Chapter 6

[66] _Kyd's Works_ (Boas), p. 288, and ch. IX.

[67] _Sp. Trag._, Act II. 1-8.

Now these lines are practically a transcript of the opening words of the 47th sonnet in Watson's _Hekatompathia_ published in 1582. Remembering Lyly's penetrating observation that "the soft droppes of rain pearce the hard marble, many strokes overthrow the tallest oake[68]," and bearing in mind that the high priest of euphuism himself contributed a commendatory epistle to the _Hekatompathia_, we should expect that these Bulls and Hawkes and Oakes were choice flowers of speech, culled from that botanico-zoological "garden of prose"--the _Euphues_. But as a matter of fact Watson himself informs us in a note that his sonnet is an imitation of the Italian Serafino, from whom he also borrows other sonnet-conceits in the same volume, some of which are full of similar references to the properties of animals and plants. The conclusion is forced upon us therefore that Watson and Lyly went to the same source, or, if a knowledge of Italian cannot be granted to our author, that he borrowed from Watson. At any rate Watson cannot be placed amongst the imitators of _Euphues_. Like Pettie and Gosson he must share with Lyly the credit of creation. He was a friend of Lyly's at Oxford; they dedicated their books to the same patron, and they employed the same publisher. Moreover, the little we have of Watson's prose is highly euphuistic, and it is apparent from the epistle above mentioned that he was on terms of closest intimacy with the author of _Euphues_. In him we have another member of that interesting circle of Oxford euphuists, who continued their connexion in London under de Vere's patronage.

[68] _Euphues_, p. 337.

Watson again was a friend of the well-known poet Richard Barnefield, who though too young in 1578 to have been of the University coterie of euphuists, shows definite traces of their affectation in his works. The conventional illustrations from an "unnatural natural history" abound in his _Affectionate Shepherd_[69] (1594), and he repeats the jargon about marble and showers[70] which we have seen in Lyly, Watson and Kyd. Again in his _Cynthia_ (1594) there is a distinct reference to the opening words of _Euphues_ in the lines,

"Wit without wealth is bad, yet counted good; Wealth wanting wisdom's worse, yet deemed as well[71]."

His prose introduction betrays the same influence.

[69] _Poems_, Arber, pp. 18 and 19.

[70] _id._, p. 24.

[71] _id._, p. 51.

These then are a few among the countless scribblers of those prolific times who fell under the spell of the euphuistic fashion. They are mentioned, either because their connexion with the movement has been overlooked, or because they throw a new and important light upon Lyly himself. Of other legatees it is impossible to treat here; and it is enough, without tracing it in any detail, to indicate "the slender euphuistic thread that runs in iron through Marlowe, in silver through Shakespeare, in bronze through Bacon, in more or less inferior metal through every writer of that age[72]."

[72] Symonds, p. 407.

There is nothing strange in this infatuation, if we remember that euphuism was "the English type of an all but universal disease[73]," as Symonds puts it. Dr Landmann, we have decided, was wrong in his insistence upon foreign influence; but his error was a natural one, and points to a fact which no student of Renaissance literature can afford to neglect. Matthew Arnold long ago laid down the clarifying principle that "the criticism which alone can much help us for the future, is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result[74]." And the truth of this becomes more and more indisputable, the longer we study European history, whether it be from the side of Politics, of Religion, or of Art. Landmann ascribes euphuism to Spain, Symonds ascribes it to Italy, and an equally good case might be made out in favour of France. There is truth in all these hypotheses, but each misses the true significance of the matter, which is that euphuism must have come, and would have come, without any question of borrowing.

[73] _id._, p. 404.

[74] _Essays in Criticism_, I. p. 39.

