undiscerned by the prophet's eye. The figures, again, that move in
Lyly's second novel are no longer clothes filled with moral sawdust. The
character of Philautus is especially well drawn, though at times blurred
and indistinct. Lyly had not yet passed the stage of creating types,
that is of portraying one aspect and an obvious one of such a complex
thing as human nature. But a criticism which would be applicable to
Dickens is no condemnation of an Elizabethan pioneer. It was much to
have attempted characterization, and in the case of Philautus, Iffida,
Camilla, and perhaps "the Violet" the attempt was nearly if not quite
successful. It is noticeable that for one who was afterwards to become a
writer of comedy, Lyly shows a remarkable absence of humour in these
novels. Now and again we seem trembling on the brink of humour, when the
young wiseacre is brought into contact with his weak-hearted friend, but
the line is seldom actually crossed. Wit, as Lyly here understood it,
had nothing of the risible in it; for it meant to him little more than a
graceful handling of obvious themes.

But the importance of _Euphues_ was in its influence, not in its actual
achievement. And here again we must reassert the significance of Lyly's
appeal to women. "That noble faculty," as Macaulay expresses it,
"whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future in the
distant and in the unreal," is rarely found in the opposite sex. They
delight in novelty, their minds are of a practical cast, and their
interests almost invariably lie in the present. The names of Jane
Austen, George Eliot, and Mrs Humphry Ward are sufficient to show how
entirely successful a woman may be in delineating the life around her.
If there is any truth in this generalization, it was no mere coincidence
that the first English romance dealing with contemporary life was
written expressly for the ladies of Elizabeth's Court. The alteration in
the face of social life, brought about by the recognition of the
feminine claim and hastened no doubt by the fact that England, Scotland,
and France were at this period under the rule of three ladies of strong
character, was inevitably attended with great changes in literature.
This change is first expressed by Lyly in his second novel and later in
his dramas. The mediaeval conception of women, a masculine conception,
now underwent feminine correction; and what is perhaps of more
importance still, the conception of man undergo