out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." Italian works were
translated and circulated in great numbers in England, and among these
the most popular were the gay and amorous productions of the story
tellers.[59]

Born in Kent in 1554, John Lyly studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,
and received the degree of Master of Arts. Not a very diligent
scholar, he disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy,
"his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but
he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a
rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he
produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not
inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists.
He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues,"
which was so much admired at Elizabeth's court, that all the ladies
knew his phrases by heart, and to "parley Euphuism" was a sign of
breeding. For many years Lyly lingered about the court waiting for a
promised position to reward his labors and support his declining years.
But in vain. "A thousand hopes," he complained, "but all nothing; a
hundred promises, but yet nothing." Lyly died in 1606, leaving, as he
said, but three legacies; "Patience to my creditors, Melancholie
without measure to my friends, and Beggarie without shame to my
family."

The deeper meaning of Lyly's work, which lies beneath the surface of
his similes and antitheses, has escaped almost all his critics.[60] It
is suggested by the title, "Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit." In the
"Schoolmaster," Ascham explained how Socrates had described the anatomy
of wit in a child, and the first essential quality mentioned by
Socrates, and that most fully discussed by Ascham was Euphuês which