The date 1453 is usually taken as a convenient starting point for the Renaissance, though the movement was already at work in Italy, for that was the year of Byzantium's fall and of the diffusion of the classics over Europe. But, for the countries outside Italy, I think that the date 1493 is almost as important. Hitherto the new learning had been in a great measure confined to Italy, but with the invasion of Charles VIII., which commences a long period of French and Spanish occupation of Italian soil, the Renaissance, especially on its artistic side, began to find its way into the neighbouring states, and through them into England. It is the old story, so familiar to sociologists, of a lower civilization falling under the spell of the culture exhibited by a more advanced subject population, of a conqueror worshipping the gods of the conquered. It is the story of the conquest of Greece by Rome, of the conquest of Rome by the Germans. But the interesting point to notice is that, when the "barbarian" Frenchman descended from the Alps upon the fair plains of Lombardy, the Italian Renaissance was already showing signs of decadence. It was in the age of the Petrarchisti, of Aretino, of Doni, and of Marini that Europe awoke to the full consciousness of the wonders of Italian literature. Thus it was that those beyond the Alps drank of water already tainted. That France, Spain, and England should be attracted by the affectations of Italy, rather than by what was best in her literature, was only to be expected. "It was easier to catch the trick of an Aretino, and a Marini, than to emulate the style of a Tasso or a Castiglione": and besides they were themselves inventing similar extravagances independently of Italy. The purely formal ideal of Art had in Spain already found expression among the courtiers of Juan II. of Castile. One of them, Baena, writes as follows of poetry: "that it cannot be learned or well and properly known, save by the man of very deep and subtle invention, and of a very lofty and fine discretion, and of a very healthy and unerring judgment, and such a one must have seen and heard and read many and diverse books and writings, and know all languages and have frequented kings' Courts and associated with great men and beheld and taken part in worldly affairs; and finally he must be of gentle birth, courteous and sedate, polished, humorous, polite, witty, and have in his composition honey, and sugar, and salt, and a good presence and a witty manner of reasoning; moreover he must be also a lover and ever make a show and pretence of it[75]." Such a catalogue of the poet's requisites might have been written by any one of our Oxford euphuists; and Watson, at least, among them fulfilled all its conditions.

[75] Butler Clarke, _Spanish Literature_, p. 71.

The Italian influence, therefore, did but hasten a process already at work. The reasons for this universal movement are very difficult to determine. But among many suggestions of more or less value, a few causes of the change may here be hazarded. In the first place, then, the Renaissance happened to be contemporaneous with the death of feudalism. The ideal of chivalry is dying out all over Europe; and the romances of chivalry are everywhere despised. The horizontal class divisions become obscured by the newly found perpendicular divisions of nationality; and in Italy and England at least the old feudal nobility have almost entirely disappeared. A new centre of national life and culture is therefore in the process of formation, that of the Court; and thanks to this, the ideal of chivalry gives place to the new ideal of the courtier or the gentleman. This ideal found literary expression in the moral Court treatises, which were so universally popular during the Renaissance, and of which Guevara, Castiglione, and Lyly are the most famous instances. The ambition of those who frequent Courts has always been to appear distinguished--distinguished that is from the vulgar and the ordinary, or, as we should now say, from the Philistine. In the Courts of the Renaissance period, where learning was considered so admirable, this necessary distinction would naturally take the form of a cultured, if not pedantic, diction; and for this it was natural that men should go to the classics, and more especially to classical orators, as models of good speech. It must not be imagined that this process was a conscious one. In many countries the rhetorical style was already formed by scholars before it became the speech of the Court. In fact the beginnings of modern prose style are to be found in humanism. Ascham with his hatred of the "Italianated gentleman," was probably quite unconscious of his own affinity to that objectionable type, when imitating the style of his favourite Tully in the _Schoolmaster_. The classics it must be remembered were not discovered by the humanists, they were only rediscovered. The middle ages had used them, as they had used the Old Testament, as prophetic books. Virgil's mediaeval reputation for example rests for the most part upon the fourth Eclogue. The humanists, on the other hand, looked upon the classics as literature and valued them for their style. But here again they drank from tainted sources; for, with the exception of a few writers such as Cicero and Terence, the classics they knew and loved best were the product of the silver age of Rome, the characteristics of which are beautifully described by the author of _Marius the Epicurean_ in his chapter significantly called _Euphuism_. Few of the Renaissance students had the critical acumen of Cheke, and they fell therefore an easy prey to the stylism of the later Latin writers, with its antithesis and extravagance. But, with all this, men could not quite shake off the middle ages. There is much of the Scholastic in Lyly, and the exuberance of ornament, the fantastic similes from natural history, and the moral lessons deduced from them, are quite mediaeval in feeling. We learnt the lessons of the classics backward; and it was not until centuries after, that men realised that the essence of Hellenism is restraint and harmony.

