On the part of the four sons of sir Francis Knolles, Mercury appeared, and described them as 'legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hard mishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, and dry nursed by Desire, longtime fostered with favorable countenance, and fed with sweet fancies, but now of late (alas) wholly given over to grief and disgraced by disdain.' &c. The speeches being ended, probably to the relief of the hearers, the tilting commenced and lasted till night. It was resumed the next day with some fresh circumstances of magnificence and a few more harangues:—at length the challengers presented to the queen an olive bough in token of their humble submission, and both parties were dismissed by her with thanks and commendations[89].
By whom the speeches for this triumph were composed does not appear; but their style appears to correspond very exactly with that of John Lilly, a dramatic poet who in this year gave to the public a romance in two parts; the first entitled "Euphues the Anatomy of Wit," the second "Euphues and his England." A work which in despite, or rather perhaps by favor, of the new and singular affectations with which it was overrun, obtained extraordinary popularity, and communicated its infection for a time to the style of polite writing and fashionable speech.
An author of the present day, whose elegant taste and whose profound acquaintance with the writers of this and the following reign entitle him to be heard with deference, has favored us with his opinion of Euphues in these words. "This production is a tissue of antithesis and alliteration, and therefore justly entitled to the appellation of affected; but we cannot with Berkenhout consider it as a most contemptible piece of nonsense[90]. The moral is uniformly good; the vices and follies of the day are attacked with much force and keenness; there is in it much display of the manners of the times; and though as a composition it is very meretricious and sometimes absurd in point of ornament, yet the construction of its sentences is frequently turned with peculiar neatness and spirit, though with much monotony of cadence." "So greatly," adds the same writer, "was the style of Euphues admired in the court of Elizabeth, and, indeed, throughout the kingdom, that it became a proof of refined manners to adopt its phraseology. Edward Blount, who republished six of Lilly's plays in 1632, under the title of Sixe Court Comedies, declares that 'Our nation are in his debt for a new English which he taught them. 'Euphues and his England,' he adds, 'began first that language. All our ladies were then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not parley Euphuesme, was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French:' a representation certainly not exaggerated; for Ben Jonson, describing a fashionable lady, makes her address her gallant in the following terms;—'O master Brisk, (as it is in Euphues,) hard is the choice when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking, to live with shame:' upon which Mr. Whalley observes, that 'the court ladies in Elizabeth's time had all the phrases of Euphues by heart'[91]."
Shakespeare is believed to have satirized the affectations of Lilly, amongst other prevailing modes of pedantry and bad taste, under the character of the schoolmaster Holophernes; and to Sidney is ascribed by Drayton the merit, that he
..."did first reduce
Our tongue from Lilly's writing then in use,
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similies."
But in this statement there is an inaccuracy, if it refers to the better model of style furnished by him in his Arcadia, since that work, though not published till after the death of its author, is known to have been composed previously to the appearance of Euphues. Possibly however the lines of Drayton may be explained as alluding to the critical precepts contained in Sidney's Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1582 or 1583.
It may appear extraordinary that this accomplished person, after his noble letter of remonstrance against the French marriage, should have consented to take so conspicuous a part in festivities designed to celebrate the arrival of the commissioners by whom its terms were to be concluded. But the actions of every man, it may be pleaded, belong to such an age, or such a station, as well as to such a school of philosophy, religious sect, political party, or natural class of character; and the spirit which prompted this eminent person to aspire after all praise and every kind of glory, compelled him, at the court of Elizabeth, to unite, with whatever incongruity, the quaint personage of a knight errant of romance and a devotee of the beauties and perfections of his liege lady, with the manly attributes of an English patriot and a champion of reformed religion.
Fulke Greville furnishes another instance of a respectable character strangely disguised by the affectations and servilities of a courtier of this "Queen of Faery." He was the cousin, school-fellow, and inseparable companion of Sidney, and so devoted to him that, in the inscription which he composed long after for his own tomb, he entitled himself "servant to queen Elizabeth, councillor to king James, and friend to sir Philip Sidney." Born to a fortune so ample as to render him entirely independent of the emoluments of office or the favors of a sovereign, and early smitten with a passion for the gentle muse which rendered him nearly insensible to the enticements of ambition, Greville was yet contented to devote himself, as a volunteer, to that court-life the irksomeness of which has often been treated as insupportable by men who have embraced it from interest or from necessity.
A devotedness so signal was not indeed suffered to go without its reward. Besides that it obtained for him a lucrative place, Naunton says of Greville, "He had no mean place in queen Elizabeth's favor, neither did he hold it for any short time or term; for, if I be not deceived, he had the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of her favorites." Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and private access to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet he would say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for when the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay it upon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or other bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him." The poems of Fulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his own time, but now known only to the more curious students of our early literature, consist of two tragedies in interwoven rhyme, with choruses on the Greek model; a hundred love sonnets, in one of which he styles his mistress "Fair dog:" and "Treaties" "on Human learning," "on Fame and Honor," and "of Wars." Of these pieces the last three, as well as the tragedies, contain many noble, free, and virtuous sentiments; many fine and ingenious thoughts, and some elegant lines; but the harshness and pedantry of the style render their perusal on the whole more of a fatigue than a pleasure, and they have gradually sunk into that neglect which constantly awaits the verse of which it has been the aim to instruct rather than to delight. Among the English patrons of letters however, Fulke Greville, afterwards lord Brook, will ever deserve a conspicuous station; and Speed and Camden have gratefully recorded their obligations both to his liberality and to his honorable exertion of court interest.
The articles of the marriage-treaty were at length concluded between the commissioners of France and England, and it was stipulated that the nuptials should take place six weeks after their ratification: but Elizabeth, whose uncertainties were not yet at an end, had insisted on a separate article purporting, that she should not however be obliged to complete the marriage until further matters, not specified, should have been settled between herself and the duke of Anjou; by which stipulation it still remained in her power to render the whole negotiation vain.