hues_ must be
ascribed to Lyly's own invention or to artifices which he borrows from
others.

While, as I have said, Lyly's name is associated with the novel by most
modern critics, it has earned a more widespread reputation among the
laity for affectation and mannerisms of style. Indeed, until fifty years
ago, Lyly spelt nothing but euphuism, and euphuism meant simply
nonsense, clothed in bombast. It was a blind acceptance of these loose
ideas which led Sir Walter Scott to create (as a caricature of Lyly) his
Sir Piercie Shafton in _The Monastery_--an historical _faux pas_ for
which he has been since sufficiently called to account. Nevertheless
Lyly's reputation had a certain basis of fact, and we may trace the
tradition back to Elizabethan days. It is perhaps worth pointing out
that, had we no other evidence upon the subject, the survival of this
tradition would lead us to suppose that it was Lyly's style more than
anything else which appealed to the men of his day. A contemporary
confirmation of this may be found in the words of William Webbe. Writing
in 1586 of the "great good grace and sweet vogue which Eloquence hath
attained in our Speeche," he declares that the English language has thus
progressed, "because it hath had the helpe of such rare and singular
wits, as from time to time myght still adde some amendment to the same.
Among whom I think there is none that will gainsay, but Master John Lyly
hath deservedly moste high commendations, as he hath stept one steppe
further therein than any either before or since he first began the
wyttie discourse of his _Euphues_, whose works, surely in respect of his
singular eloquence and brave composition of apt words and sentences, let
the learned examine and make tryall thereof, through all the parts of
Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, in pithy sentences, in galant tropes, in
flowing speeche, in plaine sense, and surely in my judgment, I think he
wyll yeelde him that verdict which Quintillian giveth of both the best
orators Demosthenes and Tully, that from the one, nothing may be taken
away, to the other nothing may be added[13]." After such eulogy, the
description of Lyly by another writer as "alter Tullius anglorum" will
not seem strange. These praises were not the extravagances of a few
uncritical admirers; they echo the verdict of the age. Lyly's
enthronement was of short duration--a matter of some ten years--but,
while it lasted, he reigned supreme. Such literary idolatr