The fathers in English literature were not a little given to writing
books which they called 'anatomies.' Thomas Nash, for example, wrote
an _Anatomy of Absurdities_, and Stubbes an _Anatomy of Abuses_.
Greene, the novelist, entitled one of his romances _Arbasto, the
Anatomy of Fortune_. The most famous book which bears a title of this
kind is the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, by Robert Burton. It is notable,
first, for its inordinate length; second, for its readableness,
considering the length and the depth of it; third, for its prodigal
and barbaric display of learning; and last, because it is said to have
had the effect of making the most indolent man of letters of the
eighteenth century get up betimes in the morning. Why Dr. Johnson
needed to get up in order to read the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ will
always be an enigma to some. Perhaps he did not get up. Perhaps he
merely sat up and reached for the book, which would have been placed
conveniently near the bed. For the virtue of the act resided in the
circumstance of his being awake and reading a good book two hours
ahead of his wonted time for beginning his day. If he colored his
remark so as to make us think he got up and dressed before reading, he
may be forgiven. It was innocently spoken. Just as a man who lives in
one room will somehow involuntarily fall into the habit of speaking of
that one room in the plural, so the doctor added a touch which would
render him heroic in the eyes of those who knew him. I should like a
pictorial book-plate representing Dr. Johnson, in gown and nightcap,
sitting up in bed reading the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, with Hodge, the
cat, curled up contentedly at his feet.
It would be interesting to know whether Johnson ever read, in bed or
out, a book called _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_. It was published in
the spring of 1579 by Gabriel Cawood, 'dwelling in Paules Churchyard,'
and was followed one year later by a second part, _Euphues and his
England_. These books were the work of John Lyly, a young Oxford
Master of Arts. According to the easy orthography of that time (if the
word orthography may be applied to a practice by virtue of which every
man spelled as seemed right in his own eyes), Lyly's name is found in
at least six forms: Lilye, Lylie, Lilly, Lyllie, Lyly, and Lylly.
Remembering the willingness of _i_ and _y_ to bear one another's
burdens, we may still exclaim, with Dr. Ingleby, 'Great is the mystery
of archaic spelling!' Great indeed when a man sometimes had more suits
of letters to his name than suits of clothes to his back. That the
name of this young author was pronounced as was the name of the
flower, lily, seems the obvious inference from Henry Upchear's verses,
which contain punning allusions to Lyly and Robert Greene:--
'Of all the flowers a Lillie once I lov'd
Whose laboring beautie brancht itself abroad,' etc.
Original editions of the _Anatomy of Wit_ and its fellow are very
rare. Probably there is not a copy of either book in the United
States. This statement is ventured in good faith, and may have the
effect of bringing to light a hitherto neglected copy.[1] Strange it
is that princely collectors of yore appear not to have cared for
_Euphues_. Surely one would not venture to affirm that John, Duke of
Roxburghe, might not have had it if he had wanted it. The book is not
to be found in his sale catalogue; he had Lyly's plays in quarto,
seven of them each marked 'rare,' and he had two copies of a
well-known book called _Euphues Golden Legacie_, written by Thomas
Nash. The Perkins Sale catalogue shows neither of Lyly's novels. List
after list of the spoils of mighty book-hunters has only a blank where
the _Anatomy of Wit_ ought to be. From this we may argue great
scarcity, or great indifference, or both. In the compact little
reprint made by Professor Arber one may read this moral tale, which
was fashionable when Shakespeare was a youth of sixteen. For
convenience it will be advisable to speak of it as a single work in
two parts, for such it practically is.
[1] The writer of this paper once sent to that fine scholar
and gracious gentleman, Professor Edward Arber, to inquire
whether in his opinion one might hope to buy at a modest
price a copy of either the first or the second part of
_Euphues_. Professor Arber's reply was amusingly emphatic:
'You might as well try to purchase one of Mahomet's old
slippers.' But in July of 1896 there were four copies of
this old novel on sale at one New York bookstore. One of
the copies was of great beauty, consisting of the two
parts of the story bound up together in a really sumptuous
fashion. The price was not large as prices of such books
go, but on the other hand ''a was not small.'
