e regarded as she which now there speaks not
French:' a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson,
describing a fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in the
following terms;--'O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues,) hard is the
choice when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or by
speaking, to live with shame:' upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that
'the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues by
heart'[91]."

[Note 90: Berkenhout's "Biographia Literaria," p. 377, note _a_.]

[Note 91: "Shakspeare and his Times:" &c. by Nathan Drake, M.D.]

Shakespeare is believed to have satirized the affectations of Lilly,
amongst other prevailing modes of pedantry and bad taste, under the
character of the schoolmaster Holophernes; and to Sidney is ascribed by
Drayton the merit, that he

..."did first reduce
Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use,
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similies."

But in this statement there is an inaccuracy, if it refers to the better
model of style furnished by him in his Arcadia, since that work, though
not published till after the death of its author, is known to have been
composed previously to the appearance of Euphues. Possibly however the
lines of Drayton may be explained as alluding to the critical precepts
contained in Sidney's Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1582 or
1583.

It may appear extraordinary that this accomplished person, after his
noble letter of remonstrance against the French marriage, should have
consented to take so conspicuous a part in festivities designed to
celebrate the arrival of the commissioners by whom its terms were to be
concluded. But the actions of every man, it may be pleaded, belong to
such an age, or such a station, as well as to such a school of
philosophy, religious sect, political party, or natural class of
character; and the spirit which prompted this eminent person to aspire
after all praise and every kind of glory, compelled him, at the court of
Elizabeth, to unite, with whatever incongruity, the quaint personage of
a knight errant of romance and a devotee of the beauties and perfections
of his liege lady, with the manly attributes of an English patriot and a
champion of reformed religion.

Fulke Greville furnishes another instance of a respectable character
strangely disguised by the affectations and servilities