rkable gifts. His novel is a pastoral tale that
takes place somewhere in France, near Bordeaux, and reads as pleasantly
as any story in "Astree," no mean compliment. Probability, geography and
chronology, are not Lodge's strong points; we are in fact again in the
country of nowhere, in an imaginary kingdom of France over which the
usurper Torismond reigns. The true king has been deposed and leads a
forester's life, untroubled, unknown, in the thick woods of Arden.
Rosalind, a daughter of the deposed king, has been kept as a sort of
hostage at the court of the tyrant in Bordeaux, presumably his capital.
All of a sudden she is exiled in her turn, without more explanation than
"I have heard of thy aspiring speaches and intended treasons."[157]
Alinda, her friend, the daughter of the tyrant, refuses to leave her,
and both fly the court, Rosalind being dressed as a page, a rapier at
her side, her wit full of repartees, her mind full of shifts, and equal,
in fact, as in Shakespeare, to any emergency. "Tush, quoth Rosalynd, art
thou a woman and hast not a sodaine shift to prevent a misfortune? I,
thou seest, am of a tall stature, and would very well become the person
and apparell of a page; thou shalt bee my mistris, and I will play the
man so properly, that, trust me, in what company so ever I come, I will
not bee discovered. I will buy mee a suite, and have my rapier very
handsomely at my side, and if any knave offer wrong, your page will shew
him the point of his weapon. At this Alinda smiled, and upon this they
agreed, and presentlie gathered up all their jewels which they trussed
up in a casket.... They travailed along the vineyards, and by many
by-waies, at last got to the forrest side," the forest of Arden, which
at that time happened to be near the vineyards of Gascony.

But this geographical situation is the least of the wonders offered by
the forest. In it live not only Gerismond, the lawful king, very happy
and contented, free and without care, wanting nothing; but, in the
valleys, the most lovable shepherdesses and the most loving shepherds;
they feed their flocks while piping their ditties; they inscribe their
sonnets on the bark of trees; they are very learned, though mere
shepherds; they quote Latin and write French; they know how to ask the
god of love that the heart of their mistress may not be "de glace."

"Bien qu'elle ait de neige le sein."

They live in the shade of the most unaccountable woods, woods