To pronounce upon this romance is not easy. We read a dozen or two of
pages, and say, 'This is very fantastical humours.' We read further,
and are tempted to follow Sir Hugh to the extent of declaring, 'This
is lunatics.' One may venture the not profound remark that it takes
all sorts of books to make a literature. _Euphues_ is one of the books
that would prompt to that very remark. For he who first said that it
takes all sorts of people to make a world was markedly impressed with
the differences between those people and himself. He had in mind
eccentric folk, types which deviate from the normal and the sane. So
_Euphues_ is a very Malvolio among books, cross-gartered and wreathed
as to its countenance with set smiles. The curious in literary history
will always enjoy such a production. The verdict of that part of the
reading world which keeps a book alive by calling for fresh copies of
it after the old copies are worn out is against _Euphues_. It had a
vivacious existence between 1579 and 1636, and then went into a
literary retirement lasting two hundred and thirty-six years. When it
again came before the public it was introduced as 'a great
bibliographical rarity.' Its fatal old-fashionedness hangs like a
millstone about its neck. In the poems of Chaucer and the dramas of
Shakespeare are a thousand touches which make the reader feel that
Chaucer and Shakespeare are his contemporaries, that they have written
in his own time, and published but yesterday. Read _Euphues_, and you
will say to yourself, 'That book must have been written three hundred
years ago, and it looks its age.' Yet it has its virtues. One may not
say of it, as Johnson said of the _Rehearsal_, that it 'has not wit
enough to keep it sweet.' Neither may he, upon second thought,
conclude that 'it has not vitality enough to preserve it from
putrefaction.' It has, indeed, a bottom of good sense; and so had
Malvolio. It is filled from end to beginning with wit, or with what
passed for wit among many readers of that day. Often the wit is of a
tawdry and spectacular sort,--mere verbal wit, the use of a given word
not because it is the best word, the most fitting word, but because
the author wants a word beginning with the letter G, or the letter M,
or the letter F, as the case may be. On the second page of Greene's
_Arbasto_ is this sentence: 'He did not so much as vouchsafe to give
an _eare_ to my _parle_, or an _eye_ to my _person_.' Greene learned
this trick from Lyly, who was a master of the art. The sentence
represents one of the common forms in _Euphues_, such as this: 'To the
stomach _quatted_ with _dainties_ all _delicates_ seem _queasie_.'
Sometimes the balance is preserved by three words on a side. For
example, the companions whom Euphues found in Naples practiced arts
'whereby they might either _soake_ his _purse_ to reape _commodotie_,
or _sooth_ his _person_ to winne _credite_.' Other illustrations are
these: I can neither '_remember_ our _miseries_ without _griefe_, nor
_redresse_ our _mishaps_ without _grones_.' 'If the _wasting_ of our
_money_ might not _dehort_ us, yet the _wounding_ of our _mindes_
should _deterre_ us.' This next sentence, with its combination of K
sounds, clatters like a pair of castanets: 'Though Curio bee as hot as
a toast, yet Euphues is as cold as a clocke, though hee bee a cocke of
the game, yet Euphues is content to bee craven and crye creake.'
Excess of alliteration is the most obvious feature of Lyly's style.
