"Honey, and milk, and sugar: there are three." And well may Boyet say (v. 2):-- "The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; Above the sense of sense, so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things." Boyet's words, however, refer merely to the youthful gaiety and quickness of wit which may be found in all periods. We have here something more than that: the diction of the leading characters, and the various extravagances of expression cultivated by the subordinate personages, bring us face to face with a linguistic phenomenon which can be understood only in the light of history. The word Euphuism is employed as a common designation for these eccentricities of style--a word which owes its origin to John Lyly's romance, _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, published in 1578. Lyly was also the author of nine plays, all written before 1589, and there is no doubt that he exercised a very important influence upon Shakespeare's dramatic style. But it is a very narrow view of the matter which finds in him the sole originator of the wave of mannerism which swept over the English poetry of the Renaissance. The movement was general throughout Europe. It took its rise in the new-born enthusiasm for the antique literatures, in comparison with whose dignity of utterance the vernacular seemed low and vulgar. In order to approximate to the Latin models, men devised an exaggerated and dilated phraseology, heavy with images, and even sought to attain amplitude of style by placing side by side the vernacular word and the more exquisite foreign expression for the same object. Thus arose the _alto estilo_, the _estilo culto_. In Italy, the disciples of Petrarch, with their _concetti_, were dominant in poetry; in Shakespeare's own time, Marini came to the front with his antitheses and word-plays. In France, Ronsard and his school obeyed the general tendency. In Spain, the new style was represented by Guevara, who directly influenced Lyly.