[69] _Poems_, Arber, pp. 18 and 19. [70] _id._, p. 24. [71] _id._, p. 51. These then are a few among the countless scribblers of those prolific times who fell under the spell of the euphuistic fashion. They are mentioned, either because their connexion with the movement has been overlooked, or because they throw a new and important light upon Lyly himself. Of other legatees it is impossible to treat here; and it is enough, without tracing it in any detail, to indicate "the slender euphuistic thread that runs in iron through Marlowe, in silver through Shakespeare, in bronze through Bacon, in more or less inferior metal through every writer of that age[72]." [72] Symonds, p. 407. There is nothing strange in this infatuation, if we remember that euphuism was "the English type of an all but universal disease[73]," as Symonds puts it. Dr Landmann, we have decided, was wrong in his insistence upon foreign influence; but his error was a natural one, and points to a fact which no student of Renaissance literature can afford to neglect. Matthew Arnold long ago laid down the clarifying principle that "the criticism which alone can much help us for the future, is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result[74]." And the truth of this becomes more and more indisputable, the longer we study European history, whether it be from the side of Politics, of Religion, or of Art. Landmann ascribes euphuism to Spain, Symonds ascribes it to Italy, and an equally good case might be made out in favour of France. There is truth in all these hypotheses, but each misses the true significance of the matter, which is that euphuism must have come, and would have come, without any question of borrowing. [73] _id._, p. 404. [74] _Essays in Criticism_, I. p. 39.