That style has been carefully analyzed by those who are learned in
such things. The study is interesting, with its talk of alliteration
and transverse alliteration, antithesis, climax, and assonance. In
truth, one does not know which to admire the more, the ingenuity of
the man who constructed the book, or the ingenuity of the scholars who
have explained how he did it. Between Lyly on the one hand, and the
grammarians on the other, the reader is almost tempted to ask if this
be literature or mathematics. Whether Lyly got his style from Pettie
or Guevara is an important question, but he made it emphatically his
own, and it will never be called by any other name than Euphuism. The
making of a book on this plan is largely the result of astonishing
mental gymnastics. It commands respect in no small degree, because
Lyly was able to keep it up so long. To walk from New York to Albany,
as did the venerable Weston not so very long since, is a great test of
human endurance. But walking is the employment of one's legs and body
in God's appointed way of getting over the ground. Suppose a man were
to undertake to hop on one leg from New York to Albany, the utility or
the æsthetic value of the performance would be less obvious. The most
successful artist in hopping could hardly expect applause from the
right-minded. He would excite attention because he was able to hop so
far, and not because he was the exponent of a praiseworthy method of
locomotion. Lyly gained eminence by doing to a greater extent than any
man a thing that was not worth doing at all. One is more astonished at
Lyly's power of endurance as author than at his own power of endurance
as reader. For the volume is actually readable even at this day. Did
Lyly not grow wearied of perpetually riding these alliterative
trick-ponies? Apparently not. The book is 'executed' with a vivacity,
a dash, a 'go,' that will captivate any reader who is willing to meet
the author halfway. _Euphues_ became the rage, and its literary style
the fashion. How or why must be left to him to explain who can tell
why sleeves grow small and then grow big, why skirts are at one time
only two and a half yards around and at another time five and a half
or eight yards around. An Elizabethan gentleman might be too poor to
dress well, but he would squander his last penny in getting his ruff
starched. Lyly's style bristles with extravagances of the starched
ruff sort, which only serve to call attention to the intellectual
deficiencies in the matter of doublet and hose.
Of plot or story there is but little. The hero, Euphues, who gives the
title to the romance, is a young, clever, and rich Athenian. He visits
Naples, where his money and wit attract many to his side. By his
careless, pleasure-seeking mode of life he wakens the fatherly
interest of a wise old gentleman, Eubulus, who calls upon him to warn
him of his danger. The conversation between the two is the first and
not the least amusing illustration of the courtly verbal fencing with
which the book is filled. The advice of the old man only provokes
Euphues into making the sophistical plea that his style of living is
right because nature prompts him to it; and he leaves Eubulus 'in a
great quandary' and in tears. Nevertheless, the old gentleman has the
righteous energy which prompts him to say to the departing Euphues,
already out of hearing, 'Seeing thou wilt not buy counsel at the first
hand good cheap, thou shalt buy repentance at the second hand, at such
unreasonable rate, that thou wilt curse thy hard pennyworth, and ban
thy hard heart.' Euphues takes to himself a new sworn brother, one
Philautus, who carries him to visit his lady-love, Lucilla. Lucilla is
rude at first, but becomes enamored of Euphues's conversational power,
and finally of himself. In fact, she unceremoniously throws over her
former lover, and tells her father that she will either marry Euphues
or else lead apes in hell. This causes a break in the friendship
between Euphues and Philautus, and there is an exchange of formidably
worded letters, in which Philautus reminds Euphues that all Greeks are
liars, and Euphues quotes Euripides to the effect that all is lawful
in love. Lucilla, who is fickle, suddenly dismisses her new cavalier
for yet a third, while Euphues and Philautus, in the light of their
common misfortune, fall upon each other's necks and are reconciled.
Both profess themselves to have been fools, while Euphues, as the
greater and more recent fool, composes a pamphlet against love. This
he calls a 'cooling-card.' It is addressed primarily to Philautus, but
contains general advice for 'all fond lovers.' Euphues's own cure was
radical, for he says, 'Now do I give a farewell to the world, meaning
rather to macerate myself with melancholy, than pine in folly, rather
choosing to die in my study amidst my books than to court it in Italy
in the company of ladies.' He returns to Athens, applies himself to
the study of philosophy, becomes public reader in the University, and,
as crowning evidence that he has finished sowing his wild oats,
produces three volumes of lectures. Realizing how much of his own
youth has been wasted, he writes a pamphlet on the education of the
young, a dialogue with an atheist, and these, with a bundle of
letters, make up the first part of the _Anatomy of Wit_. From one of
the letters we learn that Lucilla was as frail as she was beautiful,
and that she died in evil report. The story, including the diatribe
against love, is about as long as _The Vicar of Wakefield_. It begins
as a romance and ends as a sermon.
The continuation of the novel, _Euphues and his England_, is a little
over a third longer than Part One. The two friends carry out their
project of visiting England. After a wearisome voyage they reach
Dover, view the cliffs and the castle, and then proceed to Canterbury.