I have spoken of the movement generally, but it passed through many phases, such as arcadianism, gongorism, dubartism; and yet of all these phases euphuism was, I think, the most important: certainly if we confine our attention to English literature this must be admitted. But, even if we keep our eyes upon the Continent alone, euphuism would seem to be more significant than the movements which succeeded it; for it was a definite attempt, seriously undertaken, to force modern languages into a classical mould, while the other and later affectations were merely passing extravagances, possessing little dynamical importance. In this way, short-lived and abortive as it seemed, euphuism anticipated the literature of the _ancien régime_.

The movement, moreover, was only one aspect of the Renaissance; it was the under-current which in the 18th century became the main stream. Paradoxical as it may seem, the Renaissance in its most modern aspect was a development of the middle ages, and not of the classics. This we call romanticism. As an artistic product it was developed on strictly national and traditional lines, born of the fields as it were, free as a bird and as sweet, giving birth in England to the drama, in Italy to the plastic arts. It is essentially opposed to the classical movement, for it represents the idea as distinct from the form. Lyly belongs to both movements, for, while he is the protagonist of the romantic drama, in his _Euphues_ we may discover the source of the artificial stream which, concealed for a while beneath the wild exuberance of the romantic growth, appears later in the 18th century embracing the whole current of English literature. Before, however, proceeding to fix the position of euphuism in the development of English prose, let us sum up the results we have obtained from our examination of its relation to the general European Renaissance. Originating in that study of classical style we find so forcibly advocated by Ascham in his _Schoolmaster_, it was essentially a product of humanism. In every country scholars were interested as much in the style as in the matter of the newly discovered classics. This was due, partly to the lateness of the Latin writers chiefly known to them, partly to the mediaeval preference for words rather than ideas, and partly to the fact that the times were not yet ripe for an appreciation of the spirit as distinct from the letter of the classics. In Italy, in France, and in Spain, therefore, we may find parallels to euphuism without supposing any international borrowings. _Euphues_, in fact, is not so much a reflection of, as a _Glasse for Europe_.

SECTION IV. _The position of Euphuism in the history of English prose._

A few words remain to be said about this literary curiosity, by way of assigning a place to it in the history of our prose. To do so with any scientific precision is impossible, but there are many points of no small significance in this connexion, which should not be passed over.

English prose at the beginning of the 16th century, that is before the new learning had become a power in the land, though it had not yet been employed for artistic purposes, was already an important part of our literature, and possessed a quality which no national prose had exhibited since the days of Greece, the quality of popularity[76]. This popularity, which arose from the fact that French and Latin had for so long been the language of the ruling section of the community, is still the distinction which marks off our prose from that of other nations. In Italy, for example, the language of literature is practically incomprehensible to the dwellers on the soil. But what English prose has gained in breadth and comprehension by representing the tongue of the people, it has lost in subtlety. French prose, which developed from the speech of the Court, is a delicate instrument, capable of expressing the finest shades of meaning, while the styles of George Meredith and of Henry James show how difficult it is for a subtle intellect to move freely within the limitations of English prose. Indeed, "it is a remarkable fact," as Sainte Beuve noticed, "and an inversion of what is true of other languages that, in French, prose has always had the precedence over poetry." Repeated attempts, however, have been made to capture our language, and to transport it into aristocratic atmospheres; and of these attempts the first is associated with the name of Lyly.

[76] Cf. Earle, pp. 422, 423.

