the cradle, was so complex that it baffles criticism. Like the peal of an organ with a thousand stops, the English Renaissance seemed to break the stillness of the great mediaeval church, shaking its beautiful sombre walls and filling it from floor to roof with wild, pagan music. Indeed, the more we study those 50 or 60 years which embrace the so-called Elizabethan period, the more are we struck by the fact that, ever since, we have been simply making variations upon the themes, which the men of those times gave us. Modern science, modern poetry, modern drama, sat like pages at the feet of the Great Queen.

Among these the novel cut but an insignificant figure, although it was the novel which had perhaps the longest future before it. We need not wonder therefore that our first English novelist has been treated by many with neglect. None I think have done more to make amends in this direction than Professor Raleigh and M. Jusserand; the former in his graceful, humorous, and penetrating little book, _The English Novel_; and the latter in his well-known work on _The English Novel in the time of Shakespeare_, which gives one, while reading it, the feeling of being present at a fancy-dress ball, so skilfully does he detect the forms and faces of present-day fiction behind euphuistic mask and beneath arcadian costume. To these two books the present writer owes a debt which all must feel who have stood bewildered upon the threshold of Elizabeth's Court with its glittering throng of genius and wit.

Sudden, however, as was this crop of warriors wielding pen, it must not be forgotten that the dragon's teeth had first been sown in mediaeval soil. With Lyly the English novel came into being, but that child of his genius was not without ancestry or relations. And so, before discussing the character and fortunes of the infant, let us devote a few introductory remarks to pedigree. Roughly speaking, the prose narrative in England, before _Euphues_, falls into three divisions, the romance of chivalry, the _novella_, and the moral Court treatise,--and all three are of foreign extraction, that is to say, they are represented in England by translations only. Chaucer indeed is a mine of material suitable for the novel, but the father of English literature elected to write in verse, and his _Canterbury Tales_ have no appreciable influence upon the later prose story. For some reason, the mediaeval prose narrative seems to have been confined to the so-called Celtic races.

Certainly, both the romance of chivalry and the _novella_ are to be traced back to French sources. The _novella_, which, at our period, had become thoroughly naturalized in Italy, under the auspices of Boccaccio, had originally sprung from the _fabliaux_ of 13th century France. Nor was the _fabliau_ the only article of French production which found a new and more stimulative home across the Alps; for just as it is possible to trace the German Reformation back, through Huss, to its birth in Wycliff's England, so French critics have delighted to point out that the Italian Renaissance itself was but an expansion of an earlier Renaissance in France, which, for all the strength and maturity it gained under its new conditions, lost much of that indescribable flavour of direct simplicity and gracious sweetness which breathes from the pages of _Auca.s.sin and Nicolette_ and its companion _Amis and Amile_. Under Charles VIII. and his successors this Renaissance was carried home, as it were, to die--so subtle is the ebb and flow of intellectual influences between country and country. In England the _novella_, of which Chaucer had made ample use, first appeared in prose dress from the printing-press of Caxton's successor, Wynkyn de Worde.

The Dutch printer had also published Lord Berners' translation of _Huon of Bordeaux_, the best romance of chivalry belonging to the Charlemagne cycle. But, before the dawn of the 16th century Malory had already given us _Morte D'Arthur_, from the Arthurian cycle, printed, as everyone knows, by the industrious Caxton himself. Thus, if we neglect, as I think we may, translations from the _Gesta Romanorum_, we may say that the prose narrative appeared in England simultaneously with the printing-press, a fact which is more than coincidence; since the multiplication of books, which Caxton began, decreased the necessity for remembering tales; and therefore it was now possible to dispense with the aid of verse; in fact Caxton deprived the minstrel of his occupation.

Of the third form of prose narrative--the moral Court treatise--we have already said something. It had appeared in Italy and in Spain, and our connexion with it came from the latter country, through Berners'

translation of the _Golden Boke_ of Guevara. So slight was the thread of narrative running through this book, that one would imagine at first sight that it could have little to do with the history of our novel. And yet in comparison with its importance in this respect the _novella_ and the romance of chivalry are quite insignificant. The two latter never indeed lost their popularity during the Elizabethan age, but they had ceased to be considered respectable--a very different thing--before that age began. The first cause of their fall in the social scale was the disapprobation of the humanists. Ascham, echoing Plato's condemnation of Homer, attacks the romance of chivalry from the moral point of view, at the same time cunningly a.s.sociating it with "Papistrie." But he holds the _novella_ even in greater abhorrence, for, after declaring that the whole pleasure of the _Morte D'Arthur_ "standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold bawdrye," he goes on to say: "and yet ten _Morte Arthurs_ do not a tenth part so much harm as one of those bookes, made in Italy and translated in England[86]."