Between Canterbury and London they stop for a while with a 'comely
olde gentleman,' Fidus, who keeps bees and tells good stories. He also
gives sound advice as to the way in which strangers should conduct
themselves. A lively bit of writing is the account which Fidus gives
of his commonwealth of bees. It is not according to Lubbock, but is
none the less amusing. In London the two travelers become favorites at
the court. Philautus falls in love, to the great annoyance of Euphues,
who argues mightily with him against such folly. The two gentlemen
expend vast resources of stationery and language upon the subject.
They quarrel violently, and Euphues becomes so irritated that he must
needs go and rent new lodgings, 'which by good friends he quickly got,
and there fell to his _Pater noster_, where awhile,' says Lyly
innocently, 'I will not trouble him in his prayers.' They are
reconciled later, and Philautus obtains permission to love; but he has
discovered in the mean time that the lady will not have him. The
account of his passion, how it 'boiled and bubbled,' of his visit to
the soothsayer to purchase love charms, his stately declamations to
Camilla and her elaborate replies to him, of his love letter concealed
in a pomegranate, and her answer stitched into a copy of Petrarch,--is
all very lively reading, much more so than that dreary love-making
between Pyrocles and Philoclea, or between any other pair of the many
exceedingly tiresome folk in Sidney's _Arcadia_. Grant that it is
deliciously absurd. It is not to be supposed that a clever
eighteen-year-old girl, replying to a declaration of love, will talk
in the language of a trained nurse, and say: 'Green sores are to be
dressed roughly lest they fester, tettars are to be drawn in the
beginning lest they spread, Ringworms to be anointed when they first
appear lest they compass the whole body, and the assaults of love to
be beaten back at the first siege lest they undermine at the second.'
Was ever suitor in this fashion rejected! It makes one think of some
of the passages in the _History of John Buncle_, where the hero pours
out a torrent of passionate phrases, and the 'glorious' Miss Noel, in
reply, begs that they may take up some rational topic of conversation;
for example, what is _his_ view of that opinion which ascribes
'primævity and sacred prerogatives' to the Hebrew language.
But Philautus does not break his heart over Camilla's rejection. He is
consoled with the love of another fair maiden, marries her, and
settles in England. Euphues goes back to Athens, and presently retires
to the country, where he follows the calling of one whose profession
is melancholy. Like most hermits of culture, he leaves his address
with his banker. We assume this, for he was very rich; it is not
difficult to be a hermit on a large income. The book closes with a
section called 'Euphues Glasse for Europe,' a thirty-page panegyric on
England and the Queen.
They say that this novel was very popular, and certain causes of its
popularity are not difficult to come at. A large measure of the
success that _Euphues_ had is due to the commonplaceness of its
observations. It abounds in proverbs and copy-book wisdom. In this
respect it is as homely as an almanac. John Lyly had a great store of
'miscellany thoughts,' and he cheerfully parted with them. His book
succeeded as Tupper's _Proverbial Philosophy_ and Watts' _On the Mind_
succeeded. People believed that they were getting ideas, and people
like what they suppose to be ideas if no great effort is required in
the getting of them. It is astonishing how often the world needs to be
advised of the brevity of time. Yet every person who can wade in the
shallows of his own mind and not wet his shoe-tops finds a sweet
melancholy and a stimulating freshness in the thought that time is
short. John Lyly said, 'There is nothing more swifter than time,
nothing more sweeter,'--and countless Elizabethan gentlemen and ladies
underscored that sentence, or transferred it to their commonplace
books,--if they had such painful aids to culture,--and were comforted
and edified by the discovery that brilliant John Lyly had made. This
glib command of the matter-of-course, with a ready use of the proverb
and the 'old said saw,' is a marked characteristic of the work. It
emphasizes the youth of its author. We learn what could not have been
new even in 1579, that 'in misery it is a great comfort to have a
companion;' that 'a new broom sweepeth clean;' that 'delays breed
dangers;' that 'nothing is so perilous as procrastination;' that 'a
burnt child dreadeth the fire;' that it is well not to make
comparisons 'lest comparisons should seem odious;' that 'it is too
late to shut the stable door when the steed is stolen;' that 'many
things fall between the cup and the lip;' and that 'marriages are made
in heaven, though consummated on earth.' With these old friends come
others, not altogether familiar of countenance, and quaintly archaic
in their dress: 'It must be a wily mouse that shall breed in the cat's
ear;' 'It is a mad hare that will be caught with a tabor, and a
foolish bird that stayeth the laying salt on her tail, and a blind
goose that cometh to the fox's sermon.' Lyly would sometimes translate
a proverb; he does not tell us that fine words butter no parsnips, but
says, 'Fair words fat few,'--which is delightfully alliterative, but
hardly to be accounted an improvement. Expressions that are
surprisingly modern turn up now and then. One American street urchin
taunts another by telling him that he doesn't know enough to come in
when it rains. The saying is at least three hundred years old, for
Lyly says, in a dyspeptic moment, 'So much wit is sufficient for a
woman as when she is in the rain can warn her to come out of it.'
