While realising that woman should be the real protagonist in comedy, Lyly also appreciated the fact that skilful dialogue and brilliant repartee are only less important, and that for this purpose prose was more suitable than verse. Gascoigne's Supposes was his model in both these innovations, and yet he would undoubtedly have adopted them of his own accord without any outside suggestion. And since The Supposes was a translation, Campaspe deserves the title of the first purely English comedy in prose. The Euphues had given him a reputation for sprightly and witty dialogue, he himself was possibly known at Court as a brilliant conversationalist, and therefore when he came to write plays he would naturally do all in his power to maintain and to improve his fame in this respect. With his acute sense of form he would recognise how clumsy had been the efforts of previous dramatists, and he knew also how impossible it would be, in verse form, to write witty dialogue, up to date in the subjects it handled. He therefore determined to use prose, and, though he manipulates it somewhat awkwardly in his earlier plays while still under the influence of the euphuistic fashion, he steadily improves, as he gains experience of the function and needs of dialogue, until at length he succeeds in creating a thoroughly serviceable dramatic instrument. This departure was a great event in English literature. Shakespeare was too much of a poet ever to dispense altogether with verse, but he appreciated the virtue of prose as a vehicle of comic dialogue, and he uses it occasionally even in his earliest comedy, Love's Labour's Lost. Ben Jonson on the other hand—perhaps more than any other Lyly's spiritual heir—wrote nearly all his comedies in prose. And it is not fanciful I think to see in Lyly's pointed dialogue, tinged with euphuism, the forerunner of Congreve's sparkling conversation and of the epigrammatic writing of our modern English playwrights.
Such are the main characteristics of Lyly's dramatic genius. To attempt to trace his influence upon later writers would be to write a history of the Elizabethan stage. In the foregoing remarks I have continually indicated Shakespeare's debt to him in matters of detail. The Midsummer Night's Dream is from beginning to end full of reminiscences from the plays of the earlier dramatist, transmuted, vitalized, and beautified by the genius of our greatest poet. It is as if he had witnessed in one day a representation of all Lyly's dramatic work, and wearied by the effort of attention had fallen asleep and dreamt this Dream. Love's Labour's Lost is only less indebted to Lyly; indeed nearly all Shakespeare's plays, certainly all his comedies, exhibit the same influence: for he knew his Lyly through and through, and his assimilative power was unequalled. Shakespeare might almost be said to be a combination of Marlowe and Lyly plus that indefinable something which made him the greatest writer of all time. Marlowe, his master in tragedy, was also his master in poetry, in that strength of conception and beauty of execution which together make up the soul of drama. Lyly, besides the lesson he taught him in comedy, was also his model for dramatic construction, brilliancy of dialogue, technical skill, and all that comprises the science of play-making—things which were perhaps of more moment to him, with his scanty classical knowledge, than Marlowe's lesson which he had little need of learning. And what we have said of Shakespeare may be said of Elizabethan drama as a whole. "Marlowe's place," writes Mr Havelock Ellis, "is at the heart of English poetry"; his "high, astounding terms" took the world of his day by storm, his gift to English literature was the gift of sublime beauty, of imagination, and passion. Lyly could lay claim to none of these, but his contribution was perhaps of more importance still. He did the spade-work, and did it once and for all. With his knowledge of the Classics and of previous English experiments he wrote plays that, compared with what had gone before, were models of plot construction, of the development of action, and even of characterization. Moreover he was before Marlowe by some nine years in the production of true romantic drama, and in his treatment of women. In spite, therefore, of Marlowe's immense superiority to him on the aesthetic side, Lyly must be placed above the author of Edward II. in dynamical importance.
In connexion with Lyly's influence the question of the exact nature of his dramatic productions is worth a moment's consideration. Are they masques or dramas? and if the latter are they strictly speaking classical or romantic in form? As I have already suggested, the answer to the first half of this question is that they were neither and both. In Lyly's day drama had not yet been differentiated from masque, and his plays, therefore, partook of the nature of both. Produced as they were for the Court, it was natural that they should possess something of that atmosphere of pageantry, music, and pantomime which we now associate with the word masque. But Elizabeth was economical and preferred plain drama to the expensive masque displays, though she was ready to enjoy the latter, if they were provided for her by Leicester or some other favourite. Lyly's work therefore never advanced very far in the direction of the masque, though in its complimentary allegories it had much in common with it. The question as to whether it should be described as classical rather than as romantic is not one which need detain us long. It is interesting however as it again brings out the peculiarity of Lyly's position. It may indeed be claimed for him that all sections of Elizabethan drama, except perhaps tragedy, are to be found in embryo in his plays. I have said that he was the first of the romanticists, but he was no less the first important writer of classical drama. Gorbuduc and its like had been tedious and clumsy imitations, and, moreover, they had imitated Seneca, who was a late classic. Lyly, though the Greek dramatists were unknown to him, had probably studied Aristotle's Poetics, and was certainly acquainted with Horace's Ars Poetica, and with the comedies of Terence and Plautus. He was, therefore, an authority on matters dramatic, and could boast of a learning on the subject of technique which few of his contemporaries or his successors could lay claim to, and which they were only too ready to glean second-hand. And yet, though he was wise enough to appreciate all that the classics could teach him, he was a romanticist at heart, or perhaps it would be better to say that he threw the beautiful and loosely fitting garment of romanticism over the classical frame of his dramas. And even in the matter of this frame he was not always orthodox. He bowed to the tradition of the unities: but he frequently broke with it; in The Woman alone does he confine the action to one day; and, though he is more careful to observe unity of place, imaginary transfers occurring in the middle of scenes indicate his rebellion against this restriction. Nevertheless, when all is said, he remains, with the exception of Jonson, the most classical of all Elizabethan playwrights, and just as he anticipates the 17th and 18th centuries in his prose, so in his dramas we may discover the first competent handling of those principles and restrictions which, more clearly enunciated by Ben Jonson, became iron laws for the post-Elizabethan dramatists.
