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All that can be said with confidence is that it was later than Gallathea, to which it contains allusions, that it is an inferior work, and that it has the appearance at least of having been botched up in a hurry . The story is as follows.
About contemporary with the Arraignment of Paris are the earliest plays of John Lyly, the Euphuist. Most of these are of a mythological character, while three come more particularly under our notice on account of their pastoral tendency, namely, Gallathea, Love's Metamorphosis, and the Woman in the Moon .
The author, whoever he was, may have drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's Gallathea, in which, it will be remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.
It will be noticed that in the play we have just been considering the nymphs are no longer treated with the same respect as was the case in Gallathea; we have, in fact, advanced some way towards the satirical conception and representation of womankind which gives the tone to the Woman in the Moon.
The following is from a scene between the two disguised maidens: Gallathea may be plausibly enough assigned to the year 1584 . The date of the next play we have to deal with, Love's Metamorphosis, is less certain, though Mr. Fleay's conjecture of 1588-9 seems reasonable.
Jonson, on the other hand, aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. Except for such comparatively unimportant works as Gallathea and the Converted Robber, the spectators found themselves, for the first time, on English soil.
Sublimation, almigation, calcination, rubification, albification, and fermentation; with as many termes unpossible to be uttered as the arte to be compassed. LILLY'S Gallathea. Once upon a time, in the ancient city of Granada, there sojourned a young man of the name of Antonio de Castros.
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