Another cause of the popularity of _Euphues_ is its sermonizing. The
world loves to hear good advice. The world is not nervously anxious to
follow the advice, but it understands the edification that comes by
preaching. With many persons, to have heard a sermon is almost
equivalent to having practiced the virtues taught in the sermon.
Churches are generally accepted as evidences of civilization. A man
who is exploiting the interests of a new Western town will invariably
tell you that it has so many churches. Also, an opera-house. The
English world above all other worlds loves to hear good advice.
England is the natural home of the sermon. Jusserand notes, almost
with wonder, that in the annual statistics of the London publishers
the highest numbers indicate the output of sermons and theological
works. Then come novels. John Lyly was ingenious; he combined good
advice and storytelling. Not skillfully, hiding the sermon amid lively
talk and adventure, but blazoning the fact that he was going to
moralize as long as he would. He shows no timidity, even declares upon
one of his title-pages that in this volume 'there is small offense by
lightness given to the wise, and less occasion of looseness proffered
to the wanton.' Such courage in this day would be apt seriously to
injure the sale of a novel. Did not Ruskin declare that Miss Edgeworth
had made virtue so obnoxious that since her time one hardly dared
express the slightest bias in favor of the Ten Commandments? Lyly knew
the public for which he acted as literary caterer. They liked sermons,
and sermons they should have. Nearly every character in the book
preaches, and Euphues is the most gifted of them all. Even that old
gentleman of Naples who came first to Euphues because his heart bled
to see so noble a youth given to loose living has the tables turned
upon him, for Euphues preaches to the preacher upon the sovereign duty
of resignation to the will of God.
A noteworthy characteristic is the frequency of Lyly's classical
allusions. If the only definition of pedantry be 'vain and
ostentatious display of learning,' I question if we may dismiss Lyly's
wealth of classical lore with the word 'pedantry.' He was fresh from
his university life. If he studied at all when he was at Oxford, he
must have studied Latin and Greek, for after these literatures little
else was studied. Young men and their staid tutors were compelled to
know ancient history and mythology. Like Heine, they may have taken a
'real delight in the mob of gods and goddesses who ran so jolly naked
about the world.' In the first three pages of the _Anatomy of Wit_
there are twenty classical names, ten of them coupled each with an
allusion. Nobody begins a speech without a reference of this nature
within calling distance. Euphues and Philautus fill their talk with
evidences of a classical training. The ladies are provided with apt
remarks drawn from the experiences of Helen, of Cornelia, of Venus, of
Diana, and Vesta. Even the master of the ship which conveyed Euphues
from Naples to England declaims about Ulysses and Julius Cæsar. This
naturally destroys all dramatic effect. Everybody speaks Euphuism,
though classical allusion alone is not essentially Euphuistic. John
Lyly would be the last man to merit any portion of that fine praise
bestowed by Hazlitt upon Shakespeare when he said that Shakespeare's
genius 'consisted in the faculty of transforming himself at will into
whatever he chose.' Lyly's genius was the opposite of this; it
consisted in the faculty of transforming everybody into a
reduplication of himself. There is no change in style when the
narrative parts end and the dialogue begins. All the persons of the
drama utter one strange tongue. They are no better than the characters
in a Punch and Judy show, where one concealed manipulator furnishes
voice for each of the figures. But in Lyly's novel there is not even
an attempt at the most rudimentary ventriloquism.