[86] _Schoolmaster_, p. 80.

But there were social as well as moral reasons for the depreciation of Malory and Boccaccio. The taste of the age began to find these foreign dishes, if not unpalatable, at least not sufficiently delicate. England was fortunate in receiving the Reformation and the Renaissance at the same time; and the men of those "s.p.a.cious times" set before their eyes that ideal of the courtier, so exquisitely embodied by Sir Philip Sidney, in which G.o.dliness was not thought incompatible with refinement of culture and graciousness of bearing. For the first time our country became civilized in the full meaning of that word, and the knight, shedding the armour of barbarism, became the gentleman, clothed in velvet and silk. The romance of chivalry, therefore, became old-fashioned; and it seemed for a time doomed to destruction until it received a new lease of life, purged of mediaevalism and modernised by the hands of Sidney himself, under the guise of arcadianism. While, however, _Arcadia_ remained an undiscovered country, the needs of the age were supplied by the "moral Court treatise." It was perhaps not so much that the old stories found little response in the new form of society, as that they did not reflect that society. We may well believe that the taste for mirrors, which now became so fashionable, found its psychological parallel in the desire of the Elizabethans to discover their own fashions, their own affectations, themselves, in the stories they read; and if this indeed be what is meant by realism in literature that quality in the novel dates from those days. In this sense if in no other, in the sense that he held, for the first time, a polished mirror before contemporary life and manners, Lyly must be called the first of English novelists.

_The Anatomy of Wit_, which it is most important to distinguish from its sequel, was the descendant in the direct line from the "moral Court treatise." Something perhaps of the atmosphere of the _novella_ clung about its pages, but that was only to be expected: Lyly added incident to the bare scheme of discourses, and for that he had no other models but the Italians. But Guevara was his real source. Dr Landmann's verdict, that "Euphuism is not only adapted from Guevara's _alto estilo_, but _Euphues_ itself, as to its contents, is a mere imitation of Guevara's enlarged biography of Marcus Aurelius," has certainly been shown by Mr Bond to be a gross overstatement; yet there can be no doubt that the _Diall of Princes_ was Lyly's model on the side of matter, as was Pettie's _Pallace_ on the side of style. Our author's debt to the Spaniard is seen in a correspondence between many parts of his book and the _Aureo Libro_, in certain of the concluding letters and discourses, and in many other ways which Mr Bond has patiently noted[87]. Guevara, however, was but one among many previous writers to whom Lyly owed obligations. _Euphues_ was justly styled by its author "compiled," being in fact a mosaic, pieced together from the cla.s.sics, and especially Plutarch, Pliny, and Ovid, and from previous English writers such as Harrison, Heywood, Fortescue, and Gascoigne; names that indicate the course of literary "browsing" that Lyly subst.i.tuted for the ordinary curriculum at Oxford. To mention all the authors from whom he borrowed, and to point out the portions of his novel which are due to their several influences, would only be to repeat a task already accomplished by Mr Bond[88].

[87] Bond, I. pp. 154-156.

[88] Bond, I. pp. 156-159.

Allowing for all its author's "picking and stealing," _The Anatomy of Wit_ was in the highest sense an original book; for, though it is the old moral treatise, its form is new, and it is enlivened by a thin thread of narrative. The hero Euphues is a young man lately come from Athens, which is unmistakeably Oxford, to Naples, which is just as unmistakeably London. Here he soon becomes the centre of a convivial circle, where he is wise enough to distinguish between friend and parasite, to discern the difference between the "faith of Laelius and the flattery of Aristippus." The story thus opens bravely, but the words of the t.i.tle-page, "most necessary to remember," are ever present in the author's mind, and before we have reached the fourth page the sermon is upon us. For "conscience" attired as an old man, Eubulus, now enters the stage of this Court _morality_ and proceeds to deliver a long harangue upon the folly of youth, concluding with much excellent though obvious counsel. We should be in sympathy with the rude answer of Euphues, were it but curt at the same time, but, alas, it covers six pages. Having thus imprudently crushed the "wisdom of eld" by the weight of his utterance, our hero shows his natural preference for the companionship and counsel of youth, by forming an ardent friendship with Philautus, of so close a nature, that "they used not only one boorde but one bed, one booke (if so be that they thought it not one too many)." This alliance, however, is not concluded until Euphues has given us his own views, together with those of half antiquity, upon the subject of friendship, or before he has formally professed his affection in a pompous address, beginning "Gentleman and friend," and has been as formally accepted. By Philautus he is introduced to Lucilla, the chief female character of the book, a lady, if we are to believe the description of her "Lilly cheeks dyed with a Vermilion red," of startling if somewhat fact.i.tious beauty.

