translated out of Italian into English and sold in every shop in London. They have in more reverence the Triumphs of Petrarch than the Genesis of Moses and a story in Boccacio than a story in the Bible." It is in this sojourn of Englishmen in Italy when she had lost her literary glory and in this wide circulation of an inferior Italian literature in the shops and homes of England, that we discover the truest explanation of the later artifice in letters. After the desolating Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century and the revival of letters in the days of Henry and Edward VI., there were many English hearts in which there burned a true desire to redeem English Letters from the ignominy into which they had fallen. Holding in memory the splendid days of Dante in Italy and of Chaucer in England and standing at the very threshold of Elizabeth's time, they earnestly endeavored to take a personal part in the glories just in prospect. Not possessed of the genius necessary to carry out such ambitions, the ambitions still remained. Finding themselves thus unable to produce a type of literature worthy of their ancestry or even of such of their cotemporaries as Wyatt and Surrey, they, still, resolved to accomplish their purposes by a less direct method and secure by ingenuity and novelty what could not be secured by native genius. It is here that Lyly finds himself naturally falling in with the general current of English authorship and goes down to literary history as the founder of a style of composition of which he was but one exponent among others. This explains to us what otherwise would be quite mysterious—the earnest protest which Euphues himself sees fit to make at various points against the prevailing tendency to conceits in writing. In the dedicatory epistle to the Anatomy of Wit we read, "Tho' the style nothing delight the dainty ear of the curious sifter, yet will the matter recreate the mind of the courteous reader, for where the matter itself bringeth credit, the man with his gloss winneth small commendation. It is, therefore, me thinketh, a greater show of a pregnant wit than perfect wisdom in a thing of sufficient excellence to use superfluous eloquence." Lest these general statements might not be implied, he goes on to make special allusions to the reigning taste and declares—“If these things be true, which experience proveth, that a naked

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tale doth most truly set forth the naked truth, I shall satisfy my own mind, tho' I cannot feed their humor, which greatly seek after those that sift the finest meal and bear the whitest mouths. It is a world to see how Englishmen desire to hear finer speech than the language will allow; to eat finer bread than is made of wheat and to wear finer cloth than is wrought of wool"; as if, condemning his countrymen and himself in the same sentence, he concludes-" But I let pass this fineness which can in no way excuse my folly." Surely here is Satan casting out Satan; John Lyly himself, leading the van of literary criticism in the refutation of that affected style known as Euphuism. Similar passages from the author of Euphues and from many of his contemporaries might be added evincing the decided stand which all of them took against that invasion of a corrupt taste from Italy which they clearly saw was possessing the English mind. This they did, even though they themselves were yielding, more or less, in the meantime, to the vicious principles in vogue. 'Twas thus with the satirist Joseph Hall, claiming, as he did, to be the first English satirist and writer of Epistles. Tho' lifting up his voice and wielding his pen against the incoming of "words Italianate, big sounding sentences, and words of state" he was himself not seldom guilty of falling into the very conceits which he condemned. This reveals the power of that influence which had already been effective in England. Fortunately for English Literature, however, there were a few masculine minds whom the prevailing tastes did not corrupt. It was these bolder spirits who sounded the death knell of the false style and made it possible for succeeding generations somewhat to exhibit the best features of the golden time.

Having thus noted the origin and nature of Euphuism and the precise relations of Lyly thereto, we note a most interesting feature of this entire subject as we find a similar type and spirit of Literature over the Continent of Europe.

Turning, first, to Italy, we note that the brilliant period of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was broken up by a desolating national struggle. Right upon this there followed a century and a quarter of formalism. True, indeed, the wretched condition of the Italian Government under the Philips was

largely accountable for this. Liberty of thought was forbidden on pain of death. Courts and monasteries became the asylums of the guilty and the Inquisition was the final tribunal. Whatever the cause of the decline, however, it was rapid and destructive. No more auspicious era could have been found for the cultivation of a false taste and many pens were busily at work. There were some steadfast spirits such as Guarini and Tasso who did all that men could do to stem the current, but in vain. The most prominent name connected with this decline was that of Marini. Marinism is the historic title by which this reign of artifice in Italy is now known.

