vices and artificialities of that country, returning home, we are
told, laden with silks and oriental stuffs for the adornment of his
chamber and his person. He was frequently in debt and still more
frequently in disgrace with the Queen and with his father-in-law.
Dilettante, aesthete, and euphuist, he would naturally attract the
Oxford fop, and that Lyly attached himself to his clique disposes, in my
mind at least, of all theories of his puritanical tendencies. Certainly
a Nonconformist conscience could not have flourished in de Vere's
household. One bond between the Earl and his secretary was their love of
music--an art which played an important part in the beginning of our
comedy.

In relieving the action of his plays by those songs of woodland beauty
unmatched in literature Shakespeare was only following a custom set by
his predecessors, Udall, Edwardes, and Lyly, who being schoolmasters
(and the two latter being musicians and holding positions in choir
schools), embroidered their comedies with lyrics to be sung by the fresh
young voices of their pupils. De Vere, though unconnected with a school,
probably followed the same tradition. For the interesting thing about
him is that he also wrote comedy. Like many members of the nobility in
those days he maintained his own company of players; and we find them in
1581 giving performances at Cambridge and Ipswich. His comedies,
moreover, though now lost were placed in the same rank as those of
Edwardes by the Elizabethan critic Puttenham[99]. Now as secretary of
such a man, and therefore in close intimacy with him, it would be the
most natural thing in the world for Lyly to try his hand at
play-writing, and, if his patron approved of his efforts, an
introduction to Court could be procured, since Oxford was Lord High
Chamberlain, and the play would be acted. It was to Oxford's patronage,
therefore, and not to his subsequent connexion with the "children of
Powles," that Lyly owed his first dramatic impulse, and probably also
his first dramatic success, for _Campaspe_ and _Sapho_ were produced at
Court in 1582[100]. His appointment at the choir school of course
confirmed his resolutions and thus he became the first great Elizabethan
dramatist.

[99] _Dict. Of Nat. Biog._, Edward de Vere.

[100] Bond, II. p. 230 (chronological table).

But a purely circumstantial explanation of an important departure in a
man's life will only appear satisfactory to fatalists who worship