To say that the plot now thickens would be to use too coa.r.s.e a word; it becomes slightly tinged with incident, inasmuch as Euphues falls in love with Lucilla, the destined bride of Philautus. She reciprocates his pa.s.sion, and the double fickleness of mistress and friend forms an excellent opportunity, which Lyly does not fail to seize, for infinite moralizings in euphuistic strains. Philautus is naturally indignant at the turn affairs have taken, and the former friends exchange letters of recrimination, in which, however, their embittered feelings are concealed beneath a vast display of cla.s.sical learning. But Nemesis, swift and sudden, awaits the faithless Euphues. Lucilla, it turns out, is subject to a mild form of erotomania and is const.i.tutionally fickle, so that before her new lover has begun to realise his bliss she has already contracted a pa.s.sion for some other young gentleman. Thus, struck down in the hour of his pride and pa.s.sion, Euphues becomes "a changed man," and bethinks himself of his soul, which he has so long neglected. This is the turning-point of the book, the turning-point of half the English novels written since Lyly's day. The remainder of the _Anatomy of Wit_ is taken up with what may be described as the private papers of Euphues, consisting of letters, essays, and dialogues, including _A Cooling Carde for all Fond Lovers_, a treatise on education, and a refutation of atheism, and so amid the thunders of the artillery of plat.i.tude the first part of _Euphues_ closes.

Professor Raleigh's explanation of this tedious moralizing is that Lyly, wit and euphuist, possessed the Nonconformist conscience: "Beneath the courtier's slashed doublet, under his ornate brocade and frills, there stood the Puritan." This I believe to be a mistaken view of the case. As we shall later see reason to suppose, Lyly never became, as did his acquaintance Gosson, a very seriously-minded person. Certainly _Euphues_ does not prove that Puritanism was latent in him. The moral atmosphere which pervades it was not of Lyly's invention; he inherited it from his predecessors Guevara and Castiglione, and he employed it because he knew that it was expected of him. That he moralized not so much from conviction as from convention (to use a euphuism), is, I think, sufficiently proved by the fact that in the second part of his novel, where he is addressing a new public, the pulpit strain is much less frequent, while in his plays it entirely disappears. The _Anatomy of Wit_ is essentially the work of an inexperienced writer, feeling his way towards a public, and without sufficient skill or courage to dispense with the conventions which he has inherited from previous writers. One feels, while reading the book, that Lyly was himself conscious that his hero was an insufferable c.o.xcomb, and that he only created him because he wished to comply with the public taste. It may be, as M. Jusserand a.s.serts, that Lyly antic.i.p.ated Richardson, but, if the light-hearted Oxford madcap had any qualities in common with the sedate bookseller, artistic sincerity was not one of them.

What has just been said is not entirely applicable to the treatise on education which pa.s.sed under the t.i.tle of _Euphues and his Ephoebus_.

Although simply an adaptation of the _De Educatione_ of Plutarch, it was not entirely devoid of originality. Here we find the famous attack upon Oxford, which was, we fear, prompted by a desire to spite the University authorities rather than by any earnest feeling of moral condemnation.

But in addition to this there are contributions of Lyly's own invention to the theory of teaching which are not without merit. He was, as we have seen, interested in education. It seems even possible that he had actually practised as a master before the _Euphues_ saw light[89]; and, therefore, we have every reason to suppose that this little treatise was a labour of love. Possibly Ascham's _Schoolmaster_ inspired him with the idea of writing it. Certainly, when we have allowed everything for Plutarch's work, enough remains over to justify Mr Quick's inclusion of John Lyly, side by side with Roger Ascham, in his _Educational Reformers_.

