structure is loose and amorphous, the
transitions from one subject to another are almost invariably well
made, or at least are clearly marked. Phrases such as, "But leaving
him so desirous of the journey, to Torismond"[1]; "Leaving her to her
new entertained fancies, again to Rosader"[2]; "where we leave them,
and return again to Torismond"[3]; show clearly a growing regard for
the value of clear arrangement, to which the earlier romancers had
been indifferent. In the avoidance of digressions, too, Lodge's style
is an improvement upon that of his predecessors, and even upon that of
most of his contemporaries.[4] The story moves along, if not rapidly,
at least continuously from start to finish. There is a gratifying lack
of such preposterous complications and tortuous windings as we meet
with in the plot of Greene's "Menaphon," for example, where it
sometimes seems doubtful whether the characters ever will emerge from
so mazy a labyrinth of plot, and where the reader is bewildered by the
almost complete lack of unity in the story.

[Footnote 1: P. 12.]

[Footnote 2: P. 17.]

[Footnote 3: P. 50. See, also, pp. 19, 41, 51, 59, 73, 97, 104.]

[Footnote 4: On page 72 Lodge accuses himself of digressing; but the
four lines in which he here anticipates the conclusion of the story
seem not to warrant the charge.]

_The Lyrical Interludes._ Lodge's spirit is essentially poetical. One
feels that his way of looking at things is that of a true poet; of
one, that is, who sees beneath the shows of things. Lodge saw as
clearly as Shakespeare did that only love can untie the knot that
selfishness has tied. And not only is Lodge a poet in his outlook on
life, but also in the narrower sense of the word, for he is one of the
sweetest singers of all that band of choristers that filled the
spacious times of great Elizabeth with sounds that echo still. The
voices of some were more resonant or more impassioned; few, if any,
were sweeter. Such a song as _Rosalynde's Madrigal_, beginning,

Love in my bosom, like a bee
Doth suck his sweet:

is as fluent, as graceful, and as mellifluous as anything that
appeared in that marvelously productive time. Lodge's poetic
interludes impress one not only by their easy grace and sweetness, but
by their melody as well. They possess that truly lyric quality that
Burns's songs exhibit to such a marked degree. They seem to sing
themselves. It is almost impossible to read aloud the best of th