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Whatever this might mean, translated out of euphuism into English, it is certain that his conduct was regarded with small favour by the court-grandees, by whom "worth, duty, and justice, were looked upon with no other eyes than Lamia's."
"Ah, that I had with me my Anatomy of Wit that all-to-be-unparalleled volume that quintessence of human wit that treasury of quaint invention that exquisitively-pleasant-to-read, and inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered manual, of all that is worthy to be known which indoctrines the rude in civility, the dull in intellectuality, the heavy in jocosity, the blunt in gentility, the vulgar in nobility, and all of them in that unutterable perfection, of human utterance, that eloquence which no other eloquence is sufficient to praise, that art which, when we call it by its own name of Euphuism, we bestow on it its richest panegyric."
In the same way as Euphuism is founded upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural history'; so Sidney's style in the Arcadia is based on a balance usually obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the pathetic fallacy.
Though the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty which tempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism, yet the sentence is so loaded with meaning, and so linked with its foregoers and followers, that the logician is satisfied. His means are as admirable as his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too.
Miss Carrington was present. She had been formerly sharp in her condemnation of the Countess her affectedness, her euphuism, and her vulgarity. Now she did not say a word, though she might have done it with impunity. 'I suppose, Emily, you see what Rose is about? said Mrs. Melville. 'I should not have thought it adviseable to have that young man here, myself. I think I let you know that.
It is found in nearly all Elizabethan prose writers, and partially accounts for their general tendency to artificiality. Shakespeare satirizes euphuism in the character of Don Adriano of Love's Labour's Lost, but is himself tiresomely euphuistic at times, especially in his early or "Lylian" comedies. Lyly, by the way, did not invent the style, but did more than any other to diffuse it.
But Elizabeth was far as yet from being a mere pedant. She could already speak French and Italian as fluently as her mother-tongue. In later days we find her familiar with Ariosto and Tasso. The purity of her literary taste, the love for a chaste and simple style, which Ascham noted with praise in her girlhood, had not yet perished under the influence of euphuism.
This euphuism, which had been adopted by some of the more extreme of the Nationalist party to indicate members of the opposing communion, was received by Dr. Mangan as an apt and entertaining quotation on the part of his clergyman. "No fear, no fear!" he said, laughing jovially, "but if you'll allow me to say so, I think a good deal depends on this business going through."
Does the master wit of the Play consist in any one class of fun, as verbal conceits in the punning line; practical jokes; Euphuism, so-called; banter in speech and retort, versemaking and sonneteering, learned quips, or in the use of all these combined in a way to bring out the point of the Play the clash of natural with artificial methods. Is wit or purpose dominant in the Play?
Whether Lyly got his style from Pettie or Guevara is an important question, but he made it emphatically his own, and it will never be called by any other name than Euphuism. The making of a book on this plan is largely the result of astonishing mental gymnastics. It commands respect in no small degree, because Lyly was able to keep it up so long.
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