[89] Bond, I. p. 10.

But such excellent work has but little to do with the business of novel-writing, and, when we turn to this aspect of the _Anatomy of Wit_, there is little to be said for it from the aesthetic point of view.

Indeed, it cannot strictly be called a novel at all. It is the bridge between the moral Court treatise and the novel, and, as such, all its aesthetic defects matter little in comparison with its dynamical value.

It was a great step to hang the chestnuts of discourse upon a string of incident. The story is feeble, the plot puerile, but it was something to have a story and a plot which dealt with contemporary life. And lastly, though characterization is not even attempted, yet now and again these euphuistic puppets, distinguishable only by their labels, are inspired with something that is almost life by a phrase or a chance word.

I have said that it is very important to distinguish between the two parts of _Euphues_. Two years only elapsed between their respective publications, but in these two years Lyly, and with him our novel, had made great strides. In 1578 he was not yet a novelist, though the conception of the novel and the capacity for its creation were, as we have just shown, already forming in his brain. In 1580, however, the English novel had ceased to be merely potential; for it had come into being with the appearance of _Euphues and his England_. Here in the same writer, in the same book, and within the s.p.a.ce of two years, we may observe one of the most momentous changes of modern literature in actual process. The _Anatomy of Wit_ is still the moral Court treatise, coloured by the influence of the Italian _novella_; _Euphues and his England_ is the first English novel. Lyly unconsciously symbolizes the change he initiated by laying the scene of his first part in Italy, while in the second he brings his hero to England. That sea voyage, which provoked the stomach of Philautus sore, was an important one for us, since the freight of the vessel was nothing less than our English novel.

The difference between the two parts is remarkable in more ways than one, and in none more so than in the change of dedication. The _Anatomy of Wit_, as was only fitting in a moral Court treatise, was inscribed to the gentleman readers; _Euphues and his England_, on the other hand, made an appeal to a very different cla.s.s of readers, and a cla.s.s which had hitherto been neglected by authors--"the ladies and gentlewomen of England." With the instinct, almost, of a religious reformer, Lyly saw that to succeed he must enlist the ladies on his side. And the experiment was so successful that I am inclined to attribute the pre-eminence of Lyly among other euphuists to this fact alone. "Hatch the egges his friendes had laid" he certainly did, but he fed the chicks upon a patent food of his own invention. Mr Bond suggests that the general attention which the _Anatomy_ secured by its attacks upon women gave Lyly the idea for the second part. But, though this was probably the immediate cause of his change of front, something like _Euphues and his England_ must have come sooner or later, because all the conditions were ripe for its production. Side by side with the ideal of the courtier had arisen the ideal of the cultured lady. Ascham, visiting Lady Jane Grey, "founde her in her chamber reading _Phaedon Platonis_ in Greeke and that with as much delite, as some gentlemen would read a merie tale in Bocase[90]"; and, when a Queen came to the throne who could talk Greek at Cambridge, the fashion of learning for ladies must have received an immense impetus. With a "blue stocking" showing on the royal footstool, all the ladies of the Court would at least lay claim to a certain amount of learning. Dr Landmann has attributed the vogue of euphuism, at least in part, to feminine influences, but in so far as England shared that affectation with the other Courts of Europe, where the fair s.e.x had not yet acquired such freedom as in England, we must not press the point too much in this direction. The importance in English literature of that "monstrous regiment of women," against which John Knox blew his rude trumpet so shamelessly, is seen not so much in the style of _Euphues_ as in its contents; indeed, in the second part of that work euphuism is much less prominent than in the first. The romance of chivalry and the Italian tale would be still more distasteful to the new woman than they were to the new courtier. Doubtless Boccaccio may have found a place in many a lady's secret bookshelf as Zola and Guy de Maupa.s.sant do perchance to-day, but he was scarcely suitable for the boudoir table or for polite literary discussion. Something was needed which would appeal at once to the feminine taste for learning and to the desire for delicacy and refinement. This want was only partially supplied by the moral Court treatise, which was ostensibly written for the courtier and not the maid-in-waiting. What was required was a book expressly provided for the eye of ladies--such a book, in fact, as _Euphues and his England_. Lyly's discovery of this new literary public and its requirements was of great importance, for have not the ladies ever since his day been the patrons and purchasers of the novel? What would happen to the literary market to-day were our mothers, wives, and sisters to deny themselves the pleasure of fiction? The very question would send the blood from Mr Mudie's lips. The two thousand and odd novels which are published annually in this country show the existence of a large leisured cla.s.s in our community, and this cla.s.s is undoubtedly the feminine one. The novel, therefore, owes not only its birth, but its continued existence down to our own day, to the "ladies and gentlewomen of England"; and this dedication may be taken as a general one for all novels since Lyly's time. "_Euphues_," he writes, "had rather lye shut in a Ladye's casket than open in a scholar's studie," and he continues, "after dinner you may overlooke him to keepe you from sleepe, or if you be heavie, to bring you to sleepe ... it were better to hold _Euphues_ in your hands though you let him fall, when you be willing to winke, then to sowe in a clout, and p.r.i.c.ke your fingers when you begin to nod[91]." "With _Euphues_," remarks M. Jusserand, "commences in England the literature of the drawing-room[92]"; and the literature of the drawing-room is to all intents and purposes the novel.

