hatsomever condicion women ben in Grece, the women of this contre
ben right good, wyse, playsant, humble, discrete, sobre, chast, obedient
to their husbandis, trewe, secrete, stedfast, ever besy and never ydle,
attemperat in speking and vertuous in all their werkis"--"or," he is
fain to add, "atte leste sholde be soo."[93] And thereupon, Caxton, on
his own authority, restores the suppressed passages.

From the particular point of view of the historian of the English novel,
Lyly with all his absurdities had yet one merit which must be taken into
account. With him we leave epic and chivalrous stories and approach the
novel of manners. There is no longer question of Arthur and his
marvellous knights, but rather of contemporary men, who, in spite of
excessive oratorical gew-gaws, possess some resemblance to reality.
Conversations are reported in which we find the tone of well-born
persons of the period. Lyly takes care also to be very exact in his
dates. Having announced at the end of his first volume that Euphues was
about to set out for England, he informs us in the beginning of the
second, which appeared in 1580, that the embarkation took place on
December 1, 1579. He would, for anything, have gone so far as to give an
engraved portrait of his hero, just as we were to see later, at the
beginning of a book destined to make some noise in the world, the
portrait of "Captain Lemuel Gulliver of Redriff." Undoubtedly his
opinions on men and life, his analysis of sentiment, are rather clumsily
blended with the story and savour of the awkwardness of a first attempt;
but there was however merit in making the attempt, and it is not
impossible at distant intervals to discover under the crust of pedantry
some well-turned passage, possessing eloquence, as we have seen, or,
more rarely, a sort of humour. It is thus that a tolerably good lesson
may be drawn from the adventures of Philautus in London, who, deeply
smitten with the charms of a young English lady, consults a sorcerer in
order to obtain a philtre that will inspire love. Here was an excellent
opportunity, which the magician does not fail to seize, of talking about
serpents and toads. But, after a long enumeration of the bones, stones,
and livers of animals that cause love, the alchemist, urged by
Philautus, ends by confessing that the best sorcery of all to gain the
loving regard of a woman, is to be handsome, witty, and charming.

IV.

By his defects and his merits, his