eclaration of love, will talk
in the language of a trained nurse, and say: 'Green sores are to be
dressed roughly lest they fester, tettars are to be drawn in the
beginning lest they spread, Ringworms to be anointed when they first
appear lest they compass the whole body, and the assaults of love to
be beaten back at the first siege lest they undermine at the second.'
Was ever suitor in this fashion rejected! It makes one think of some
of the passages in the _History of John Buncle_, where the hero pours
out a torrent of passionate phrases, and the 'glorious' Miss Noel, in
reply, begs that they may take up some rational topic of conversation;
for example, what is _his_ view of that opinion which ascribes
'primaevity and sacred prerogatives' to the Hebrew language.

But Philautus does not break his heart over Camilla's rejection. He is
consoled with the love of another fair maiden, marries her, and
settles in England. Euphues goes back to Athens, and presently retires
to the country, where he follows the calling of one whose profession
is melancholy. Like most hermits of culture, he leaves his address
with his banker. We assume this, for he was very rich; it is not
difficult to be a hermit on a large income. The book closes with a
section called 'Euphues Glasse for Europe,' a thirty-page panegyric on
England and the Queen.

They say that this novel was very popular, and certain causes of its
popularity are not difficult to come at. A large measure of the
success that _Euphues_ had is due to the commonplaceness of its
observations. It abounds in proverbs and copy-book wisdom. In this
respect it is as homely as an almanac. John Lyly had a great store of
'miscellany thoughts,' and he cheerfully parted with them. His book
succeeded as Tupper's _Proverbial Philosophy_ and Watts' _On the Mind_
succeeded. People believed that they were getting ideas, and people
like what they suppose to be ideas if no great effort is required in
the getting of them. It is astonishing how often the world needs to be
advised of the brevity of time. Yet every person who can wade in the
shallows of his own mind and not wet his shoe-tops finds a sweet
melancholy and a stimulating freshness in the thought that time is
short. John Lyly said, 'There is nothing more swifter than time,
nothing more sweeter,'--and countless Elizabethan gentlemen and ladies
underscored that sentence, or transferred it to their commonplace
books,--if they had such painful