[90] _Schoolmaster_, p. 47.

[91] _Euphues_, p. 220.

[92] Jusserand, p. 5.

All the faults of its predecessor are present in _Euphues and his England_, but they are not so conspicuous. The euphuistic garb and the mantle of the prophet Guevara sit more lightly upon our author. In every way his movements are freer and bolder; having gained confidence by his first success, he now dares to be original. The story becomes at times quite interesting, even for a modern reader. At its opening Euphues and Philautus, who have come to terms on a basis of common condemnation of Lucilla, are discovered on their way to England. By way of enlivening the weary hours, our hero, ever ready to play the preacher now that he has ceased to be the warning, delivers himself of a lengthy, but highly edifying tale, which evokes the impatient exclamation of Philautus already quoted; we may however notice as a sign of progress that Euphues has subst.i.tuted a moral narrative for his usual discourse. The relations between the two friends have become distinctly amusing, and might, in abler hands, have resulted in comic situation. Euphues, having learnt the lesson of the burnt child, is now a very grave person, proud of his own experience and of its fruits in himself. Extremes met,

"Where pinched ascetic and red sensualist Alternately recurrent freeze and burn,"

and it is interesting to note that Euphues embodies many of the characteristics of the Byronic hero--his sententiousness, his misogyny, his cynicism born of disillusionment, and his rhetorical flatulency; but he is no rebel like Manfred because he finds consolation in his own pre-eminence in a world of plat.i.tude. Conscious of his dearly bought wisdom, he makes it his continuous duty, if not pleasure, to rebuke the over-amorous Philautus, who was at least human, and to enlarge upon the infidelity of the opposite s.e.x. Lyly failed to realise the possibilities of this antagonism of character, because he always appears to be in sympathy with his hero, and so misses an opportunity which would have delighted the heart of Thackeray. I say "appears," because I consider that this sympathy was nothing but a pose which he considered necessary for the popularity of his book. It is important however to observe that the idea of one character as a foil to another, though undeveloped, is here present for the first time in our national prose story.

The tale ended and the voyage over, our friends arrive in England, where after stopping at Dover "3 or 4 days, until they had digested ye seas, and recovered their healths," they proceeded to Canterbury, at which place they fell in with an old man named Fidus, who gave them entertainment for body and mind. To those who have conscientiously read the whole history of Euphues up to this point, the incident of Fidus will appear immensely refreshing. It seems to me, in fact, to mark the highest point of Lyly's skill as a novelist, doubtless because he is here drawing upon his memory[93] and not his imagination. The old gentleman, very different from his prototype Eubulus, moves quite humanly among his bees and flowers, and tells the graceful story of his love with a charm that is almost natural. And, although he checks the action of the story for thirty-three pages, we are sorry to take leave of this "fatherlye and friendlye sire"; for he lays for a time the ghost of homily, which reappears directly his guests begin to "forme their steppes towards London." Having reached the Court, in due time Philautus, in accordance with the prophecies of Euphues though much to his disgust, falls in love. The lady of his choice, however, has unfortunately given her heart to another, by name Surius. The despondent lover, after applying in vain to an Italian magician for a love-philtre, at length determines to adopt the bolder line of writing to his scornful lady. The letter is conveyed in a pomegranate, and the incident of its presentation is prettily conceived and displays a certain amount of dramatic power. The upshot is that Philautus eventually finds a maiden who is unattached and who is ready to return love for love. Her he marries, and remains behind with "his Violet" in England, while Euphues, less happy than self-satisfied, returns to Athens. The interest of the latter half of the book centres round the house of Lady Flavia, where the princ.i.p.al characters of both s.e.xes meet together and discuss the philosophy of love and the psychology of ladies. Such intellectual gatherings were a recognised inst.i.tution at Florence at this time, being an imitation of Plato's symposium, and Lyly had already attempted, not so successfully as here, to describe one in the house of Lucilla of the _Anatomy of Wit_.

