THE 'Euphues' of John Lyly was a book that enjoyed very great popularity in its day. One edition followed rapidly after another, the first appearing in 1579 and the twelfth and last in 1636, when its power to please was nearly gone. It appeared at a time when Italian literature and Italian manners exerted their greatest influence upon England, and its power ceased when Italian influence. gave way before the great French literature of the age of Louis XIV.

The author, John Lyly, was a Kentish man, born about 1553, and he died in 1600. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and from about 1577 he was attached in some capacity to the court of Elizabeth, but he received but meagre maintenance, for in a petition to the queen in 1590 he says:

If your sacred Majestie thinke me unworthy and that after x yeares tempest I must att the Court suffer shypwrack of my tyme, my wittes, my hopes, vouchsafe in your never-erring judgement some Plank, or rafter to wafte me into a country where in my sadd and settled devocion I may in every corner of a thatcht cottage write prayers instead of plaies, prayer for your longe and prosprous life and a repentaunce that I have played the foole so longe.

In a second petition three years later he says:

My last will is shorter than myne invencion, but three legacies, patience to my creditors, melancholie without measure to my friends, and beggerie without shame to my familie.

While at court Lyly wrote some six or eight dramas, mythological in character, which we are told were often presented and acted before Queene Elizabeth, by the chil

dren of her Majesties Chappell and the children of Paules.' In the first of these plays occurs the following fine song: Cupid and my Campaspe playd

At Cardes for kisses, Cupid payd;
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mothers doves, and teeme of sparrows,
Loses them too, then down he throwes
The corrall of his lippe, the rose
Growing on's cheek, (but none knows how)
With these, the cristal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chinne;
All these did my Campaspe winne.
At last hee set her both his eyes,
Shee won, and Cupid blind did rise.

O Love! has shee done this to thee?
What shall (alas !) become of me!

Of Lyly's chief work, the 'Euphues,' the most opposite opinions have been held. Hallam calls it a very dull story, full of dry commonplaces,' while Charles Kingsley says it is, in spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, righteous and pious a book as a man need look into.' In its own day its popularity, we are told, was so great that the court ladies had all the phrases by heart,' and, that Beautie in Court, which could not parley euphucism, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French.'

The two chief peculiarities of Lyly's style are a perpetual striving after alliteration and verbal antithesis, and a most ingenious stringing together of similes, sometimes far-fetched but often extremely happy. Examples can be met with on every page. Thus in the very opening:

None more wittie than Euphues, yet at the first none more wicked. The freshest colours soonest fade, the keenest rasor soonest tourneth his edge, the finest cloth is soonest eaten with moathes, and the cambricke

sooner stayned then the course canvas; which appeared well in this Euphues.

Again, a few pages later in the book:

Alas Euphues, by how much the more I see the high clymbing of thy capacitie, by so much the more I feare thy fall. The fine christall is sooner crased then the hard marble; the greenest beech burneth faster then the dryest oke; the fairest silke is soonest soyled; and the sweetest wine tourneth to the sharpest vineger. If therefore thou doe but hearken to the Syrenes, thou wilt be enamoured: if thou haunt their houses and places, thou shalt be enchaunted. One droppe of poyson infecteth the whole tunne of wine: one leafe of colloquintida marreth and spoyleth the whole pot of porredge; one yron mole defaceth the whole peece of lawne. The poet Michael Drayton, who was no lover of Lyly, describes him as

Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flyes,
Playing with words, and idle similies.

Euphues, the hero of the tale, is a young Athenian gentleman, of whom it was doubted whether he were more bound to Nature for the liniaments of his person, or to Fortune for the increase of his possessions.' He came from Athens to Naples, where, after two months' sojourn, he swore eternal friendship with another youth, Philautus.

And after many embracings and protestations one to another, they walked to dinner, wher they wanted neither meat, neither musicke, neither any other pastime; and having banqueted, to digest their sweete confections they daunced all that after noone, they used not onely one boorde but one bed, one booke, if so be it they thought not one too many.

Philautus was in love with Lucilla, daughter of the governor, Don Ferardo, a lady so beautiful that she outshone all the courtly crew of gentlewomen sojourning in the palace.'

For as the finest ruby staineth the colour of the rest that be in place, or as the sunne dimmeth the moone that she cannot be discerned, so this

M

gallant girle more faire than fortunate, and yet more fortunate than faithful, eclipsed the beautie of them all and chaunged their colours.

Philautus, fearing no ill, took Euphues with him to visit Lucilla, and they sat down to supper together;

but Euphues fed of one dish which ever stoode before him, the beautic of Lucilla.

Supper being ended the order was in Naples that the gentlewomen would desire to heare some discourse either concerning love or learning; and although Philautus was requested, yet he posted it over to Euphues, whome he knewe most fit for that purpose.

The discourse of Euphues so captivated Lucilla that she began to frye in the flames of love,' and when all were departed she, in the quiet of her chamber, convinced herself that it would be right to break with Philautus for the sake of Euphues.

For as the bee that gathereth honnye out of the weede, when shee espieth the fayre floure flyeth to the sweetest; or as the kinde spaniell though he hunt after birds yet forsakes them to retrive the partridge, or as we commonly feede on beefe hungerly at the first, yet seeing the quaile more daintie, chaunge our dyet, so I although I loved Philautus for his good properties, yet seeing Euphues to excell him, I ought by Nature to ly ke him better.

Euphues becomes false to Philautus, and Lucilla is false to both, and forsakes them for one Curio, a gentleman of Naples, of little wealth and less wit.' Euphues then bewails his ill-fortune:

I have lost Philautus, I have lost Lucilla, I have lost that which I shall hardlye finde againe, a faithfull friend. Ah foolish Euphues, why diddest thou leave Athens, the nurse of wisedome, to inhabite Naples the nourisher of wantonnesse ? Had it not beene better for thee to have eaten salt with the philosophers in Greece then sugar with the courtiers of Italy? I will to Athens, there to tosse my bookes, no more in Naples to live with faire lookes. Philosophy, physick, divinitie shal be my study. O the hidden secrets of Nature, the expresse image of morall vertues, the

equal ballance of justice, the medicines to heale al diseases, how they begin to delight me.

The two estranged friends were again reconciled.

After much talke they renewed their old friendship both abandoning Lucilla as most abhominable. Philautus was earnest to have Euphues tarye in Naples, and Euphues desirous to have Philautus to Athens, but the one was so addicted to the court, the other so wedded to the universitie, that each refused the offer of the other, yet this they agreed betweene themselves that though their bodies were by distance of place severed, yet the conjunction of their mindes should neither be seperated by the length of time nor alienated by change of soyle, and so shaking hands they bidde each other farewell.

Lyly wrote a second part, entitled 'Euphues and his England,' and it became equally popular with the first, but time and space forbid us to enter upon this.

HOOKER.

THE prose of Ascham and Latimer, of Lyly and Sidney, meritorious though it be, does not display the majesty and music of which the English language is capable. This was first manifested in the Ecclesiastical Polity' of Richard Hooker.

This man indeed deserves the name of an authour; his books will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity, that if the rest be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning. This was the judgment of the Pope when the first book was read to him, and the judgment is felt to be just.

Hooker's life has been charmingly written by old Isaac Walton, the author of the Complete Angler.' He was born in or near Exeter, in 1554, of poor parents, and would have been apprenticed to a trade, but his schoolmaster begged that he might be sent to the University,