It is this "balance between classic precedent and romantic freedom[132]" that constitutes his supreme importance, not only in Elizabethan literature, but even in the history of subsequent English drama. From Lyly we may trace the current of romanticism, through Shakespeare, to Goethe and Victor Hugo; in Lyly also we may see the first embodiment of that classical tradition which even Shakespeare's "purge" could do nothing to check, and which was eventually to lay its dead hand upon the art of the 18th century. May we not say more than this? Is he not the first name in a continuous series from 1580 to our own day, the first link in the chain of dramatic development, which binds the "singing room of Powles" to the Lyceum of Irving? And it is interesting to notice that the principle which he was the first to express shows at the present moment evident signs of exhaustion; for its future developments seem to be limited to that narrow strip of social melodrama, which lies between the devil of the comic opera and the deep sea of the Ibsenic problem play. Indeed it would not be altogether fanciful, I think, to say that The Importance of being Earnest finishes the process that Campaspe started; and to view that process as a circle begun in euphuism, and completed in aestheticism.
[CHAPTER IV.]
CONCLUSION.
At the beginning of this essay I gave a short account of the main facts of our author's life, reserving my judgment upon his character and genius until after the examination of his works. That examination which I have now concluded is far too superficial in character to justify a psychological synthesis such as that advocated by M. Hennequin[133]. But though this essay cannot claim to have exhausted the subject of the ways and means of Lyly's art, yet in the course of our survey we have had occasion to notice several interesting points in reference to his mind and character, which it will be well to bring together now in order to give a portrait, however inadequate, of the man who played so important a part in English literature.
Nash supplies the only piece of contemporary information about his person and habits, and all he tells us is that he was short of stature and that he smoked. But Ben Jonson gives us an unmistakeable caricature of him under the delightfully appropriate name of Fastidious Brisk in Every Man out of His Humour. He describes him as a "neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants notwithstanding his base viol and tobacco; swears tersely and with variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man's horse to praise and back him as his own. Or, for a need can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand[134]." Allowing for the exaggeration of satire, we cannot doubt that this portrait is in the main correct. It indicates a man who follows fashion, even in swearing, to the excess of foppery, who delights in scandal, who contracts debts with an easy conscience, and who is withal a merry fellow and a wit. All this is in accordance with what we know of his life. We can picture him at Oxford serenading the Magdalen dons with his "base viol," or perhaps organizing a night party to disturb the slumbers of some insolent tradesman who had dared to insist upon payment; his neat little figure leading a gang of young rascals, and among them the "sea-dog" Hakluyt, the sturdy and as yet unconverted Gosson, the refined Watson, and perchance George Pettie concealing his thorough enjoyment of the situation by a smile of elderly amusement. Or yet again we can see him at the room of some boon companion seriously announcing to a convulsed assembly his intention of applying for a fellowship, and when the last quip had been hurled at him through clouds of smoke and the laughter had died down, proposing that the house should go into committee for the purpose of concocting the now famous letter to Burleigh. When we next catch a glimpse of him he is no longer the madcap; he walks with such dignity as his stature permits, for he is now author of the much-talked-of Anatomy of Wit, and one of the most fashionable young men of the Court. What elaboration of toilet, what adjustment and readjustment of ruffles and lace, what bowing and scraping before the glass, preceded that great event of his life—his presentation to the Queen—can only be guessed at. But we can well picture him, following his magnificently over-dressed patron up the long reception-room, his heart beating with pleasurable excitement, yet his manners not forgotten in the hour of his pride, as he nods to an acquaintance and bows with sly demureness to some Iffida or Camilla. Those were the days of his success, the happiest period of his life when, as secretary to the Lord Chamberlain and associate of the highest in the land, he breathed his native atmosphere, the praises and flattery of a fickle world of fashion. But, time-server as he was, he was no sycophant. Leaving de Vere's service after a sharp quarrel, he was not ashamed to take up the profession of teaching in which he had already had some experience. We see him next, therefore, a master of St Paul's, engrossed in the not unpleasant duties of drilling his pupils for the performance of his plays, accompanying their songs on his instrument, or himself taking his place on the stage, now as Diogenes in his ubiquitous tub, and now as the golden-bearded and long-eared Midas. And last of all he appears as the disappointed, disillusioned man, "infelix academicus ignotus." A wife and children on his hands, his occupation gone, his hopes of the Revels Mastership blasted, he becomes desperate, and writes that last bitter letter to Elizabeth.
The man of fashion out of date, the social success left high and dry by the unheeding current, he died eventually in poverty, not because he had wasted his substance, like Greene, in Bohemia, but because, thinking to take Belgravia by storm, he had forgotten that the foundations of that city are laid on the bodies of her sons. But leaving
"The thrice three muses mourning for the death
Of Learning late deceased in beggary,"
let us look more closely into the character of this man, whose brilliant and successful youth was followed by so sad an old age.