ired as an old man, Eubulus, now enters the
stage of this Court _morality_ and proceeds to deliver a long harangue
upon the folly of youth, concluding with much excellent though obvious
counsel. We should be in sympathy with the rude answer of Euphues, were
it but curt at the same time, but, alas, it covers six pages. Having
thus imprudently crushed the "wisdom of eld" by the weight of his
utterance, our hero shows his natural preference for the companionship
and counsel of youth, by forming an ardent friendship with Philautus, of
so close a nature, that "they used not only one boorde but one bed, one
booke (if so be that they thought it not one too many)." This alliance,
however, is not concluded until Euphues has given us his own views,
together with those of half antiquity, upon the subject of friendship,
or before he has formally professed his affection in a pompous address,
beginning "Gentleman and friend," and has been as formally accepted. By
Philautus he is introduced to Lucilla, the chief female character of the
book, a lady, if we are to believe the description of her "Lilly cheeks
dyed with a Vermilion red," of startling if somewhat factitious beauty.
To say that the plot now thickens would be to use too coarse a word; it
becomes slightly tinged with incident, inasmuch as Euphues falls in love
with Lucilla, the destined bride of Philautus. She reciprocates his
passion, and the double fickleness of mistress and friend forms an
excellent opportunity, which Lyly does not fail to seize, for infinite
moralizings in euphuistic strains. Philautus is naturally indignant at
the turn affairs have taken, and the former friends exchange letters of
recrimination, in which, however, their embittered feelings are
concealed beneath a vast display of classical learning. But Nemesis,
swift and sudden, awaits the faithless Euphues. Lucilla, it turns out,
is subject to a mild form of erotomania and is constitutionally fickle,
so that before her new lover has begun to realise his bliss she has
already contracted a passion for some other young gentleman. Thus,
struck down in the hour of his pride and passion, Euphues becomes "a
changed man," and bethinks himself of his soul, which he has so long
neglected. This is the turning-point of the book, the turning-point of
half the English novels written since Lyly's day. The remainder of the
_Anatomy of Wit_ is taken up with what may be described as the private
papers of Euphues, consistin