What makes the book still less a reflection of life is that the
speakers indulge in interminably long harangues. No man (unless he
were a Coleridge) would be tolerated who talked in society at such
inordinate length. When the characters can't talk to one another they
retire to their chambers and declaim to themselves. They polish their
language with the same care, open the classical dictionary, and have
at themselves in good set terms. Philautus, inflamed with love of
Camilla, goes to his room and pronounces a ten-minute discourse on the
pangs of love, having only himself for auditor. They are amazingly
patient under the verbal inflictions of one another. Euphues, angry
with Philautus for having allowed himself to fall in love, takes him
to task in a single speech containing four thousand words. If Lyly had
set out with the end in view of constructing a story by putting into
it alone 'what is not life,' his product would have been what we find
it now. One could easily believe the whole affair to have been
intended for a tremendous joke were it not that the tone is so
serious. We are accustomed to think of youth as light-hearted: but
look at a serious child,--there is nothing more serious in the world.
Lyly was twenty-six years when he first published. Much of the
seriousness in his romance is the burden of twenty-six years'
experience of life, a burden greater perhaps than he ever afterward
carried.
Being, as we take it, an unmarried man, Lyly gives directions for
managing a wife. He believes in the wholesome doctrine that a man
should select his own wife. 'Made marriages by friends' are dangerous.
'I had as lief another should take measure by his back of my apparel
as appoint what wife I shall have by his mind.' He prefers in a wife
'beauty before riches, and virtue before blood.' He holds to the
radical English doctrine of wifely submission; there is no swerving
from the position that the man is the woman's 'earthly master,'[2] but
in taming a wife no violence is to be employed. Wives are to be
subdued with kindness. 'If their husbands with great threatenings,
with jars, with brawls, seek to make them tractable, or bend their
knees, the more stiff they make them in the joints, the oftener they
go about by force to rule them, the more froward they find them; but
using mild words, gentle persuasions, familiar counsel, entreaty,
submission, they shall not only make them to bow their knees, but to
hold up their hands, not only cause them to honor them, but to stand
in awe of them.' By such methods will that supremest good of an
English home be brought about, namely, that the wife shall stand in
awe of her husband.
[2] Lady Burton's Dedication of her husband's
biography,--'To my earthly master,' etc.
The young author admits that some wives have the domineering instinct,
and that way danger lies. A man must look out for himself. If he is
not to make a slave of his wife, he is also not to be too submissive;
'that will cause her to disdain thee.' Moreover, he must have an eye
to the expenditure. She may keep the keys, but he will control the
pocket-book. The model wife in Ecclesiastes had greater privileges;
she could not only consider a piece of ground, but she could buy it if
she liked it. Not so this well-trained wife of Lyly's novel. 'Let all
the keys hang at her girdle, but the purse at thine, so shalt thou
know what thou dost spend, and how she can spare.' But in setting
forth his theory for being happy though married, Lyly, methinks,
preaches a dangerous doctrine in this respect: he hints at the
possibility of a man's wanting, in vulgar parlance, to go on a spree,
expresses no question as to the propriety of his so doing, but says
that if a man does let himself loose in this fashion his wife must not
know it. 'Imitate the kings of Persia, who when they were given to
riot kept no company with their wives, but when they used good order
had their queens even at the table.' In short, the wife was to
duplicate the moods of her husband. 'Thou must be a glass to thy wife,
for in thy face must she see her own; for if when thou laughest she
weep, when thou mournest she giggle, the one is a manifest sign she
delighteth in others, the other a token she despiseth thee.' John Lyly
was a wise youth. He struck the keynote of the mode in which most
incompatible marriages are played when he said that it was a bad sign
if one's wife giggled when one was disposed to be melancholy.
An interesting study is the author's attitude toward foreign travel.
It would appear to have been the fashion of the time to indulge in
much invective against foreign travel, but nevertheless--to travel.
