f for taking up the cudgels of
argument with the learned Surius, "that the Tortoise in India when the
sunne shineth, swimmeth above the water wyth hyr back, and being
delighted with the fine weather, forgetteth her selfe until the heate of
the sunne so harden her shell, that she cannot sink when she woulde,
whereby she is caught. And so it may fare with me that in this good
companye displaying my minde, having more regard to my delight in
talking, than to the ears of the hearers, I forget what I speake, and so
be taken in something I would not utter, which happilye the itchyng ears
of young gentlemen would so canvas that when I would call it in, I
cannot, and so be caught with the Tortoise, when I would not[23]." And,
when she had finished her discourse, Surius again employs the simile for
the purpose of turning a neat compliment, saying, "Lady, if the Tortoise
you spoke of in India were as cunning in swimming, as you are in
speaking, she would neither fear the heate of the sunne nor the ginne of
the Fisher." This is but a mild example of the "unnatural natural
philosophy" which _Euphues_ has made famous. An unending procession of
such similes, often of the most extravagant nature, runs throughout the
book, and sometimes the development of the plot is made dependent on
them. Thus Lucilla hesitates to forsake Philautus for Euphues, because
she feels that her new lover will remember "that the glasse once chased
will with the least clappe be cracked, that the cloth which stayneth
with milke will soon loose his coulour with Vinegar; that the eagle's
wing will waste the feather as well as of the Phoenix as of the
Pheasant: and that she that hath become faithlesse to one, will never
be faithfull to any[24]." What proof could be more exact, what better
example could be given of the methods of concomitant variations? It is
precisely the same logical process which induces the savage to wreak his
vengeance by melting a waxen image of his enemy, and the farmer to
predict a change of weather at the new moon.

[22] Jusserand, p. 107.

[23] _Euphues_, p. 402.

[24] _id._, p. 58.

Lyly, however, was not concerned with making philosophical
generalizations, or scientific laws, about the world in general. His
natural, or unnatural, phenomena were simply saturated with moral
significance: not that he saw any connexion between the ethical process
and the cosmic process, but, like every one of his contemporaries, he
employed the