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wherein there is small offence by lightness given to the wise, and 
less occasion of looseness proffered to the wanton; commend it 
or amend it.” The hero of Lyly’s two stories is a wealthy young 
Athenian traveller. Naples he describes as a “place of more 
pleasure than profit, and yet of more profit than piety.’’ He 
regretted that he had spent so much of his life there in ‘“ the 
laps of ladies, and so much of his wit in the vanities of idle 
sonnets.’’ Huphues and his friend Philautus afterwards visit 
London. Lyly’s first volume ends with letters from Euphues to 
various persons. ‘These letters are in fact essays on education. 
They are full of wit and wisdom. One or two extracts may be 
given :—‘‘ It is only knowledge which worn with years waxeth 
young, and when all things are cast away with the sickle of 
Time, knowledge flourisheth so high that Time cannot reach it.’’ 
‘‘There is nothing more swifter than time. nothing more 
sweeter. We have not, as Seneca said, little time to live. Our 
life is long if we know how to use it.’ ‘‘ Let your country’s 
care be your heart’s content.’’ The most striking passages in 
‘“‘ Kuphues and his England ”’ are those in which Lyly (through 
the character of HKuphues) speaks of Queen Elizabeth. ‘‘ She 
was of more beauty than honour, and yet of more honour than 
any earthly creature ;”’ and he prays earnestly for her life to be 
prolonged, that ‘‘she may be triumphant in victories like the 
palm-tree, in all ages prosperous, to all men gracious, in all 
places glorious, so that there may be no end of her praise until 
the end of all flesh.” Such extravagant eulogy was in the fashion 
of the time. Similar expressions are found in Jonson and in 
Spenser. We can scarcely wonder at such language when we 
consider how after the winter of discontent under Mary, the 
peerless Virgin Queen presented herself to their eyes. When we 
recount the glories of her reign, the hour of conquest and of 
chivalry, a time of general awakening in the national life, of 
increase of wealth and refinement, and quickening of intelligence, 
and when we reflect how to her subjects it seemed as if the stars 
in their courses fought on the side of the Maiden Queen, we 
cease to be astonished that there came as incense to her willing 
ear from court and camp, through poet and philosopher, the 
mellowed murmur of her people’s praise. 
The adulation of Master John Lyly did not meet with its due 
reward at the hands of the Sovereign whose virtues he had so 
often extolled. His petitions at various times to the Queen, 
asking for the reversion of the post of Master of the Revels at 
Court, are very amusing. ‘Thirteen years your Highness’s 
servant and yet nothing.” He asks for ‘‘some good fines or 
forfeitures that should fall by the just fall of certain false 
traitors, that seeing nothing will come by the revels he may prey 
upon the rebels.”’ He tells how his poverty is such that he has 