Many men believed with young Valentine that 'home keeping youth have
ever homely wits,' while others were rather of Ascham's mind when he
said, 'I was once in Italy, but I thank God my stay there was only
nine days.' Lyly came of a nation of travelers. Then as now it was
true that there was no accessible spot of the globe upon which the
Englishman had not set his foot. Nomadic England went abroad;
sedentary England stayed at home to rail at him for so doing. Aside
from that prejudice which declared that all foreigners were fools,
there was a well-founded objection to the sort of traveling usually
described as seeing the world. Young men went upon the continent to
see questionable forms of pleasure, perhaps to practice them. Whether
justly or not, common report named Italy as the higher school of
pleasurable vices, and Naples as the city where one's doctorate was to
be obtained. Gluttony and licentiousness are the sins of Naples.
Eubulus tells Euphues that in that city are those who 'sleep with meat
in their mouths, with sin in their hearts, and with shame in their
houses.' There is no limit to the inconveniences of traveling. 'Thou
must have the back of an ass to bear all, and the snout of a swine to
say nothing.... Travelers must sleep with their eyes open lest they be
slain in their beds, and wake with their eyes shut lest they be
suspected by their looks.' Journeys by the fireside are better. 'If
thou covet to travel strange countries, search the maps, there shalt
thou see much with great pleasure and small pains, if to be conversant
in all courts, read histories, where thou shalt understand both what
the men have been and what their manners are, and methinketh there
must be much delight where there is no danger.' Perhaps Lyly intended
to condemn traveling with character unformed. A boy returned with more
vices than he went forth with pence, and was able to sin both by
experience and authority. Lest he should be thought to speak with
uncertain voice upon this matter Lyly gives Euphues a story to tell in
which the chief character describes the effect of traveling upon
himself. 'There was no crime so barbarous, no murder so bloody, no
oath so blasphemous, no vice so execrable, but that I could readily
recite where I learned it, and by rote repeat the peculiar crime of
every particular country, city, town, village, house, or chamber.'
Here, indeed, is no lack of plain speech.
In the section called 'Euphues and his Ephoebus' twenty-nine pages are
devoted to the question of the education of youth. It is largely taken
from Plutarch. Some of the points are these: that a mother shall
herself nurse her child, that the child shall be early framed to
manners, 'for as the steele is imprinted in the soft waxe, so learning
is engraven in ye minde of an young Impe.' He is not to hear 'fonde
fables or filthy tales.' He is to learn to pronounce distinctly and to
be kept from 'barbarous talk,' that is, no dialect and no slang. He is
to become expert in martial affairs, in shooting and darting, and he
must hunt and hawk for his 'honest recreation.' If he will not study,
he is not to be 'scourged with stripes, but threatened with words, not
_dulled with blows_, like servants, the which, the more they are
beaten the better they bear it, and the less they care for it.' In
taking this position Lyly is said to be only following Ascham. Ascham
was not the first in his own time to preach such doctrine. Forty years
before the publication of _The Schoolmaster_, Sir Thomas Elyot, in his
book called _The Governour_, raised his voice against the barbarity of
teachers 'by whom the wits of children be dulled,'--almost the very
words of John Lyly.
_Euphues_, besides being a treatise on love and education, is a sort
of Tudor tract upon animated nature. It should be a source of joy
unspeakable to the general reader if only for what it teaches him in
the way of natural history. How much of what is most gravely stated
here did John Lyly actually believe? It is easy to grant so orthodox a
statement of physical fact as that 'the Sunne doth harden the durte,
and melte the waxe;' but ere the sentence be finished, the author
calls upon us to believe that 'Perfumes doth refresh the Dove and kill
the Betill.' The same reckless extravagance of remark is to be noted
whenever bird, beast, or reptile is mentioned. The crocodile of
Shakespeare's time must have been a very contortionist among beasts,
for, says Lyly, 'when one approacheth neere unto him, [he] gathereth
up himselfe into the roundnesse of a ball, but running from him,
stretcheth himselfe into the length of a tree.' Perhaps the fame of
this creature's powers grew in the transmission of the narrative from
the banks of the Nile to the banks of the Thames. The ostrich was
human in its vanity according to Lyly; men and women sometimes pull
out their white hairs, but 'the Estritch, that taketh the greatest
pride in her feathers, picketh some of the worst out and burneth
them.' Nay, more than that, being in 'great haste she pricketh none
but hirselfe which causeth hir to runne when she would rest.' We shall
presently expect to hear that ostriches wear boots by the straps of
which they lift themselves over ten-foot woven-wire fences. But Lyly
used the conventional natural history that was at hand, and troubled
himself in no respect to inquire about its truth or falsity.
