camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears’ (First Part of Henry IV, ii. iv. 438–61: cf. Euphues, p. 46). Like sarcasm at Lyly's expense figures in the ‘Return from Parnassus’ (ed. Macray, p. 72) in such expressions as ‘There is a beast in India called a polecat, that the further she is from you the less she stinks,’ &c. As early as 1589 Henry Upchear, in verses prefixed to Greene's ‘Menaphon,’ remarked on the declining popularity of Lyly's ‘labouring beauty.’ Harvey, perhaps scarcely a disinterested witness, declared that he could not ‘stand . . . euphuing of similes alla Savoica’ in reference to Lyly's connection with the Savoy—and wrote later, in his ‘Rhetor:’ ‘The finest wits prefer the loosest period in M. Ascham, or Sir Philip Sidney, before the tricksiest page in "Euphues" or "Paphatchet." ’ Ben Jonson ridiculed Lyly in the character of Fastidious Brisk in ‘Every Man out of his Humour’ (1599), and returned to the topic in ‘Cynthia's Revels.’ Wither, in ‘Britains Remembrancer,’ congratulated himself that Lyly's fashion had passed away; while Drayton in 1627, in his ‘Of Poets and Poesie,’ eulogised Sidney for having first reduced
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in use
Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of Fishes, Flyes
Playing with words and idle Similes.
Sir Walter Scott attempted, with doubtful success, to portray the character of a disciple of Lyly in Sir Piercie Shafton in ‘The Monastery’ (1820). In 1855 Charles Kingsley, in his ‘Westward Ho!’ essayed the impossible task of rolling back the flood of ridicule that had overwhelmed ‘Euphues,’ and declared it to be, ‘in spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, pious, and righteous a book as man need look into.’
In his own days Lyly was reckoned by Meres among 'the best for comedy,' and is described as 'eloquent and witty' (Palladis Tamia, 1598). The plots and the names of his characters in his plays are mainly drawn from classical mythology. The 'Endymion' is partly based on Lucian's dialogue between the Moon and Venus; 'Galathea' on Ovid's 'Metamorphoses,' bk. ix., although Lyly transfers the scene to North Lincolnshire; 'Sapho and Phao' on Ovid's 'Epistles;' and 'Midas' on Apuleius's 'Golden Ass.' 'Campaspe' owes something to Pliny's 'Natural History,' xxxv., 10. The three best plays, 'Alexander and Campaspe,' 'Midas,' and 'Endymion,' have much classical elegance, and reminded Hazlitt of the graceful communicativeness of Lucian or of Apuleius, authors to whom Lyly was deeply indebted. But the plots are loosely fashioned, and, in spite of many beautiful passages, the artificiality of the language palls on the modern reader. Lamb quotes two attractive passages from 'Love's Metamorphosis' and 'Sapho and Phao' respectively in his 'Specimens,' and Hazlitt the best scene in 'Endymion' in his 'Lectures on Elizabethan Literature.' 'Mother Bomble'—of the type of the 'Comedy of Errors'—is overweighted by its 'crude conceits and clumsy levity.' The heroine is a fortune-teller of Kent: the form of the piece follows the old Latin comedy. Except 'The Woman in the Moone,' which is in blank verse, all the plays are in more or less euphuistic prose. Their most attractive features are the lyrics, which were not published in the quartos, but first appeared in Blount's collected edition of 1632. The 'Song by Apelles' in 'Campaspe,' beginning 'Cupid sang, Campaspe played,' has found its way into numberless anthologies. Lyly's blank verse is very regular, but lacks pliancy, and some doubts have been expressed whether Lyly has shown elsewhere sufficient capacity to make it altogether probable that he was author of the lyrics which were not associated with his name in his lifetime. Shakespeare seems indebted to Lyly's 'Endymion' for some hints in his 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.'
Lyly doubtless contrived amid his classical allusions to introduce some half-concealed compliments concerning Queen Elizabeth: but the attempts made by recent critics to detect in most of his plays veiled comments on current politics have not at present proved very successful. Endymion has been identified with Leicester, Midas of Phrygia with Philip of Spain, and so forth, but the grounds of identification are disputable.
The titles of the plays are, in order of publication: 1. 'Alexander and Campaspe, played before the Queenes Majestie on Twelfe Day at night, by her Majesties Children and the Children of Paules,' London (for Thomas Cadman), 1584: reissued as 'Campaspe' in the same year and in 1591. 2. 'Sapho and Phao, played before the Queenes Majestie on Shrove Tuesday, by her Majesties Children and the Children of Paules,' London (by Thomas Cadman), 1584, 1591. 3. 'Endimion, the Man in the Moone, played before the Queenes Majestie at Greenewich on New Yeares Day at night, by the Children of Paules,' London (by I. Charlwood for the widow Broome), 1591; this and the two succeeding pieces were jointly licensed by the Stationers' Company 4 Oct. 1591. 4. 'Gallathea, played before the Queenes Majestie at Greenwich, on New Yeeres Day at night, by the Children of Pauls,'
