John Lyly Part 3

[62] Bond, vol. I. pp. 164-175.

The first of these is the dramatist Kyd, who completed his well-known _Spanish Tragedy_ between 1584 and 1589, that is at the height of the euphuistic fas.h.i.+on. This play was apparently an inexhaustible joke to the Elizabethans; for the references to it in later dramatists are innumerable. One pa.s.sage must have been particularly famous, for we find it parodied most elaborately by Field, as late as 1606, in his _A Woman is a Weatherc.o.c.k_[63]. The pa.s.sage in question, which was obviously inspired by Lyly, runs as follows:

"Yet might she love me for my valiance: I, but that's slandered by captivity.

Yet might she love me to content her sire: I, but her reason masters her desire.

Yet might she love me as her brother's friend: I, but her hopes aim at some other end.

Yet might she love me to uprear her state: I, but perhaps she loves some n.o.bler mate.

Yet might she love me as her beautie's thrall: I, but I feare she cannot love at all."

[63] Act I. Sc. II.

Nathaniel Field's parody of this melodramatic nonsense is so amusing that I cannot forbear quoting it. This time the despairing lover is Sir Abraham Ninny, who quotes Kyd to his companions, and they with the cry of "Ha G.o.d-a-mercy, old Hieromino!" begin the game of parody, which must have been keenly enjoyed by the audience. Field improves on the original by putting the alternate lines of despair into the mouths of Ninny's jesting friends. It runs, therefore:

"--Yet might she love me for my lovely eyes.

--Ay but, perhaps your nose she does despise.

--Yet might she love me for my dimpled chin.

--Ay but, she sees your beard is very thin.

--Yet might she love me for my proper body.

--Ay but, she thinks you are an arrant noddy.

--Yet might she love me 'cause I am an heir.

--Ay but, perhaps she does not like your ware.

--Yet might she love me in despite of all.

(the lady herself)--Ay but indeed I cannot love at all."

This parody, apart from any interest it possesses for the student of Lyly, is an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the ways of Elizabethan playwrights, and of the thorough knowledge of previous plays they a.s.sumed their audience to have possessed. There are several other examples of Kyd's acquaintance with the _Euphues_ in the _Spanish Tragedy_[64], in the other dramas[65], and in his prose works[66], which it is not necessary to quote. But there is one more pa.s.sage, again from his most famous play, which is so full of interest that it cannot be pa.s.sed over in silence. It is a counsel of hope to the despairing lover, and a.s.sumes this inspiring form:

"My Lord, though Belimperia seem thus coy Let reason hold you in your wonted joy; In time the savage Bull sustains the yoke, In time all Haggard Hawkes will stoop to lure, In time small wedges cleave the hardest Oake, In time the flint is pearst with softest shower, And she in time will fall from her disdain, And rue the sufferance of your deadly paine[67]."

[64] _Sp. Trag._, Act IV. 190 (cp. _Euphues_, p. 146).

[65] _Soliman and Perseda_, Act III. 130 (cp. _Euphues_, p. 100), and Act II. 199.

[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 ill.u.s.trations 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 cla.s.sics 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 wors.h.i.+pping the G.o.ds 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 Ta.s.so 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 a.s.sociated 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 cla.s.s divisions become obscured by the newly found perpendicular divisions of nationality; and in Italy and England at least the old feudal n.o.bility 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 cla.s.sics, and more especially to cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sics 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 cla.s.sics 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 cla.s.sics 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 ac.u.men of Cheke, and they fell therefore an easy prey to the stylism of the later Latin writers, with its ant.i.thesis 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 cla.s.sics backward; and it was not until centuries after, that men realised that the essence of h.e.l.lenism is restraint and harmony.

I have spoken of the movement generally, but it pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.sical mould, while the other and later affectations were merely pa.s.sing extravagances, possessing little dynamical importance. In this way, short-lived and abortive as it seemed, euphuism antic.i.p.ated the literature of the _ancien regime_.

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 cla.s.sics. 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 cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sics. 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 cla.s.sics. 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 _Gla.s.se 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 a.s.signing 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sert 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 a.s.sumed was dependent upon the circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.similated, 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 ant.i.thesis, in addition to the excessive use of ill.u.s.tration 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 ant.i.thesis 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 ma.s.s of imagery that the taste of the age demanded, it showed itself superior to the rival prose fas.h.i.+ons. _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 quant.i.ty of its metaphor, which was the fault of the age, than to its pedantic style.

[79] Raleigh, p. 45.