John Lyly Part 1

John Lyly.

by John Dover Wilson.

PREFACE.

The following treatise was awarded the _Harness Prize_ at Cambridge in 1904. I have, however, revised it since then, and in some matters considerably enlarged it.

A list of the chief authorities to whom I am indebted will be found at the end of the book, but it is fitting that I should here make particular mention of my obligations to the exhaustive work of Mr Bond[1]. Not only have his labours of research and collation lightened the task for me, and for any future student of Lyly, to an incalculable extent, but the various introductory essays scattered up and down his volumes are full of invaluable suggestions.

[1] _The Complete Works of John Lyly._ R. W. Bond, 3 Vols. Clarendon Press.

This book was unfortunately nearing its completion before I was able to avail myself of Mr Martin Hume's _Spanish Influence on English Literature_. But, though I might have added more had his book been accessible earlier, I was glad to find that his conclusions left the main theory of my chapter on Euphuism untouched.

Much as has been written upon John Lyly, no previous critic has attempted to cover the whole ground, and to sum up in a brief and convenient form the three main literary problems which centre round his name. My solution of these problems may be faulty in detail, but it will I hope be of service to Elizabethan students to have them presented in a single volume and from a single point of view. Furthermore, when I undertook this study, I found several points which seemed to demand closer attention than they had hitherto received. It appeared to me that the last word had not been said even upon the subject of Euphuism, although that topic has usurped the lion's share of critical treatment.

And again, while Lyly's claims as a novelist are acknowledged on all hands, I felt that a clear statement of his exact position in the history of our novel was still needed. Finally, inasmuch as the personality of an author is always more fascinating to me than his writings, I determined to attempt to throw some light, however fitful and uncertain, upon the man Lyly himself. The attempt was not entirely fruitless, for it led to the interesting discovery that the fully-developed euphuism was not the creation of Lyly, or Pettie, or indeed of any one individual, but of a circle of young Oxford men which included Gosson, Watson, Hakluyt, and possibly many others.

I have to thank Mr J. R. Collins and Mr J. N. Frazer, the one for help in revision, and the other for a.s.sistance in Spanish. But my chief debt of grat.i.tude is due to Dr Ward, the Master of Peterhouse, who has twice read through this book at different stages of its construction. The readiness with which he has put his great learning at my disposal, his kindly interest, and frequent encouragement have been of the very greatest help in a task which was undertaken and completed under pressure of other work.

As the full t.i.tles of authorities used are to be found in the list at the end, I have referred to works in the footnotes simply by the name of their author, while in quoting from _Euphues_ I have throughout employed Prof. Arber's reprint. Should errors be discovered in the text I must plead in excuse that, owing to circ.u.mstances, the book had to be pa.s.sed very quickly through the press.

JOHN DOVER WILSON.

HOLMLEIGH, SHELFORD, _August, 1905_.

INTRODUCTION.

Since the day when Taine established a scientific basis for the historical study of Art, criticism has tended gradually but naturally to fall into two divisions, as distinct from each other as the functions they respectively perform are distinct. The one, which we may call aesthetic criticism, deals with the artist and his works solely for the purpose of interpretation and appreciation, judging them according to some artistic standard, which, as often as not, derives its only sanction from the prejudices of the critic himself. It is of course obvious that, until all critics are agreed upon some common principles of artistic valuation, aesthetic criticism can lay no claim to scientific precision, but must be cla.s.sed as a department of Art itself.

The other, an application of the Darwinian hypothesis to literature, which owes its existence almost entirely to the great French critic before mentioned, but which has since rejected as unscientific many of the laws he formulated, may be called historical or sociological criticism. It judges a work of art, an artist, or an artistic period, on its dynamic and not its intrinsic merits. Its standard is influence, not power or beauty. It is concerned with the artistic qualities of a given artist only in so far as he exerts influence over his successors by those qualities. It is essentially scientific, for it treats the artist as science treats any other natural phenomenon, that is, as the effect of previous causes and the cause of subsequent effects. Its function is one of cla.s.sification, and with interpretation or appreciation it has nothing to do.

Before undertaking the study of an artist, the critic should carefully distinguish between these two critical methods. A complete study must of course comprehend both; and in the case of Shakespeare, shall we say, each should be exhaustive. On the other hand, there are artists whose dynamical value is far greater than their intrinsic value, and _vice versa_; and in such instances the critic must be guided in his action by the relative importance of these values in any particular example. This is so in the case of John Lyly. In the course of the following treatise we shall have occasion to pa.s.s many aesthetic judgments upon his work; but it will be from the historical side that we shall view him in the main, because his importance for the readers of the twentieth century is almost entirely dynamical. His work is by no means devoid of aesthetic merit. He was, like so many of the Elizabethans, a writer of beautiful lyrics which are well known to this day; but, though the rest of his work is undoubtedly that of an artist of no mean ability, the beauty it possesses is the beauty of a fossil in which few but students would profess any interest. Moreover, even could we claim more for John Lyly than this, any aesthetic criticism would of necessity become a secondary matter in comparison with his importance in other directions, for to the scientific critic he is or should be one of the most significant figures in English literature. This claim I hope to justify in the following pages; but it will be well, by way of obtaining a broad general view of our subject, to call attention to a few points upon which our justification must ultimately rest.

