was this book
the most famous peninsular production of Lyly's day? It is a question
which no critic, as far as I am aware, has ever formulated, and yet it
seems endowed with the greatest importance. We have seen how and why
Spanish literature in general found a reception in England. But the
special question as to the ascendancy of Guevara obviously requires a
special answer. Guevara was of course well known all over the continent,
and it might seem that this was a sufficient explanation of his
popularity in England. In reality, however, such an explanation is no
solution at all, it merely widens the issue; for we are still left
asking for a reason of his continental fame. The problem requires a
closer investigation than it has at present received. It was undoubtedly
Guevara's _alto estilo_ which gave his writings their chief attraction;
and a style so elaborate would only find a reception in a favourable
atmosphere, that is among those who had already gone some way towards
the creation of a similar style themselves. _A priori_ therefore the
answer to our question would be that Guevara was no isolated stylist,
but only the most famous example of a literary phase, which had its
independent representatives all over Europe. A consideration of English
prose under the Tudors will, I think, fully confirm this conclusion as
far as our own country is concerned, and it will also offer us an
explanation, in terms of internal development, of the origin and sources
of euphuism.

We have noticed with suspicion that our two translators took their
Guevara from the French. And it is therefore quite legitimate to suppose
that Berners and North, separated as they were from the original, were
as much creators as translators of the euphuistic style. But there are
other circumstances connected with Berners, which are much more fatal to
Dr Landmann's theory than this. In the first place it appears that the
part played by Berners in the history of euphuism has been considerably
under-estimated. Mr Sidney Lee was the first to combat the generally
accepted view in a criticism of Mrs Humphry Ward's article on
_Euphuism_ in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, in which she follows Dr
Landmann. His criticism, which appeared in the _Athenaeum_, was
afterwards enlarged in an appendix to his edition of Berners'
translation of _Huon of Bordeaux_. "Lord Berners' sentences," Mr Lee
writes, "are euphuistic beyond all question; they are characterized by
the fo