tells us that he "became a student in Magdalen College in the beginning
of 1569, aged 16 or thereabouts." "And since," adds Mr Bond, "in 1574 he
describes himself as Burleigh's alumnus, and owns obligations to him, it
is possible that he owed his university career to Burleigh's
assistance[6]." And yet, limited as our knowledge is, it is possible, I
think, to form a fairly accurate conception of Lyly's manner of life at
Oxford, if we are bold enough to read between the lines of the scraps of
contemporary evidence that have come down to us. Lyly himself tells us
that he left Oxford for three years not long after his arrival.
"Oxford," he says, "seemed to weane me before she brought me forth, and
to give me boanes to gnawe, before I could get the teate to suck.
Wherein she played the nice mother in sending me into the countrie to
nurse, where I tyred at a drie breast for three years and was at last
inforced to weane myself." Mr Bond, influenced by the high moral tone of
_Euphues_, which, as we shall see, was merely a traditional literary
prose borrowed from the moral court treatise, is anxious to vindicate
Lyly from all charges of lawlessness, and refuses to admit that the
foregoing words refer to rustication[7]. Lyly's enforced absence he
holds was due to the plague which broke out at Oxford at this time. Such
an interpretation seems to me to be sufficiently disposed of by the fact
that the plague in question did not break out until 1571[8], while
Lyly's words must refer to a departure (at the very latest) in 1570.
Everything, in fact, goes to show that he was out of favour with the
University authorities. In the first place he seems to have paid small
attention to his regular studies. To quote Wood again, he was "always
averse to the crabbed studies of Logic and Philosophy. For so it was
that his genie, being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry (as
if Apollo had given to him a wreath of his own Bays without snatching or
struggling), did in a manner neglect academical studies, yet not so much
but that he took the Degree in Arts, that of Master being completed in
1575[9]."

[3] Bond, I. p. 2; Baker, p. v.

[4] _Ath. Ox._ (ed. Bliss), I. p. 676.

[5] _Euphues_, p. 268.

[6] Bond, I. p. 6. But Baker, pp. vii, viii, would seem to disagree
with this.

[7] Bond, I. p. 11.

[8] Baker, p. xii.

[9] _Athenae Oxonienses_ (ed. Bliss), I. p. 676.

Neglect of the recognised studies, however, was n