In the first place John Lyly, inasmuch as he was one of the earliest writers who considered prose as an artistic end in itself, and not simply as a medium of expression, may be justly described as a founder, if not _the_ founder, of English prose style.

In the second place he was the author of the first novel of manners in the language.

And in the third place, and from the point of view of Elizabethan literature most important of all, he was one of our very earliest dramatists, and without doubt merits the t.i.tle of Father of English Comedy.

It is almost impossible to over-estimate his historical importance in these three departments, and this not because he was a great genius or possessed of any magnificent artistic gifts, but for the simple reason that he happened to stand upon the threshold of modern English literature and at the very entrance to its splendid Elizabethan ante-room, and therefore all who came after felt something of his influence. These are the three chief points of interest about Lyly, but they do not exhaust the problems he presents. We shall have to notice also that as a pamphleteer he becomes entangled in the famous _Marprelate_ controversy, and that he was one of the first, being perhaps even earlier than Marlowe, to perceive the value of blank verse for dramatic purposes. Finally, as we have seen, he was the reputed author of some delightful lyrics.

The man of whom one can say such things, the man who showed such versatility and range of expression, the man who took the world by storm and made euphuism the fas.h.i.+on at court before he was well out of his nonage, who for years provided the great Queen with food for laughter, and who was connected with the first ominous outburst of the Puritan spirit, surely possesses personal attractions apart from any literary considerations. We shall presently see reason to believe that his personality was a brilliant and fascinating one. But such a reconstruction of the artist[2] is only possible after a thorough a.n.a.lysis of his works. It would be as well here, however, by way of obtaining an historical framework for our study, to give a brief account of his life as it is known to us.

[2] Cf. Hennequin.

"Eloquent and witty" John Lyly first saw light in the year 1553 or 1554[3]. Anthony a Wood, the 17th century author of _Athenae Oxonienses_, tells us that he was, like his contemporary Stephen Gosson, a Kentish man born[4]; and with this clue to help them both Mr Bond and Mr Baker are inclined to accept much of the story of Fidus as autobiographical[5]. If their inference be correct, our author would seem to have been the son of middle-cla.s.s, but well-to-do, parents. But it is with his residence at Oxford that any authentic account of his life must begin, and even then our information is very meagre. Wood tells us that he "became a student in Magdalen College in the beginning of 1569, aged 16 or thereabouts." "And since," adds Mr Bond, "in 1574 he describes himself as Burleigh's alumnus, and owns obligations to him, it is possible that he owed his university career to Burleigh's a.s.sistance[6]." And yet, limited as our knowledge is, it is possible, I think, to form a fairly accurate conception of Lyly's manner of life at Oxford, if we are bold enough to read between the lines of the sc.r.a.ps of contemporary evidence that have come down to us. Lyly himself tells us that he left Oxford for three years not long after his arrival.

"Oxford," he says, "seemed to weane me before she brought me forth, and to give me boanes to gnawe, before I could get the teate to suck.

Wherein she played the nice mother in sending me into the countrie to nurse, where I tyred at a drie breast for three years and was at last inforced to weane myself." Mr Bond, influenced by the high moral tone of _Euphues_, which, as we shall see, was merely a traditional literary prose borrowed from the moral court treatise, is anxious to vindicate Lyly from all charges of lawlessness, and refuses to admit that the foregoing words refer to rustication[7]. Lyly's enforced absence he holds was due to the plague which broke out at Oxford at this time. Such an interpretation seems to me to be sufficiently disposed of by the fact that the plague in question did not break out until 1571[8], while Lyly's words must refer to a departure (at the very latest) in 1570.

Everything, in fact, goes to show that he was out of favour with the University authorities. In the first place he seems to have paid small attention to his regular studies. To quote Wood again, he was "always averse to the crabbed studies of Logic and Philosophy. For so it was that his genie, being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry (as if Apollo had given to him a wreath of his own Bays without s.n.a.t.c.hing or struggling), did in a manner neglect academical studies, yet not so much but that he took the Degree in Arts, that of Master being completed in 1575[9]."

[3] Bond, I. p. 2; Baker, p. v.

[4] _Ath. Ox._ (ed. Bliss), I. p. 676.

[5] _Euphues_, p. 268.

