=Lyly's Development as a Dramatist.=--That Lyly worked, however, steadily toward more genuine drama becomes clear if one reads his plays in order. In all he shows classical influence by his choice of subject, or by constant allusion, but he is not a scholar in the sense of Jonson or Chapman. He is well read in certain authors--Ovid, particularly the _Metamorphoses_, Plutarch, Pliny, perhaps Lucian; he has at his tongue's end many stock Latin quotations, and delights in misquoting or paraphrasing for the sake of a pun, sure that the quick-witted courtiers will recognize the originals. Classical in construction he certainly is not. His interest is to find a pretty love story which gives opportunities for dramatic surprises and complications, effective groupings, graceful dances, and dainty lyrics. He is fertile in finding interesting figures to bring upon the stage--the fairies of _Endimion_, the fiddlers of _Mother Bombie_, the shepherds of _Love's Metamorphosis_. If one examines the only two plays of his which lack the contrasting comic under-plot,--_Love's Metamorphosis_, and _The Woman in the Moone_,--it becomes clear that they are pastorals or masques. Even the other plays owe to their sub-plots the right to be called comedies. By choice of topics and by temperament, then, Lyly is a writer of masques. At first he developed his two plots side by side, as in _Endimion_. One is used simply to relieve the other, or to fill time-spaces necessary between incidents of the main plot. Later, he joins the two slightly by letting figures in the sub-plot refer to incidents of the main story. In _Mother Bombie_ he brings the groups together formally two or three times, and closes the play with nearly all the characters on the stage. In his last comedy, _The Woman in the Moone_, he discards contrasted plots, and tries to get his effects from one large group of figures. Even if his success in meeting his problem is not great, the mere recognition of it is significant. Yet it cannot be said that he ever becomes a good plotter, for he is always willing to bring in anywhere new people, new interests, or even, as in _Mydas_, to shift to a new plot midway. In _Mother Bombie_, when the climax of complication is reached in the meeting of the disguised Accius and Silena and their fathers, Lyly is unable to master the difficulties of the situation. He lets the two reveal themselves tamely, confusingly, before he has had anything like the potential fun out of the scene. Usually the plays ramble gently on till Lyly thinks the audience must have enough; then the _deus ex machina_ appears, and all ends. Climax in closing he seems not to try for, but is content to end with a telling phrase.