rced antitheses, alliteration, and the far-fetched illustrations
from natural phenomena, peculiar to Lyly and his successors[40]." He
denies, moreover, that Berners was any less euphuistic than North, and
gives parallel extracts from their translations to prove this. A
comparison of the two passages in question can leave no doubt that Mr
Lee's deduction is correct. Mr Bond therefore is in grave error when he
writes, "North endeavoured what Berners had not aimed at, to reproduce
in his Diall the characteristics of Guevara's style, with the notable
addition of an alliteration natural to English but not to Spanish; and
it is he who must be regarded as the real founder of our euphuistic
literary fashion[41]." Lyly may indeed have borrowed from North rather
than from Berners; but, if Berners' English was as euphuistic as
North's, and if Berners could show fourteen editions to North's two
before 1580, it is Berners and not North who must be described as "the
real founder of our euphuistic literary fashion." And as Mr Lee shows,
his nephew Sir Francis Bryan must share the title with him, for the
colophon of the _Golden Boke_ states that the translation was undertaken
"at the instaunt desire of his nevewe Sir Francis Bryan Knyghte." It was
Bryan also who wrote the passage at the conclusion of the _Boke_
applauding the "swete style[42]." This Sir Francis Bryan was a
favourite of Henry VIII., a friend of Surrey and Wyatt, possibly of
Ascham and of his master Cheke, in fact a very well-known figure at
court and in the literary circles of his day[43]. Euphuism must,
therefore, have had a considerable vogue even in the days of Henry VIII.
If it could be shown that Bryan could read Castilian, the Guevara theory
might still possess some plausibility, for it would be argued that
Berners learnt his style from his nephew. But, though we know Bryan to
have entertained a peculiar affection for Guevara's writings, there is
no evidence to prove that he could read them in the original. Indeed
when he set himself to translate Guevara's _Dispraise of the life of a
courtier_, he, like his uncle, had to go to a French translation[44].
Wherever we turn, in fact, we are met by this French barrier between
Guevara and his English translators, which seems to preclude the
possibility of his style having exercised the influence ascribed to it
by Dr Landmann and those who follow him.

[40] Huon of Bordeaux, appendix I., _Lord Berners and Euphuism_,
p