But a purely circumstantial explanation of an important departure in a man's life will only appear satisfactory to fatalists who worship the blind god Environment. And without indulging in any abstruse psychological discussion, but rather looking at the question from a general point of view, we can understand how an intellect of Lyly's type, as revealed by the _Euphues_, found its ultimate expression in comedy. Comedy, as Meredith tells us, is only possible in a civilized society, "where ideas are current and the perceptions quick." We have already touched upon this point and later we must return to it again; but for the moment let us notice that this idea of comedy, though he would have been quite unable to formulate it in words, was in reality at the back of Lyly's mind, or rather we should perhaps say that he quite unconsciously embodied it. He was _par excellence_ the product of a "social" atmosphere; he moved more freely within the Court than without; his whole mind was absorbed by the subtleties of language; a brilliant conversation, an apt repartee, a well-turned phrase were the very breath of his nostrils; his ideal was the intellectual beau. Add to this compound the ingredient of literary ambition and the result is a comic dramatist. Lyly, Congreve, Sheridan, were all men of fashion first and writers of comedy after. In the author of _Lady Windermere's Fan_ we have lately seen another example--the example of one whose ambition was to be "the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought." Poems, novels, fairy stories, he gave us, but it was on the stage of comedy that he eventually found his true _métier_. "With _Euphues_," writes Mr Bond, "we enter the path which leads to the Restoration dramatists ... and in Lucilla and Camilla we are prescient of Millamant and Belinda[101]." This is very true, but the statement has a nearer application which Mr Bond misses. Camilla is the lady who moves under varied names through all Lyly's plays. The second part of _Euphues_ and the first of Lyly's comedies are as closely connected psychologically and aesthetically, as they were in point of time. [101] Bond, I. p. 161. SECTION I. _English Comedy before 1580._ But when Lyly's creations began to walk the boards, the English stage was already some centuries old and therefore, in order to appreciate our author's position, a few words are necessary upon the development of our drama and especially of comedy previous to his time. Though the _miracle_ play of our forefathers frequently contained a species of coarse humour usually put into the mouth of the Devil, who appears to have been for the middle ages very much what the "comic muse" is for us moderns, it is to the _morality_ not to the _miracle_ that one should look for the real beginnings of comedy as distinct from mere buffoonery.