things. The study is interesting, with its talk of alliteration
and transverse alliteration, antithesis, climax, and assonance. In
truth, one does not know which to admire the more, the ingenuity of
the man who constructed the book, or the ingenuity of the scholars who
have explained how he did it. Between Lyly on the one hand, and the
grammarians on the other, the reader is almost tempted to ask if this
be literature or mathematics. Whether Lyly got his style from Pettie
or Guevara is an important question, but he made it emphatically his
own, and it will never be called by any other name than Euphuism. The
making of a book on this plan is largely the result of astonishing
mental gymnastics. It commands respect in no small degree, because
Lyly was able to keep it up so long. To walk from New York to Albany,
as did the venerable Weston not so very long since, is a great test of
human endurance. But walking is the employment of one's legs and body
in God's appointed way of getting over the ground. Suppose a man were
to undertake to hop on one leg from New York to Albany, the utility or
the aesthetic value of the performance would be less obvious. The most
successful artist in hopping could hardly expect applause from the
right-minded. He would excite attention because he was able to hop so
far, and not because he was the exponent of a praiseworthy method of
locomotion. Lyly gained eminence by doing to a greater extent than any
man a thing that was not worth doing at all. One is more astonished at
Lyly's power of endurance as author than at his own power of endurance
as reader. For the volume is actually readable even at this day. Did
Lyly not grow wearied of perpetually riding these alliterative
trick-ponies? Apparently not. The book is 'executed' with a vivacity,
a dash, a 'go,' that will captivate any reader who is willing to meet
the author halfway. _Euphues_ became the rage, and its literary style
the fashion. How or why must be left to him to explain who can tell
why sleeves grow small and then grow big, why skirts are at one time
only two and a half yards around and at another time five and a half
or eight yards around. An Elizabethan gentleman might be too poor to
dress well, but he would squander his last penny in getting his ruff
starched. Lyly's style bristles with extravagances of the starched
ruff sort, which only serve to call attention to the intellectual
deficiencies in the matter of doublet and hose.

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