the credit of creation. He was a friend of Lyly's at Oxford; they
dedicated their books to the same patron, and they employed the same
publisher. Moreover, the little we have of Watson's prose is highly
euphuistic, and it is apparent from the epistle above mentioned that he
was on terms of closest intimacy with the author of _Euphues_. In him we
have another member of that interesting circle of Oxford euphuists, who
continued their connexion in London under de Vere's patronage.

[68] _Euphues_, p. 337.

Watson again was a friend of the well-known poet Richard Barnefield, who
though too young in 1578 to have been of the University coterie of
euphuists, shows definite traces of their affectation in his works. The
conventional illustrations from an "unnatural natural history" abound in
his _Affectionate Shepherd_[69] (1594), and he repeats the jargon about
marble and showers[70] which we have seen in Lyly, Watson and Kyd. Again
in his _Cynthia_ (1594) there is a distinct reference to the opening
words of _Euphues_ in the lines,

"Wit without wealth is bad, yet counted good;
Wealth wanting wisdom's worse, yet deemed as well[71]."

His prose introduction betrays the same influence.

[69] _Poems_, Arber, pp. 18 and 19.

[70] _id._, p. 24.

[71] _id._, p. 51.

These then are a few among the countless scribblers of those prolific
times who fell under the spell of the euphuistic fashion. They are
mentioned, either because their connexion with the movement has been
overlooked, or because they throw a new and important light upon Lyly
himself. Of other legatees it is impossible to treat here; and it is
enough, without tracing it in any detail, to indicate "the slender
euphuistic thread that runs in iron through Marlowe, in silver through
Shakespeare, in bronze through Bacon, in more or less inferior metal
through every writer of that age[72]."

[72] Symonds, p. 407.

There is nothing strange in this infatuation, if we remember that
euphuism was "the English type of an all but universal disease[73]," as
Symonds puts it. Dr Landmann, we have decided, was wrong in his
insistence upon foreign influence; but his error was a natural one, and
points to a fact which no student of Renaissance literature can afford
to neglect. Matthew Arnold long ago laid down the clarifying principle
that "the criticism which alone can much help us for the future, is a
criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectu