n at Apollo's
shrine, and is relieved of his ears. At the same time he abandons his
project of invading the neighbouring island of Lesbos, to which
continual references are made throughout the play. This island is of
course England; the golden touch refers to the wealth of Spanish
America, while, if Halpin be correct, Pan and Apollo signify the
Catholic and the Protestant faith respectively. We may also notice, in
passing, that the ears obviously gave Shakespeare the idea of Bottom's
"transfiguration."

[120] XI. 85-193.

The weakness of the play, as I have said, lies in its duality of action.
In other respects, however, it is certainly a great advance on its
predecessors, especially in its underplot, which is for the first time
connected satisfactorily with the main argument. Motto, the royal
barber, in the course of his duties, obtains possession of the golden
beard: and the history of this somewhat unusual form of treasure
affords a certain amount of amusing farcical relief. It is stolen by one
of the Court pages, Motto recovers it as a reward for curing the thief's
toothache, but he loses it again because, being overheard hinting at the
ass's ears, he is convicted of treason by the pages, and is blackmailed
in consequence. From this it will be seen that the underplot is more
embroidered with incident and is, in every way, better arranged than in
the earlier plays.

We must now turn to the pastoral plays, _Gallathea_, _The Woman in the
Moon_, and _Love's Metamorphosis_, which we may consider together since
their stories, uninspired by any allegorical purpose beyond general
compliments to the Queen, do not require any detailed consideration. And
yet it should be pointed out that this distinction between Lyly's
allegorical and pastoral plays is more apparent than real. There are
shepherds in _Midas_, the Queen appears under the mythological title of
Ceres in _Love's Metamorphosis_. Such overlapping however is only to be
expected, and the division is at least very convenient for purposes of
classification. Lyly's pastoral plays form, as it were, a link between
the drama and the masque; indeed, when we consider that all the
Elizabethan dramatists were students of Lyly, it is possible that comedy
and masque may have been evolved from the Lylian mythological play by a
process of differentiation. It may be that our author increased the
pastoral element as the arcadian fashion came into vogue, but this
argument does no