d grotesque as it often is, appear the
first serious efforts, among English prose writers, to attain a better
mode of expression. The results which followed the absence of a
standard written language at home were strengthened by the general
acquaintance with foreign literature. Italy in the sixteenth century
was the leading intellectual nation, and the example of the refined and
over-polished manner of writing there prevalent had much to do with the
growth in England of a fondness for affected mannerisms and fancied
ornaments of language. The new ideas in regard to poetry and
versification which Wyat and Surrey had brought from Italy, were but
the beginning of an extensive Italian influence. It was not without
reason that Ascham inveighed against "the enchantments of Circe brought
out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." Italian works were
translated and circulated in great numbers in England, and among these
the most popular were the gay and amorous productions of the story
tellers.[59]

Born in Kent in 1554, John Lyly studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,
and received the degree of Master of Arts. Not a very diligent
scholar, he disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy,
"his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but
he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a
rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he
produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not
inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists.
He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues,"
which was so much admired at Elizabeth's court, that all the ladies
knew his phrases by heart, and to "parley Euphuism" was a sign of
breeding. For many years Lyly lingered about the court waiting for a
promised position to reward his labors and support his declining years.
But in vain. "A thousand hopes," he complained, "but all nothing; a
hundred promises, but yet nothing." Lyly died in 1606, leaving, as he
said, but three legacies; "Patience to my creditors, Melancholie
without measure to my friends, and Beggarie without shame to my
family."

The deeper meaning of Lyly's work, which lies beneath the surface of
his similes and antitheses, has escaped almost all his critics.[60] It
is suggested by the title, "Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit." In the
"Schoolmaster," Ascham explained how Socrates had described the anatomy