preference to Ovid, to be his model in the "_Annus Mirabilis_" it sufficiently implies that the main defect of the poetry of the last age had been discovered, and was in the way of being amended by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees. In establishing, or refining, the latter style of writing, in couplet verse, our author found great assistance from his dramatic practice; to trace the commencement of which is the purpose of the next Section. FOOTNOTES: [1] [The statements in this paragraph are somewhat rhetorical. Massinger, for instance, was still at Oxford when James ascended the throne, and though he began to write a few years later, his earliest published play now extant appeared nearly twenty years afterwards. But the general drift is untouched.--ED.] [2] I do not pretend to enter into the question of the effect of the drama upon morals. If this shall be found prejudicial, two theatres are too many. But, in the present woful decline of theatrical exhibition, we may be permitted to remember, that the gardener who wishes to have a rare diversity of a common flower, sows whole beds with the species; and that the monopoly granted to two huge theatres must necessarily diminish, in a complicated ratio, both the number of play-writers, and the chance of anything very excellent being brought forward. [3] [Scott is here far too harsh. "Euphues" is not a book to be despatched in a note, but the reader may be requested to suspend his judgment until he has read it.--ED.] [4] Our deserved idolatry of Shakespeare and Milton was equalled by that paid to this pedantic coxcomb in his own time. He is called in the title-page of his plays (for, besides "Euphues," he wrote what he styled "Court Comedies"), "the only rare poet of that time; the witty, comical, facetiously quick, and unparalleled John Lillie." Moreover, his editor, Mr. Blount, assures us, "that he sate at Apollo's table; that Apollo gave him a wreath of his own bays without snatching; and that the lyre he played on had no broken strings." Besides which, we are informed, "Our nation are in his debt for a new English, which he taught them; 'Euphues and his England' began first that language. All our ladies were then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not _parle Euphuism_, was as little regarded, as she which now there speaks not French." [5] So that learned and sapient monarch was pleased to call his skill in politics.