that beauty in Court, which could not parley Euphuism, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French.” This statement, Dr. Furness points out, is really only part of an advertisement; it is accompanied by others the accuracy of which is doubtful; and it is not worthy of being taken as sufficient evidence of a state of society. “As well might the future historian promulgate as a fact that the universal greeting among citizens of all classes at the present day is an inquiry as to the soap which had assisted their morning ablutions; or that the earliest articulate cry of infancy is a petition for ‘soothing syrup.’”
On the negative side he cites a “Prologue to the Reader,” prefixed in 1560 by Thomas Wilson to his Arte of Rhetorike. Wilson, denouncing the use of “straunge ynkehorn terms” and other affectations, remarks that “the fine courtier will talk nothing but Chaucer.” “To whom,” asks Dr. Furness, “are we to give credence, Edward Blount, a bookseller, or Thomas Wilson, a courtier? Edward Blount, who wrote nigh thirty years after Elizabeth’s court had ceased to be, or Thomas Wilson, who lived during its existence and was of it?”
The issue thus raised demands more careful consideration than it has been accustomed to receive. The negative argument, however, is easily disposed of. The period during which the Euphuistic vogue prevailed in literature, and is supposed to have affected conversation at court, was from 1580 till about 1590. The passage in Wilson was written at least twenty years before; and were he twenty times a courtier we should be compelled to set aside his evidence in favor of that of even a less trustworthy historian who writes after the event Nor is Blount’s testimony seriously weakened by his date. Though he published his Lyly in 1632, he was old enough in 1588 to be a freeman of the Stationers’ Company, and so was an adult contemporary of the movement he professes to describe. The possible untrustworthiness of a statement made to help the sale of his wares is a more serious difficulty, and in the absence of corroboration might well make us chary of dogmatic assertion. Now, unambiguous testimony is harder to find than might be expected. Literal reports of actual conversations, especially of the small talk of the court, are not common. Euphuistic dialogue in works of fiction of the period in question is frequent enough; but it is open to the objector to say that these are merely parts of a literary tradition, not transcripts of fact. Further, evidence of a tendency to fantastic expression of various kinds is abundant; but of the prevalence in conversation of that exact species technically known as Euphuism it is harder to find proof. The presumption is in favor of it. The Elizabethan courtiers, even Dr. Furness would allow, were given to verbal affectations. Euphues was a highly popular book at court for a number of years; its style was a chief cause of its popularity, and called forth literary imitations. It is entirely plausible, then, that it should have affected speech also. But does any contemporary, save Blount, say it did?
Here is some evidence. Michael Drayton (1563-1631), writing a poetical epistle to Henry Reynolds, says of Sidney that he
Our tongue from Lilly’s writing then in use;
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words, and idle similes;
As the English apes and very zanies be
Of everything that they do hear and see,
So imitating his ridiculous tricks,
They speak and write all like mere lunatics.
Dekker (?1570-?1641) in The Gull’s Hornbook thus ends his instructions for the conduct of a gallant at the theatre: “To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your lean wit may most savourly feed for want of other stuff, when the Arcadian and Euphuized gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you. That quality (next to your shuttlecock) is the only furniture to a courtier that’s but a new