[6] Bond, I. p. 6. But Baker, pp. vii, viii, would seem to disagree with this.

[7] Bond, I. p. 11.

[8] Baker, p. xii.

[9] _Athenae Oxonienses_ (ed. Bliss), I. p. 676.

Neglect of the recognised studies, however, was not the only blot upon Lyly's Oxford life. From the hints thrown out by his contemporaries, and from some allusions, doubtless personal, in the _Euphues_, we learn that, as an undergraduate, he was an irresponsible madcap. "Esteemed in the University a noted wit," he would very naturally become the centre of a pleasure-seeking circle of friends, despising the persons and ideas of their elders, eager to adopt the latest fas.h.i.+on whether in dress or in thought, and intolerant alike of regulations and of duty.

Gabriel Harvey, who nursed a grudge against Lyly, even speaks of "horning, gaming, fooling and knaving," words which convey a distinct sense of something discreditable, whatever may be their exact significance. It is necessary to lay stress upon this period of Lyly's life, because, as I hope to show, his residence at Oxford, and the friends he made there, had a profound influence upon his later development, and in particular determined his literary bent. For our present purpose, however, which is merely to give a brief sketch of his life, it is sufficient to notice that our author's conduct during his residence was not so exemplary as it might have been. It must, therefore, have called forth a sigh of relief from the authorities of Magdalen, when they saw the last of John Lyly, M.A., in 1575. He however, quite naturally, saw matters otherwise. It would seem to him that the College was suffering wrong in losing so excellent a wit, and accordingly he heroically took steps to prevent such a catastrophe, for in 1576 we find him writing to his patron Burleigh, requesting him to procure mandatory letters from the Queen "that so under your auspices I may be quietly admitted a Fellow there." The pet.i.tion was refused, Burleigh's sense of propriety overcoming his sense of humour, and the pet.i.tioner quitted Oxford, leaving his College the legacy of an unpaid bill for battels, and probably already preparing in his brain the revenge, which subsequently took the form of an attack upon his University in _Euphues_, which he published in 1578.

It is interesting to learn that in 1579, according to the common practice of that day, he proceeded to his degree of M.A. at Cambridge, though there is no evidence of any residence there[10]. Indeed we know from other sources that in 1578, or perhaps earlier, Lyly had taken up his position at the Savoy Hospital. It seems probable that he became again indebted to Burleigh's generosity for the rooms he occupied here--unless they were hired for him by Burleigh's son-in-law Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. This person, though few of his writings are now extant, is nevertheless an interesting figure in Elizabethan literature.

The second part of _Euphues_ published in 1580, and the _Hekatompathia_ of Thomas Watson, are both dedicated to him, and he seems to have acted as patron to most of Lyly's literary a.s.sociates when they left Oxford for London. Lyly became his private secretary; and as the Earl was himself a dramatist, though his comedies are now lost, his influence must have confirmed in our author those dramatic aspirations, which were probably acquired at Oxford; and we have every reason for believing that Lyly was still his secretary when he was publis.h.i.+ng his two first plays, _Campaspe_ and _Sapho_, in 1584. But this point will require a fuller treatment at a later stage of our study.

[10] Mr Baker however seems to think that his reference to Cambridge (_Euphues_, p. 436) implies a term of residence there. Baker, p. xxii.

Somewhere about 1585 Fate settled once and for all the lines on which Lyly's genius was to develop, for at that time he became an a.s.sistant master at the St Paul's Choir School. Schools, and especially those for choristers, at this time offered excellent opportunities for dramatic production. Lyly in his new position made good use of his chance, and wrote plays for his young scholars to act, drilling them himself, and perhaps frequently appearing personally on the stage. These chorister-actors were connected in a very special way with royal entertainments; and therefore they and their instructor would be constantly brought into touch with the Revels' Office. As we know from his letters to Elizabeth and to Cecil, the masters.h.i.+p of the Revels was the post Lyly coveted, and coveted without success, as far as we can tell, until the end of his life. But these letters also show us that he was already connected with this office by his position in the subordinate office of Tents and Toils. The latter, originally inst.i.tuted for the purpose of furnis.h.i.+ng the necessaries of royal hunting and campaigning[11], had apparently become amalgamated under a female sovereign with the Revels' Office, possibly owing to the fact that its costumes and weapons provided useful material for entertainments and interludes. Another position which, as Mr Bond shows, was held at one time by Lyly, was that of reader of new books to the Bishop of London.

This connexion with the censors.h.i.+p of the day is interesting, as showing how Lyly was drawn into the whirlpool of the _Marprelate_ controversy.

Finally we know that he was elected a member of Parliament on four separate occasions[12].

[11] Bond, I. p. 38.

[12] I have to thank Dr Ward for pointing out to me the interesting fact that a large proportion of Elizabeth's M.P.'s were royal officials.

