despatched in a note, but the reader may be requested to suspend his
judgment until he has read it.--ED.]

[4] Our deserved idolatry of Shakespeare and Milton was equalled by that
paid to this pedantic coxcomb in his own time. He is called in the
title-page of his plays (for, besides "Euphues," he wrote what he styled
"Court Comedies"), "the only rare poet of that time; the witty, comical,
facetiously quick, and unparalleled John Lillie." Moreover, his editor,
Mr. Blount, assures us, "that he sate at Apollo's table; that Apollo
gave him a wreath of his own bays without snatching; and that the lyre
he played on had no broken strings." Besides which, we are informed,
"Our nation are in his debt for a new English, which he taught them;
'Euphues and his England' began first that language. All our ladies were
then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not _parle
Euphuism_, was as little regarded, as she which now there speaks not
French."

[5] So that learned and sapient monarch was pleased to call his skill in
politics.

[6] Witness a sermon preached at St. Mary's before the university of
Oxford. It is true the preacher was a layman, and harangued in a gold
chain, and girt with a sword, as high sheriff of the county; but his
eloquence was highly applauded by the learned body whom he addressed,
although it would have startled a modern audience, at least as much as
the dress of the orator. "Arriving," said he, "at the Mount of St.
Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some
fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the
chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet
swallows of salvation." "Which way of preaching," says Anthony Wood, the