If we turn to the literary history of Spain, in the seventeenth century, we find a similar development, what Bouterwek aptly calls" a new, irregular and fantastic style." Marini himself was educated in Spain, and this country is thus made in a sense the originator of this false taste in Italy and other lands. The historical name given to this conceit in Spain is, Gongorism, from Gongora of Cordova. As in Italy, so here, strenuous opposition was made by some leading minds against such a tendency. The efforts were useless. It seemed destined to run its baneful course and so pronounced was its influence that even the classic pages of Lope de Vega betray its presence. In France, in the middle of this same century, we note the full establishment of these false literary standards-a style which an English critic terms "the most factitious literature that ever befouled men of genius." Here we find the Italian Marini a resident and it was here that he produced one of the most celebrated of his poems. We do not find in France, as in the other countries, any single name that seems to embody this vicious tendency but rather a collection of names. There was a school of artifice in which many were famous. Instead of a Marini or a Gongora, we have the Hotel de Rambouillet-the Les Femmes Savants of the time of Louis le Grand. As they sit in solemn session and determine, henceforth, to call a lacquey, "un necessaire"-and a mirror, "le conseilles des graces," we have a picture of the very coquetry of literature. It was the reign of the most abject pedantry-precision run mad. Every student of Gallic letters is familiar with the vigorous and successful opposition which such a taste encountered. It was, in

fact, to the existence of this school that we owe some of the best specimens of French comedy and satire. The stinging rejoinders of Boileau and the Les Precieuses Ridicules of the brilliant Molière are sufficient illustrations of this. It was not the least important result of such a counter-movement that Italy herself the old home of the conceits-caught from France the inspiration of a new literary life and went on to better things. If we ascend from Southern Europe to Germany, we find the presence of similar principles, more diffused, perhaps, throughout the entire history of the literature and yet clearly evident. If we adopt the classification of Gostwick, which divides the entire history into seven different periods, we shall find the dominance of the formal and obscure extending from the latter part of the fourth to the end of the fifth period-from the close of the sixteenth century on to the opening of the eighteenth. It was, as in Italy, a period of controversy following an era of excellence. It might be called, in a limited sense, the period of the Thirty Years' War. It was the age of the affected and imitative in so far as it was not altogether barren. In the Epic and Drama alike, true sublimity gave place to platitude while, even in the lyric, with the single exception of religious hymns, we fail to discover the element of ingenuous passion. As to the quality of the productions of second-rate authors, it is sufficient to say with Harrison, "that the road from Hamburg to Berlin is not flatter."

Such may be said to be a brief historical outline of the reign of artifice in the representative literatures of Modern Europe. It is very significant, moreover, that this development has been closely connected in every instance with areas of special excellence; at times, following; at times, preceding them. In Italy, we are at the time of Tasso and the learned court of Farrara; in Spain, with Cervantes and Lope de Vega; in France, at the brilliant era of Richelieu and Corneille; in Germany, under the influence of the classic prose of Luther and, in England, at the very opening of Elizabethan glory.

It must further be remarked, that, apart from these special periods, such a false style runs more or less through the entire content of these several literatures. It was so in Italy, Spain, France and Germany. In England, we find it in the age of

Henry the Eighth, of the Stuarts, in the days of Cromwell, Queen Anne and the Georges. Such is the tendency to what Bacon terms "the first distemper of learning," visible among all peoples and in all periods.

It is in fullest view of this growing tendency to the artificial in writing and upon the basis of Jonson's assertion that "nothing is lasting that is feigned" that Prof. Morley sounds in time the note of alarm to all who are tempted in this direction. With his usual felicity of expression he asserts the radical principle, "Absolute truth of manner is the life of literature and affected ornaments are those which can not arise out of the stir of a mind wholly intent upon its subject." However distant the day may be and however general the influence of literary conceits in the interval, the day will come when he will be regarded as the best writer who is content to express his thought with Saxon honestness, as "a plain, blunt man," speaking right on with simple aim and method. Such a period may be connected with the very highest destinies of the Anglo-Saxon race. If the English language is to be the chosen medium of the world's civilization and redemption, then the method of its use must be apostolic. There must be "great plainness of speech." Milton is right as he tells us that, "the very essence of truth is plainness and brightness."

T. W. HUNT.