_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 them, such as, Like to the clear in highest sphere Where all imperial glory shines, Of selfsame color is her hair, Whether unfolded or in twines: Heigh ho, fair Rosalynde! without setting them unconsciously to a kind of tune, so essentially musical are the lines. In their wonderful harmony these lyrics remind one of Burns, but in the radiant and ethereal quality of their phrasing they inevitably recall Shelley. Furthermore, these songs illustrate the fact that the Elizabethan lyric had its origin in culture, not among the people, and that the chief sources of its inspiration were Italian and French. In a series of lyrics inserted into the text of "A Margarite of America,"[1] Lodge avowedly imitates the Italian poets Dolce, Pascale, and Mantelli, while in another passage in the same book[2] he expresses his unbounded admiration for the French poet Desportes, and his belief "that few men are able to second the sweet conceits of Philippe Desportes." His "sweet conceits" are imitated, we are told, in Montanus's song on page 29, and again in _Rosader's Sonnet_, on page 62. In his borrowings Lodge merely followed a prevalent fashion. The early English Elizabethan lyric was wholly experimental and imitative--the product of foreign influences, predominantly Italian and French; and in this respect Lodge's are entirely typical. [Footnote 1: Hunterian Club reprint, pp. 76 ff.] [Footnote 2: Hunterian Club reprint, p. 79.]