We have seen that English euphuism was at first a flower of unconscious growth sprung from the soil of humanism. But ultimately, in the hands of Pettie, Gosson, Lyly, and Watson, it became the instrument of an Oxford coterie deliberately and consciously employed for the purpose of altering the form of English prose. These men did not despise their native tongue; they used the purest English, carefully avoiding the favourite "ink-horn terms" of their contemporaries: they admired it, as one admires a wild bird of the fields, which one wishes to capture in order to make it hop and sing in a golden cage. The humanists were already developing a learned style within the native language; Lyly and his friends utilized this learned style for the creation of an aristocratic type. Euphuism was no "transient phase of madness[77]," as Mr Earle contemptuously calls it, but a brave attempt, and withal a first attempt, to assert that prose writing is an art no less than the writing of poetry; and this alone should give it a claim upon students of English literature.

[77] Earle, p. 436.

The first point we must notice, therefore, about English euphuism is that it represents a tendency to confine literature within the limits of the Court--in accordance, one might almost say, with the general centralization of politics and religion under the Tudors--and that, as a necessary result of this, conscious prose style appears for the first time in our language. I say English euphuism, because that is our chief concern, and because though euphuism on the Continent was, as we have seen, the expression in literature of the new ideal of the courtier, yet it was by no means so great an innovation as it was in England, inasmuch as the Romance literatures had always represented the aristocracy. The form which this style assumed was dependent upon the circumstances which gave it birth, and upon the general conditions of the age. Owing to the former it became erudite, polished, precise, meet indeed for the "parleyings" of courtiers and maids-in-waiting; but it was to the latter that it owed its essentials. Hitherto we have contented ourselves with indicating the rhetorical aspect of euphuism. We have seen that the Latin orators and the writers of our English homilies exercised a considerable influence over the new stylists. It was natural that rhetoricians should attract those who were desirous of writing ornamental and artistic prose, and one feels inclined to believe that it was not entirely for spiritual reasons that Lyly frequently attended Dr Andrews' sermons[78]. But the euphuistic manner has a wider significance than this, for it marks the transition from poetry to prose.

[78] Bond, I. p. 60.

"The age of Elizabeth is pre-eminently an age of poetry, of which prose may be regarded as merely the overflow[79]." It was at once the end of the mediaeval, and the beginning of the modern, world, and consequently, it displays the qualities of both. But the future lay with the small men rather than with the great. Shakespeare and Milton were no innovators. With their names the epoch of primitive literature, which finds expression in the drama and the epic, ends, while it reaches its highest flights. The dawn of the modern epoch, the age of prose and of the novel, is, on the other hand, connected with the names of Lyly, Sidney, and Nash. Thus, as in the 18th century poetry was subservient, and so became assimilated, to prose, so the prose of the 16th century exhibited many of the characteristics of verse. And of this general literary feature euphuism is the most conspicuous example; for in its employment of alliteration and antithesis, in addition to the excessive use of illustration and simile which characterizes arcadianism and its successors, the style of Lyly is transitional in structure as well as in ornament. Moreover the alliteration, which is peculiar to English euphuism, gives it a musical element which its continental parallels lacked. The dividing line between alliteration and rhyme, and between antithesis and rhythm, is not a broad one[80]. Indeed Pettie found it so narrow that he occasionally lapsed into metrical rhythm. And so, though we cannot say that euphuism is verse, we can say that it partakes of the nature of verse. In this endeavour to provide an adequate structure for the support of the mass of imagery that the taste of the age demanded, it showed itself superior to the rival prose fashions. _Euphues_ is a model of form beside the tedious prolixity of the _Arcadia_, or the chaotic effusions of Nash. The weariness, which the modern reader feels for the romance of Lyly, is due rather to the excessive quantity of its metaphor, which was the fault of the age, than to its pedantic style.

[79] Raleigh, p. 45.

[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 principal lessons had been so well learnt as to pass 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, antithesis and the use of balanced sentences came to stay. We may see them in the style of Johnson and Gibbon, while alliterative antithesis reappears to-day in the shape of the epigram. Doubtless Lyly abused the antithetical 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 illustrations 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 associates), 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 antithesis, 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 multitudinous 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 classified 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 identity of his personality--the personality of the fop of culture.