JOHN LYLY

(c. 1554-1606)

UPHUES, OR THE ANATOMY OF WIT," by John Lyly, is responsible for the word "Euphuism" to indicate what Saintsbury

calls "conceited and precious language in general." Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," published in 1621, more than forty years after Lyly wrote "Euphues," is another noted example of the same style. Lyly was born in Kent, England, about 1554. At Oxford, where he took his first degree in 1573, he was known as a "noted wit" whose genius, it was said, "naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry, as if Apollo had given him a wreath of his own bays, without snatching or struggling." Lyly wrote a number of plays and followed the "Anatomy of Wit" with his "Euphues and his England" in 1580. In 1589 he published a tract entitled, "Pappe with an Hatchet, alias a Figge for My Godsonne; or Crack Me This Nut; or A Countrie Cuffe," etc., as his contribution to the celebrated Martin Marprelate controversies. He died in neglect in 1606. His burial is registered on November 20th of that year at St. Bartholomew the Less, in London. His work belongs largely to the curiosities of literature; but in spite of its worst affectation, it is frequently interesting in itself, and always so as an illustration of the eccentricities of intellect which accompany such great crises in history as that which developed in the Puritan revolution against the Stuarts.

A COOLING CARD FOR ALL FOND LOVERS

T is a world to see how commonly we are blinded with the collusions of women, and more enticed by their ornaments being artificial than their proportion being natural. I loathe almost to think on their ointments and apothecary drugs, the sleeking of their faces, and all their slibber sauces, which bring quasiness to the stomach, and disquiet to the mind.

Take from them their periwigs, their paintings, their jewels, their roules, their bolsterings, and thou shalt soon perceive that a woman is the least part of herself. When they be once robbed of their robes, then will they appear so odious, so ugly, so mon

strous, that thou wilt rather think them serpents than saints, and so like hags that thou wilt fear rather to be enchanted than enamored. Look in their closets, and there shalt thou find an apothecary's shop of sweet confections, a surgeon's box of sundry salves, a peddler's pack of new fangles. If every one of these things severally be not of force to move thee, yet all of them jointly shouid mortify thee.

Moreover, to make thee the more stronger to strive against these sirens, and more subtle to deceive these tame serpents, my counsel is that thou have more strings to thy bow than one. It is safe riding at two anchors; a fire divided in twain burneth slower; a fountain running into many rivers is of less force; the mind enamored on two women is less affected with desire, and less infected with despair; one love expelleth another, and the remembrance of the latter quencheth the concupiscence of the first.

Yet if thou be so weak, being bewitched with their wiles, that thou hast neither will to eschew nor wit to avoid their company; if thou be either so wicked that thou wilt not, or so wedded that thou canst not, abstain from their glances, yet at the least dissemble thy grief. If thou be as hot as mount Etna, feign thyself as cold as the hill Caucasus, carry two faces in one hood, cover thy flaming fancy with feigned ashes, show thyself sound when thou art rotten, let thy hue be merry when thy heart is melancholy, bear a pleasant countenance with a pined conscience, a painted sheath with a leaden dagger. Thus dissembling thy grief, thou mayest recur thy disease. Love creepeth in by stealth, and by stealth slideth away.

Let every one loathe his lady, and be ashamed to be her servant. It is riches and ease that nourisheth affection; it is play, wine, and wantonness, that feedeth a lover as fat as a fool; refrain from all such meats as shall provoke thine appetite, and all such means as may allure thy mind to folly. Take clear water for strong wine; brown bread for fine manchet; beef and brews for quail and partridge; for ease, labor; for pleasure, pain; for surfeiting, hunger; for sleep, watching; for the fellowship of ladies, the company of philosophers. If thou say to me, Physician heal thyself, I answer that I am meetly well purged of that disease, and yet was I never more willing to cure myself than to comfort my friend. And seeing the cause that made in me so cold a devotion should make in thee also as frozen a desire, I hope thou wilt be as ready to provide a salve as thou

wast hasty in seeking a sore. And yet, Philautus, I would not that all women should take pepper in the nose, in that I have disclosed the legerdemains of a few; for well I know none will wince except they be galled, neither any be offended unless she be guilty. Therefore I earnestly desire thee that thou show this cooling card to none, except thou show also this, my defense, to them all. For although I weigh nothing the ill-will of light housewives, yet would I be loath to lose the good-will of honest matrons. Thus being ready to go to Athens, and ready there to entertain thee whensoever thou shalt repair thither, I bid thee farewell, and fly women.

From Arber's reprint, 1579.

THE

HOW THE LIFE OF A YOUNG MAN SHOULD BE LED

HERE are three things which cause perfection in man, Nature, Reason Use. Reason I call Discipline, Use, Exercise. If any one of these branches want, certainly the tree of virtue must needs wither. For Nature without discipline is of small force, and discipline without Nature more feeble; if exercise or study be void of any of these, it availeth nothing. For as in tilling of the ground and husbandry, there is first chosen a fertile soil, then a cunning sower, then good seed, even so must we compare Nature to the fat earth, the expert husbandman to the schoolmaster, the faculties and sciences to the pure seeds. If this order had not been in our predecessors, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and whosoever was renowned in Greece, for the glory of wisdom, they had never been eternized for wise men, neither canonized, as it were, for saints, among those that study sciences. It is therefore a most evident sign of God's singular favor towards him that is endowed with all these qualities without the least of which man is most miserable. But if there be any one that thinketh wit not necessary to the obtaining of wisdom, after he hath gotten the way to virtue by industry and exercise, he is a heretic in my opinion, touching the true faith of learning, for if Nature play not her part, in vain is labor, and, as I said before, if study be not employed, in vain is Nature. Sloth turneth the edge of wit; study sharpeneth the mind; a thing, be it never so easy, is hard to the (idle); a thing, be it never so hard, is easy to the wit well employed. And most plainly we may see in many things the efficacy of industry and labor.

The little drop of rain pierceth hard marble; iron with often handling is worn to nothing. Besides this, Industry showeth herself in other things: the fertile soil if it be never tilled doth wax barren, and that which is most noble by nature is made most vile by negligence. What tree if it be not topped beareth any fruit? What vine if it be not pruned bringeth forth grapes? Is not the strength of the body turned to weakness with too much delicacy; were not Milo his arms brawnfallen for want of wrestling? Moreover by labor the fierce unicorn is tamed, the wildest falcon is reclaimed, the greatest bulwark is sacked. It is well answered of that man of Thessaly, who being demanded who among the Thessalians were reputed most vile, those, said he, that live at quiet and ease, never giving themselves to martial affairs. But what should one use many words in a thing already proved? It is custom, use, and exercise that bringeth a young man to virtue, and virtue to his perfection. Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans, did nourish two whelps both of one sire and one dam. But after a sundry manner, for the one he framed to hunt, and the other to lie always in the chimney's end at the porridge pot. Afterward calling the Lacedæmonians into one assembly he said: To the attaining of virtue, ye Lacedæmonians, education, industry, and exercise is the most noblest means, the truth of which I will make manifest unto you by trial; then bringing forth the whelps, and setting down there a pot and a hare, the one ran at the hare, the other to the porridge pot. The Lacedæmonians scarce understanding this mystery, he said: Both of these be of one sire and one dam, but you see how education altereth nature.

Complete. From Arber's reprint of 1579.

LORD LYTTON

(EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER, BARON LYTTON)

(1803-1873)

S AN orator, dramatist, poet, politician, and novelist, "Bulwer Lytton" acquitted himself with credit, winning his chief celebrity and perhaps his greatest usefulness by the long list of novels which continue to be read in spite of the disapproval of Thackeray whose usually mild temper was stirred almost to virulence by everything "Bulwig" did. But Thackeray to the contrary notwithstanding, several of these novels have already vindicated their places as classics, and at least one of them, "The Last Days of Pompeii," has taken almost as strong a hold on popular favor as the higher and more artistic fiction of Scott himself. As an essayist, Lord Lytton is at his best. He writes easily and gracefully, is always interesting and is frequently surprising in the novelty, if not in the originality, of his thought. As a poet, he lacked only a very little of high excellence; but in the useful translations of Horace, in which he attempts to represent the original rhythm of that most melodious of the Augustan lyric poets, he shows that this little is an inherent defect in his sense of time in language. Such failures at his climaxes are not altogether rare even in his prose; but in view of his excellencies, no one who follows him long will remember them against him. He was a "Conservative" in politics, and the violent animosities which some of his celebrated contemporaries wreaked upon him were largely a result of political partisanship, which his works have long ago outlived.

W*

THE SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT

ARE always disposed to envy the man of a hopeful temper; but a hopeful temper, where it so predominates as to be the conspicuous attribute, is seldom accompanied with prudence, and therefore seldom attended with worldly success. It is the hopeful temper that predominates in gamblers, in speculators, in political dreamers, in enthusiasts of all kinds. Endeavoring many years ago to dissuade a friend of mine from