est writers of all time. How could they know that he was only
the first voice in a choir of singers which, bursting forth before his
notes had died away, would shake the very arch of heaven with the
passion and the beauty of their song? But for us who have heard the
chorus first, the recitative seems poor and thin. The magic has long
passed from _Euphues_, once a name to conjure with, and even the plays
seem dull and lifeless. That it should be so was inevitable, for the wit
which illuminated these works was of the time, temporary, the earliest
beam of the rising sun. This sunbeam it is impossible to recover, and
with all our efforts we catch little but dust.

And yet for the scientific critic Lyly's work is still alive with
significance. Worthless as much of it is from the aesthetic point of
view, from the dynamical, the historical aspect few English writers are
of greater interest. Waller was rescued from oblivion and labelled as
the first of the classical poets. But we can claim more for Lyly than
this. Extravagant as it may sound, he was one of the great founders of
our literature. His experiments in prose first taught men that style was
a matter worthy of careful study, he was among the earliest of those who
realised the utility of blank verse for dramatic purposes, he wrote the
first English novel in our language, and finally he is not only
deservedly recognised as the father of English comedy, but by his
mastery of dramatic technique he laid such a burden of obligation upon
future playwrights that he placed English drama upon a completely new
basis. Of the three main branches of our literature, therefore, two--the
novel and the drama--were practically of his creation, and though his
work suffered because it lacked the quality of poetry, for the historian
of literature it is none the less important on that account.

LIST OF CHIEF AUTHORITIES.

ARBER. The Martin Marprelate Controversy. Scholar's Library.

ASCHAM, ROGER. The Schoolmaster. Arber's English Reprints.

ASCHAM, ROGER. Toxophilus. Arber's English Reprints.

BAKER, G. P. Lyly's Endymion.

BARNEFIELD, RICHARD. Poems. Arber's Scholar's Library.

BERNERS, LORD. The Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius.

BERNERS, LORD. Froissart's Chronicles. Globe Edition.

BOAS. Works of Kyd. Clarendon Press.

BOND, R. W. John Lyly. Clarendon Press. 3 Vols.

BRUNET. Manuel de Libraire.

BUTLER CLARKE. Spanish Literature.

CHILD, C. G. John Lyly and Euphuism