Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/12

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. iv. JULY i, 1905. "choice words"; and by Nashe for their •tediousness (Grosart, iii. 49) as a fitting cora- •parison with Gabriel Harvey's 'Four Letters. Any one who tries to read them will, I think, agree with Nashe, or with Montaigne (trans- lated by Florio, Tudor Edition, I. xlviii.), who says: " as I lately read in Guevara's -epistles, of which whosoever called them his •Golden Epistles, gave a judgment farre They are most insipid Spanish adapter oi different from mine." trash. Guevara was Marcus Aurelius. Lyly, speaking of his •'Euphues' (Arber, p. 215), says it was "hatched in the hard winter with the Alcyon" (of 1578); and to this Gabriel 'Harvey, I suppose, alludes when he says •"in the Savoy, when young Euphues hatched the egges that his elder f reendes laide " (Gro- •sart, ii. 124, 1589). So that it was discerned At a very early date that euphuism was not an original product of Lyly's. Harvey makes Greene's euphuism a special point of attack. So does Nashe. Harvey calls Greene " the stale of Poules, the Ape of Euphues, the Vice of the Stage," <tc. ('Four Letters'); and a little later: "What hee is improved since with a little Euphu- ism and Greenesse enough, which were all prettily stale, before he put hand to penne" •(speaking of Nashe) And in 'Pierce's Super- erogation ' Harvey has " Nashe the ape of Greene ; Greene the ape of Euphues." Xashe was grievously insulted at being accused of copying either Greene or Euphues; and assuredly it was untrue. He replies in his vigorous way: "Did I ever write of conny- catching? stuffo my stile with hearbs and «tones or apprentisd myself to running of the letter? If not, then how do I imitate liim ?" (' Have with you to Saffron Waldon.') 'Dyce has quoted this. Both Harvey and Nashe reproved Greene for writing so much. Harvey (Grosart, i. 187) speaks of "Greene putting forth new, newer, and newest bookes of the maker." In the same passage he attacks him " for thy borrowed and filched plumes of some little Italianated bravery," probably referring again to 'Euphues.' And Nashe says: " Of force I must graunt that Greene • came oftner in print than men of judgement allowed off, but nevertheless ho was a daintie slave to content the taile of a tearme and stuff serving men's pockets" (Grosart, ii. 281, ' Foure Letters Confuted,' 1592-3). Almost every writer of the time has a tilt • at euphuism, and generally speaking it is .good-hurnouredly. Middleton says :— •See thy phrase be good : .For if thou Euphuize, which once was rare [choice], And of all English phrase the life and blood I 'Ie say thou borrowest. ' Father Hubbard's Tales,' 1604. Nevertheless it is found in serious use as late as Davenant's 'City Nightcap,' 1624(Hazlitt's ' Dodsley,' pp. 107, 109, &c.). Imagery is the chief corner - stone of euphuism—generalized imagery applied to the individual case and run to riot, so that the whole edifice is constructed of corner- stones in most unnatural methods. I may mention one, the salamander figure, as being very prevalent; but the chameleon and the polypus are still more so. They are types of change and instability, falsehood and deceit. Opposed to these we frequently meet the leopard_ with his spots, and the skin of the Ethiopian (Jeremiah xiii. 23 ; Wyclif, 1388). So that the germ of euphuism is found in the Orient; but its mannerism made it what it was. Taken broadly, Lyly's ' Euphues' is written in good English, allow- ance being made for its needful affectation. It is devoid of vulgarity, bombast, or any use of stilted jargon, coinage of new words, or laboured obscurities so often met with at the time. The same may be said of his imitator Greene, who was, however, a man of far wider capacity. Lyly, it is true, does not repeat himself in ' Euphues ' to the same extent that Greene does from tract to tract. But Lyly makes up for it in his plays, which draw continually from his prose. This is not nearly so much the case with Greene, whose plays have a backbone, Lyly's being utterly invertebrate. Marston mocks it pleasantly in 'Antonio and Mellida ' (Part I. V. i.) 1602 : "You know the stone nailed lapis ; the nearer it comes to the fire, the hotter it is : and the bird, which the geometricians call avis, the farther it is from the earth, the nearer it is to the leaven; and love," &c. So also does the unknown writer of ' Return from Parnassus' Part I., Clarendon Press), IV. ii., 1598-9: " There is a beast in India called the Pole- catt, that the further she is from you the less you smell her, and the further you are from her," ifec. So necessary for his popularity does Greene deem euphuism that in 1587 lie publishel 'Euphues his Censure to Philautus,' which deliberately aims at being a part of Lyly's series, or at least of trading upon its success. Somewhat later, in 'Menaphon' (1589), there is a decided lull in Greene's euphuism, and in one place (Grosart, vi. 82) lie is unkind enough to sneer at his master: " Samela made this reply, because she heard him so superfine, as if EpluEbus had learned him to