ted the happiness, the
poetry, the love of novelty, and the ideality of the time. The stirring
incidents of chivalric romance were no longer in vogue, and the subject
became an idealized love. But the most striking feature of Elizabethan
fiction is the great importance attached to style. The writer cared
more to excite admiration by the turn of his phrases and the ornaments
of his language, than to interest his reader by plot or incident.

In 1579 John Lyly published his curious romance, "Euphues, the Anatomy
of Wit," a work which attained a great popularity, and made the word
Euphuism an abstract term in the language to express the ornate and
antithetical style of which this book is the most marked example. In
Lyly's own day it was said by Edward Blount that the nation was "in his
debt for a new English which hee taught them." Since then, the verdict
of posterity has been that Lyly corrupted the public taste, and
introduced an affected and overloaded manner of writing which had a
mischievous influence upon literature. A careful examination of Lyly's
work, and of the condition of the English language in the last quarter
of the sixteenth century, will not sustain either of these views. The
Euphuistic style was not of Lyly's invention. He acquired it from the
men about him, and merely gave it, through his writings, a distinct
character and individuality. In a letter of Elizabeth to her brother
Edward VI, long-before "Euphues" was written, occurs the following
passage: "Like as a shipman in stormy wether plukes down the sails
tarrying for bettar winde, so did I, most noble kinge, in my
unfortunate chanche a Thursday pluk downe the hie sailes of my joy and
comforte, and do trust one day that as troublesome waves have repulsed
me backwarde, so a gentil winde will bringe me forwarde to my
haven."[58] This is a moderate specimen of the ornate and exaggerated
language which was following the new acquisitions of learning and
intelligence, just as extravagance in dress and food was following the
new prosperity and wealth. Men wished to crowd their learning and
cultivation into every thing they said or wrote. As the language was
not yet settled by good prose writers, the more affected a style, the
more numerous its similes, and far-fetched its allusions, the more
ingenious and admirable it was considered to be. There resulted a
sacrifice of clearness and simplicity to a strained elegance. Still, in
the Euphuistic style, tedious an