ving learnt of Cupid's
captivity, and not being powerful enough to effect his release unaided,
invokes the help of Neptune against Diana. Instead of the use of force,
however, a compact is arrived at; Cupid is released on condition that
Neptune remits his claim upon a yearly victim. Thus are Gallathea and
Phillida saved; but for a harder fate of hopeless love--for their
constancy is irrevocable--were it not that Venus interposes with a
promise that one of them shall be changed into a boy in reality. Happy
in this future they depart to prepare for marriage.--The thread of lower
comedy introduces the customary three merry lads, but deals mainly with
the fortunes of one of them, Raffe, who finds employment successively
with an alchemist and an astronomer, only to find their promises out of
all proportion to their performances. The wonderful prospects held out
before him, and his disillusionment, afford scope for much sarcastic wit
at the expense of quackery.

The pre-eminent feature of the play is the delicate handling of the
romantic plot. We see the same fine brush at work as limned the picture
of Apelles and Campaspe, while this time the artist has chosen a more
harmonious background of meadow and woodland and river, of shepherds and
forest nymphs. To Peele the priority in the use of pastoralism in drama
must doubtless be assigned; but the play of _Gallathea_ loses none of
its merit on that account. Coupled with a pretty ambiguity of sex, this
pastoral setting completes the model from which _As You Like It_ was yet
to be moulded. Probably Peele, in his _Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_,
preceded Lyly also in the introduction of sex-disguise, but his Neronis
stirs up no serious difficulties by her appearance as a shepherd boy and
a page, whereas in _Gallathea_ the disguise is the core of the plot. To
Lyly, therefore, may be given all the credit for the discovery of the
dramatic value of this simple device. With his return to the mutual
loves of ordinary human beings (for they are that, however extraordinary
the conditions) he happily restores to his characters the naturalness
which they enjoyed in the earlier play. The machinery of gods and
goddesses is perhaps to be regretted, though euphuistic drama could
hardly spare it; but if we boldly swallow it as inevitable, the motive
for the disguises at once becomes perfectly reasonable, while the whole
consequent behaviour of the girls is charged with most amusing and
delightful