[93] Mr Bond thinks it a picture of Lyly's father.

In every way _Euphues and his England_ is an improvement upon its predecessor. The story and plot are still weak, but the situations are often well thought out and treated with dramatic effect. The action indeed is slow, but it moves; and in the story of Fidus it moves comparatively quickly. Such motion of course can scarcely ruffle the mental waters of those accustomed to the breathless whirlwinds which form the heart of George Meredith's novels; but these whirlwinds are as directly traceable to the gentle but fitful agitation of _Euphues_, as was the storm that overtook Ahab's chariot to the little cloud undiscerned by the prophet's eye. The figures, again, that move in Lyly's second novel are no longer clothes filled with moral sawdust. The character of Philautus is especially well drawn, though at times blurred and indistinct. Lyly had not yet pa.s.sed the stage of creating types, that is of portraying one aspect and an obvious one of such a complex thing as human nature. But a criticism which would be applicable to d.i.c.kens is no condemnation of an Elizabethan pioneer. It was much to have attempted characterization, and in the case of Philautus, Iffida, Camilla, and perhaps "the Violet" the attempt was nearly if not quite successful. It is noticeable that for one who was afterwards to become a writer of comedy, Lyly shows a remarkable absence of humour in these novels. Now and again we seem trembling on the brink of humour, when the young wiseacre is brought into contact with his weak-hearted friend, but the line is seldom actually crossed. Wit, as Lyly here understood it, had nothing of the risible in it; for it meant to him little more than a graceful handling of obvious themes.

But the importance of _Euphues_ was in its influence, not in its actual achievement. And here again we must rea.s.sert the significance of Lyly's appeal to women. "That n.o.ble faculty," as Macaulay expresses it, "whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future in the distant and in the unreal," is rarely found in the opposite s.e.x. They delight in novelty, their minds are of a practical cast, and their interests almost invariably lie in the present. The names of Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Mrs Humphry Ward are sufficient to show how entirely successful a woman may be in delineating the life around her.

If there is any truth in this generalization, it was no mere coincidence that the first English romance dealing with contemporary life was written expressly for the ladies of Elizabeth's Court. The alteration in the face of social life, brought about by the recognition of the feminine claim and hastened no doubt by the fact that England, Scotland, and France were at this period under the rule of three ladies of strong character, was inevitably attended with great changes in literature.

This change is first expressed by Lyly in his second novel and later in his dramas. The mediaeval conception of women, a masculine conception, now underwent feminine correction; and what is perhaps of more importance still, the conception of man undergoes transformation also.

The result is that the centre of gravity of the story is now shifted. Of old it had treated of deeds and glorious prowess for the sake of honour, or more often for the sake of some anaemic damsel; now it deals with the pa.s.sion itself and not its knightly manifestations,--with the very feelings and hearts of the lovers. In other words under the auspices of Elizabeth and her maids of honour, the English story becomes subjective, feminine, its scene is shifted from the battlefield and the lists to the lady's boudoir; it becomes a novel. "We change lance and war-horse, for walking-sword and pumps and silk stockings. We forget the filletted brows and wind-blown hair, the zone, the flowing robe, the sandalled or buskined feet, and feel the dawning empire of the fan, the glove, the high-heeled shoe, the bonnet, the petticoat, and the parasol[94]": in fact we enter into the modern world. At the first expression of this change in literature _Euphues and his England_ is of the very greatest interest. Characters in fiction now for the first time move before a background of everyday life and discuss matters of everyday importance.

And, as if Lyly wished to leave no doubt as to his aims and methods, he gives at the conclusion of his book that interesting description of Elizabethan England ent.i.tled _A gla.s.se for Europe_.