There is yet another cause of the popularity of this book in its own
time, which has been too little emphasized. It is that trumpet blast
of patriotism with which the volume ends. We feel, as we read the
thirty pages devoted to the praise of England and the Queen, that this
is right, fitting, artistic, and we hope that it is tolerably sincere.
Flattery came easily to men in those days, and there was small hope of
advancement for one who did not master the art. But there is a glow of
earnestness in these paragraphs rather convincing to the skeptic. Nor
would the book be complete without this eulogy. We have had everything
else; a story for who wanted a story, theories upon the education of
children, a body of mythological divinity, a discussion of methods of
public speaking, advice for men who are about to marry, a theological
sparring match, in which a man of straw is set up to be knocked down,
and _is_ knocked down, a thousand illustrations of wit and curious
reading, and now, as a thing that all men could understand, the author
tells Englishmen of their own good fortune in being Englishmen, and is
finely outspoken in praise of what he calls 'the blessed Island.'
This is an old-fashioned vein, to be sure,--the _ad captandum_ trick
of a popular orator bent upon making a success. It is not looked upon
in all places with approval. 'Our unrivaled prosperity' was a phrase
which greatly irritated Matthew Arnold. Here in America, are we not
taught by a highly fastidious journal that we may be patriotic if we
choose, but we must be careful how we let people know it? We mustn't
make a fuss about it. We mustn't be blatant. The star-spangled banner
on the public schools is at best a cheap and vulgar expression of
patriotism. But somehow even this sort of patriotism goes with the
people, and perhaps these instincts of the common folk are not
entirely to be despised. Many a reader of _Euphues_, who cared but
little for its elaborated style, who was not moved by its orthodoxy,
who didn't read books simply because they were fashionable, must have
felt his pulse stirred by Lyly's chant of England's greatness. For
Euphues is John Lyly, and John Lyly's creed was substantially that of
the well-known hero of a now forgotten comic opera, 'I am an
Englishman.'
In the thin disguise of the chief character of his story the author
describes the happy island, its brave gentlemen and rich merchants,
its fair ladies and its noble Queen. The glories of London, which he
calls the storehouse and mart of all Europe, and the excellence of
English universities, 'out of which do daily proceed men of great
wisdom,' are alike celebrated. England's material wealth in mines and
quarries is amply set forth, also the fine qualities of the breed of
cattle, and the virtues of English spaniels, hounds, and mastiffs; for
these constitute a sort of good that all could appreciate. He is
satirical at the expense of his countrymen's dress,--'there is nothing
in England more constant than the inconstancie of attire,'--but
praises their silence and gravity at their meals. They have wise
ministers in the court, and devout guardians of the true religion and
of the church. 'O thrice happy England, where such councilors are,
where such people live, where such virtue springeth.'
In the paragraphs relating to the queen, Lyly grows positively
eloquent. He praises her matchless beauty, her mercy, patience, and
moderation, and emphasizes the fact of her virginity to a degree that
would have satisfied the imperial votaress herself if but once she had
considered her admirer's words: 'O fortunate England that hath such a
Queen; ungratefull, if thou pray not for her; wicked, if thou do not
love her; miserable, if thou lose her.' He calls down Heaven's
blessings upon her that she may be 'triumphant in victories like the
Palm tree, fruitful in her age like the Vine, in all ages prosperous,
to all men gracious, in all places glorious: so that there be no end
of her praise, until the end of all flesh.'
With passages such as these, this interesting book draws to a
conclusion. A most singular and original book, worthy to be read,
unless, indeed, the reading of these out-of-the-way volumes were found
to encroach upon time belonging by right of eminent intellectual
domain to Chaucer and to Shakespeare, to Spenser and to Milton. That
_Euphues_ is in no exact sense a novel admits of little question. It
is also a brilliant illustration of how not to write English.
Nevertheless it is very amusing, and its disappearance would be a
misfortune, since it would eclipse the innocent gayety of many a man
who loves to bask in that golden sunshine which streams from the pages
of old English books.