These varied occupations are proof of the energy and versatility of our author, but not one of them can be described as lucrative. Nor can his publications have brought him much profit; for, though both _Euphues_ and its sequel pa.s.sed through ten editions before his death, an author in those days received very little of the proceeds of his work. Moreover the publication of his plays is rather an indication of financial distress than a sign of prosperity. The two dramas already mentioned were printed before Lyly's connexion with the Choir School; and, when in 1585 he became "vice-master of Poules and Foolmaster of the Theater,"

he would be careful to keep his plays out of the publisher's hands, in order to preserve the acting monopoly. It is probable that the tenure of this Actor-manager-schoolmasters.h.i.+p marks the height of Lyly's prosperity, and the inhibition of the boys' acting rights in 1591 must have meant a severe financial loss to him. Thus it is only after this date that he is forced to make what he can by the publication of his other plays. The fear of poverty was the more urgent, because he had a wife and family on his hands. And though Mr Bond believes that he found an occupation after 1591 in writing royal entertainments, and though the inhibition on the choristers' acting was removed as early as 1599, yet the last years of Lyly's life were probably full of disappointment. This indeed is confirmed by the bitter tone of his letter to Elizabeth in 1598 in reference to the masters.h.i.+p of the Revels' Office, which he had at last despaired of. The letter in question is sad reading. Beginning with a euphuism and ending in a jest, it tells of a man who still retains, despite all adversity, a courtly mask and a merry tongue, but beneath this brave surface there is visible a despair--almost amounting to anguish--which the forced merriment only renders more pitiable. And the gloom which surrounded his last years was not only due to the distress of poverty. Before his death in 1606 he had seen his novel eclipsed by the new Arcadian fas.h.i.+on, and had watched the rise of a host of rival dramatists, thrusting him aside while they took advantage of his methods. Greatest of them all, as he must have realised, was Shakespeare, the sun of our drama before whom the silver light of his little moon, which had first illumined our darkness, waned and faded away and was to be for centuries forgotten.

CHAPTER I.

EUPHUISM.

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

While, as I have said, Lyly's name is a.s.sociated with the novel by most modern critics, it has earned a more widespread reputation among the laity for affectation and mannerisms of style. Indeed, until fifty years ago, Lyly spelt nothing but euphuism, and euphuism meant simply nonsense, clothed in bombast. It was a blind acceptance of these loose ideas which led Sir Walter Scott to create (as a caricature of Lyly) his Sir Piercie Shafton in _The Monastery_--an historical _faux pas_ for which he has been since sufficiently called to account. Nevertheless Lyly's reputation had a certain basis of fact, and we may trace the tradition back to Elizabethan days. It is perhaps worth pointing out that, had we no other evidence upon the subject, the survival of this tradition would lead us to suppose that it was Lyly's style more than anything else which appealed to the men of his day. A contemporary confirmation of this may be found in the words of William Webbe. Writing in 1586 of the "great good grace and sweet vogue which Eloquence hath attained in our Speeche," he declares that the English language has thus progressed, "because it hath had the helpe of such rare and singular wits, as from time to time myght still adde some amendment to the same.

Among whom I think there is none that will gainsay, but Master John Lyly hath deservedly moste high commendations, as he hath stept one steppe further therein than any either before or since he first began the wyttie discourse of his _Euphues_, whose works, surely in respect of his singular eloquence and brave composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make tryall thereof, through all the parts of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, in pithy sentences, in galant tropes, in flowing speeche, in plaine sense, and surely in my judgment, I think he wyll yeelde him that verdict which Quintillian giveth of both the best orators Demosthenes and Tully, that from the one, nothing may be taken away, to the other nothing may be added[13]." After such eulogy, the description of Lyly by another writer as "alter Tullius anglorum" will not seem strange. These praises were not the extravagances of a few uncritical admirers; they echo the verdict of the age. Lyly's enthronement was of short duration--a matter of some ten years--but, while it lasted, he reigned supreme. Such literary idolatries are by no means uncommon, and often hold their ground for a considerable period.

Beside the vogue of Waller, for example, the duration of Lyly's reputation was comparatively brief. More than a century after the publication of his poems, Waller was hailed by the Sidney Lee of the day in the _Biographia Britannica_ of 1766, as "the most celebrated Lyric Poet that England ever produced." Whence comes this striking contrast between past glory and present neglect? How is it that a writer once known as the greatest master of English prose, and a poet once named the most conspicuous of English lyrists, are now but names? They have not faded from memory owing to a mere caprice of fas.h.i.+on. Great artists are subject to an ebb and flow of popularity, for which as yet no tidal theory has been offered as an explanation; but like the sea they are ever permanent. The case of our two writers is different. The wheel of time will never bring _Euphues_ and _Sacharissa_ "to their own again."