tituted even as a vocation or employment (to quote
the Income Tax Papers), we must carefully avoid taking too gloomy a view of
their life. It was usually short, it was probably merry, but we know very
little else about it. The chief direct documents, the remarkable pamphlets
which some of them have left, will be dealt with hereafter. Here we are
busied only with their dates and their dramatic work, which was in no case
(except perhaps in that of Kyd) their sole known work, but which in every
case except those of Nash and perhaps Greene was their most remarkable.

In noticing _Euphues_ an account has already been given of Lyly's life, or
rather of the very scanty particulars which are known of it. His plays date
considerably later than _Euphues_. But they all bear the character of the
courtier about them; and both in this characteristic and in the absence of
any details in the gossipping literature of the time to connect him with
the Bohemian society of the playhouse, the distinction which separates Lyly
from the group of "university wits" is noteworthy. He lost as well as
gained by the separation. All his plays were acted "by the children of
Paul's before her Majesty," and not by the usual companies before Dick,
Tom, and Harry. The exact date and order of their writing is very
uncertain, and in one case at least, that of _The Woman in the Moon_, we
know that the order was exactly reversed in publication: this being the
last printed in Lyly's lifetime, and expressly described as the first
written. His other dramatic works are _Campaspe_, _Sappho and Phaon_,
_Endymion_, _Galathea_, _Midas_, _Mother Bombie_, and _Love's
Metamorphosis_; another, _The Maid's Metamorphosis_, which has been
attributed to him, is in all probability not his.

The peculiar circumstances of the production of Lyly's plays, and the
strong or at any rate decided individuality of the author, keep them in a
division almost to themselves. The mythological or pastoral character of
their subject in most cases might not of itself have prevented their
marking an advance in the dramatic composition of English playwrights. _A
Midsummer Night's Dream_ and much other work of Shakespere's show how far
from necessary it is that theme, or class of subject, should affect merit
of presentment. But Lyly's work generally has more of the masque than the
play. It sometimes includes charming lyrics, such as the famous _Campaspe_
song and others. But most of it is in prose