Variety in the Prose.--The imaginative spirit of the Elizabethans craved poetry, and all the greatest authors of this age, with the exception of Francis Bacon, were poets. If, however, an Elizabethan had been so peculiarly constituted as to wish to stock his library with contemporary prose only, he could have secured good works in many different fields. He could, for instance, have obtained (1) an excellent book on education, the _Scholemaster_ of Roger Ascham (1515-1568); (2) interesting volumes of travel, such as the _Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, by Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616); and _The Discovery of Guiana_, by Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618); (3) history, in the important _Chronicles of England, Ireland, and Scotland_ (1578), by Raphael Holinshed; the _Chronicle (Annals of England)_ and _Survey of London_, by John Stow (1525-1604); and the _Brittania_, by William Camden (1551-1623); (4) biography, in the excellent translation of _Plutarch's Lives_, by Sir Thomas North (1535-1601?); (5) criticism, in _The Apologie for Poetrie_, by Sir Philip Sidney; (6) essays on varied subjects by Francis Bacon; (7) works dealing with religion and faith: (_a_) John Foxe's (1516-1587) _Book of Martyrs_, which told in simple prose thrilling stories of martyrs and served as a textbook of the Reformation; (_b_) Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, a treatise on theology; (8) fiction,[1] in John Lyly's _Euphues_ (1579), Robert Greene's _Pandosto_ (1588), Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcardia_ (1590), Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (1590), Nashe's _The Unfortunate Traveler_ (1594), and Thomas Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ (1597).[2] Shakespeare read Holinshed, North, Greene, Sidney, and Lodge and turned some of their suggestions into poetry, which we very much prefer to their prose. We are nearly certain that Shakespeare studied Lyly's _Euphues_, because we can trace the influence of that work in his style. It was the misfortune of Elizabethan prose to be almost completely overshadowed by the poetry. This prose was, however, far more varied and important than that of any preceding age. The books mentioned on page 123 constitute only a small part of the prose of this period. Lyly, Sidney, Hooker.--In 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen years old, there appeared the first part of an influential prose work, John Lyly's (1554?-1606) _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, followed in 1580 by a second part, _Euphues and his England_. Much of Lyly's subject matter is borrowed, and his form reflects the artificial style then popular over Europe. Euphues, a young Athenian, goes to Naples, where he falls in love and is jilted. This is all the action in the first part of the so-called story. The rest is moralizing. In the second part, Euphues comes to England with a friend, who falls in love twice, and finally marries; but again there is more moralizing than story. Euphues returns to Athens and retires to the mountains to muse in solitude.