=Life.=--John Lyly was born in Kent between October 8, 1553, and January, 1554. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, 1569, but was almost immediately rusticated. Returning in October, 1571, he was graduated B.A. April 27, 1573. In May, 1574, he wrote unsuccessfully to Lord Burleigh, begging for a fellowship at Magdalen. He proceeded M.A. June 1, 1575, and lived mainly at the Universities till 1579. _Euphues, the Anatomie of Wit_, appeared between December, 1578, and spring, 1579. Another edition was printed in 1579; twelve others before 1637. In _An Address to the Gentlemen Scholars of Oxford_, prefixed to the second, the 1579, edition, he answered a charge of having unfairly criticised Oxford in the _Anatomie of Wit_. A sequel, _Euphues and his England_, was licensed July 24, 1579, but did not appear for months. Probably Lyly shared in the disfavour which, from late July, 1579, to July, 1580, the Queen showed the party of Robert Dudley because of his secret marriage with the Countess of Essex. _Endimion_, probably the first of Lyly's extant comedies, was presented between late July and early November, 1579, as an allegorical treatment of this quarrel. In or near July, 1580, Lyly was "entertained as servant" by the Queen, and was advised to aim at the Mastership of the Revels. By July, 1582, he is to be found in the household of Lord Burleigh. A letter of his was prefixed to Watson's _Passionate Centurie of Love_, published 1582. By 1589, possibly earlier, he had become vice-master of St. Paul's choir school. Before 1584 the Chapel Children and the Paul's Boys, for whom he had written, ceased to act. During 1584 his _Sapho and Phao_, written not long after February 6, 1582, and his _Alexander and Campaspe_ were printed. _Tityrus and Gallathea_, licensed in 1584, was not printed till 1592. Probably the main plot was written before 1584, and the sub-plot for a revision of the play in or near 1588. From 1585 Lyly wrote for the Paul's Boys till in or near 1591, when the company was again silent. The Chapel Children were not acting publicly between November, 1584, and 1597. His _Mydas_ was acted between August, 1588, and November, 1589, and printed in 1592. In August or September, 1589, a pamphlet entitled _Pappe-with-an-Hatchet_, written by him for the High Church party in the Marprelate controversy, made its appearance. His _Mother Bombie_ was acted in 1589 or 1590, and printed in 1594. _Alexander and Campaspe_ and _Sapho and Phao_ were reprinted in 1591, and in the same year _Endimion_ was printed. _Gallathea_ appeared in 1592. Lyly wrote, in 1590 or 1591, an apparently unsuccessful begging letter to the Queen, and another in 1593 or 1594. He was married by 1589, and he had two sons and one daughter. He was member of Parliament for Hindon in 1589; for Aylesbury in 1593 and 1601; and for Appleby in 1597. _The Woman in the Moone_ was licensed in 1595, printed in 1597. The quality of the blank verse in this play and the absence of marked