No other product of the Elizabethans' attempts to improve and heighten the style of their writings is quite so remarkable as the ornate and jingling prose which goes under the name of Euphuism. Its unique character and great popularity have caused many to discuss the problems of its origin, but no satisfactory specific source has so far been discovered. The old theories of Landmann and Feuillerat, who suggested, respectively, that the style was the result of the imitation of Guevara, and of the imitation of the classics, have now been abandoned. In their place the theory now generally accepted is the one put forward by Professor Croll, who said that Euphuism was merely one manifestation of the general medieval tradition, continued into the sixteenth century, of writing patterned prose. Professor Croll demonstrated completely and finally the ultimate origins of the style; but Euphuism is a unique and special variety of schematic prose, and the steps by which the simple and frequently varied patterns of medieval writings came to be elaborated into the stiff, formalistic structure of Euphuism, with all its wealth of learned similes and recondite allusions, has not been explained.