Chapter I: Euphuism

It was as a novelist that Lyly first came before the world of English letters. In 1578 he published a volume, bearing the inscription, _Euphues: the anatomy of wyt_, to which was subjoined the attractive advertisement, _very pleasant for all gentlemen to reade, and most necessary to remember_. This book, which was to work a revolution in our literature, was completed in 1580 by a sequel, entitled _Euphues and his England_. _Euphues_, to combine the two parts under one name, the fruit of Lyly's nonage, seems to have determined the form of his reputation for the Elizabethans; and even to-day it attracts more attention than any other of his works. This probably implies a false estimate of Lyly's comparative merits as a novelist and as a dramatist. But it is not surprising that critics, living in the century of the novel, and with their eyes towards the country pre-eminent in its production, should think and write of Lyly chiefly as the first of English novelists. The bias of the age is as natural and as dangerous an element in criticism as the bias of the individual. But it is not with the modern appraisement of _Euphues_ that we are here concerned. Nor need we proceed immediately to a consideration of its position in the history of the English novel. We have first to deal with its Elizabethan reputation. Had _Euphues_ been a still-born child of Lyly's genius, had it produced no effect upon the literature of the age, it would possess nothing but a purely archaeological interest for us to-day. It would still be the first of English novels: but this claim would lose half its significance, did it not carry with it the implication that the book was also the origin of English novel writing. The importance, therefore, of _Euphues_ is not so much that it was primary, as that it was primordial; and, to be such, it must have laid its spell in some way or other upon succeeding writers. Our first task is therefore to enquire what this spell was, and to discover whether the attraction of _Euphues_ must be ascribed to Lyly's own invention or to artifices which he borrows from others.

While, as I have said, Lyly's name is associated with the novel by most modern critics, it has earned a more widespread reputation among the laity for affectation and mannerisms of style. Indeed, until fifty years ago, Lyly spelt nothing but euphuism, and euphuism meant simply nonsense, clothed in bombast. It was a blind acceptance of these loose ideas which led Sir Walter Scott to create (as a caricature of Lyly) his Sir Piercie Shafton in _The Monastery_--an historical _faux pas_ for which he has been since sufficiently called to account. Nevertheless Lyly's reputation had a certain basis of fact, and we may trace the tradition back to Elizabethan days. It is perhaps worth pointing out that, had we no other evidence upon the subject, the survival of this tradition would lead us to suppose that it was Lyly's style more than anything else which appealed to the men of his day. A contemporary confirmation of this may be found in the words of William Webbe. Writing in 1586 of the "great good grace and sweet vogue which Eloquence hath attained in our Speeche," he declares that the English language has thus progressed, "because it hath had the helpe of such rare and singular wits, as from time to time myght still adde some amendment to the same. Among whom I think there is none that will gainsay, but Master John Lyly hath deservedly moste high commendations, as he hath stept one steppe further therein than any either before or since he first began the wyttie 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 tryall thereof, through all the parts of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, in pithy sentences, in galant tropes, in flowing speeche, in plaine sense, and surely in my judgment, I think he wyll yeelde him that verdict which Quintillian 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[13]." After such eulogy, the description of Lyly by another writer as "alter Tullius anglorum" will not seem strange. These praises were not the extravagances of a few uncritical admirers; they echo the verdict of the age. Lyly's enthronement was of short duration--a matter of some ten years--but, while it lasted, he reigned supreme. Such literary idolatries are by no means uncommon, and often hold their ground for a considerable period. Beside the vogue of Waller, for example, the duration of Lyly's reputation was comparatively brief. More than a century after the publication of his poems, Waller was hailed by the Sidney Lee of the day in the _Biographia Britannica_ of 1766, as "the most celebrated Lyric Poet that England ever produced." Whence comes this striking contrast between past glory and present neglect? How is it that a writer once known as the greatest master of English prose, and a poet once named the most conspicuous of English lyrists, are now but names? They have not faded from memory owing to a mere caprice of fashion. Great artists are subject to an ebb and flow of popularity, for which as yet no tidal theory has been offered as an explanation; but like the sea they are ever permanent. The case of our two writers is different. The wheel of time will never bring _Euphues_ and _Sacharissa_ "to their own again." They are as dead as the Jacobite cause. And for that very reason they are all the more interesting for the literary historian. All writers are conditioned by their environment, but some concern themselves with the essentials, others with the accidents, of that internally constant, but externally unstable, phenomenon, known as humanity. Waller and Lyly were of the latter class. Like jewels suitable to one costume only, they remained in favour just as long as the fashion that created them lasted. Waller was probably inferior to Lyly as an artist, but he happened to strike a vein which was not exhausted until the end of the 18th century; while the vogue of _Euphues_, though at first far-reaching, was soon crossed by new artificialities such as arcadianism. The secret of Waller's influence was that he stereotyped a new poetic form, a form which, in its restraint and precision, was exactly suited to the intellect of the _ancien regime_ with its craving for form and its contempt for ideas. The mainspring of Lyly's popularity was that he did in prose what Waller did in poetry.

[13] _A discourse of English Poetrie_, Arber's reprint.