an illustration of transverse alliteration
quite as complex as any in _Euphues_, we may notice the following: "Hard
wittes be hard to receive, but sure to keep; painfull without weariness,
hedefull without wavering, constant without any new fanglednesse;
bearing heavie things, though not lightlie, yet willinglie; entering
hard things though not easily, yet depelie[56]." Classical allusions
abound throughout Ascham's work, and he occasionally indulges in the
ethics of natural history as follows:

"Young Graftes grow not onlie sonest, but also fairest and bring always
forth the best and sweetest fruite; young whelps learne easilie to
carrie; young Popingeis learne quickly to speak; and so, to be short, if
in all other things though they lacke reason, sense, and life, the
similitude of youth is fittest to all goodnesse, surelie nature in
mankinde is more beneficial and effectual in this behalfe[57]."

[56] Arber, _Schoolmaster_, p. 35.

[57] _id._, p. 46.

We know that Lyly had read the _Schoolmaster_, as he took the very title
of his book from its description of /Euphues/ as "he that is apte by
goodnesse of witte and applicable by readiness of will to learning"--a
description which is in itself a euphuism; and it is probable that he
knew his Ascham as thoroughly as he did his Guevara.

Sir Henry Craik has some very pertinent remarks on the peculiarities of
Ascham's style. "One of these," he writes, "is his proneness to
alliteration, due perhaps to his desire to reproduce the most striking
features of the Early English.... A tendency of an almost directly
opposite kind is the balance of sentences which he imitates from
Classical models.... These two are perhaps the most striking
characteristics of Ascham's prose; and it is interesting to observe how
much the structure of the sentence in the more elaborated stages of
English prose is due to their combination[58]." Here we have the two
elements of our native-grown euphuism, and their origins, carefully
distinguished. Of course with euphuism we do not commence English prose;
that is already centuries old; but we are dealing with the beginnings of
English prose style, by which we mean a conscious and artistic striving
after literary effect. That the first stylists should look to the
rhetoricians for their models was inevitable, and of these there were
two kinds available; the classical orators and the alliterative homilies
of the Early English. But, deferring this poi