_Euphues_ is very much _sui generis_: failure as it may be from some points of view, it deserves the highest respect for this, and like most other things _sui generis_ it was destined to propagate the genus, if only after many days.

The _Arcadia_ was in intention certainly, and to great extent in actual fact, merely a carrying out of the attempt, common all over Europe (as a result of the critical searchings of heart of the Italians), to practise a new kind--the Heroic Romance of the sub-variety called pastoral.

The "heroic" idea generally was (as ought to be, but perhaps is not, well known) to blend, after a fashion, classical and romantic characteristics--to substitute something like the classic unity of fable or plot for the mere "meandering" of romantic story, and to pay at least as much attention to character as the classics had paid, instead of neglecting it altogether, as had recently though not always been the case in Romance.

But the scheme retained on the other hand the variety of incident and appeal of this latter: and especially assigned to Love the high place which Romance had given it.

As for the Pastoral--that is almost a story to itself, and a story which has been only once (by Mr.W.W.