Scott's dramatic skill in plot construction or of George Eliot's
clairvoyance that divines the interior play of passion. All that we
can reasonably ask is that there be a coherent story told with
imaginative skill. In this we are not disappointed. The narrative
moves rapidly, at least in the earlier part of the story; and, though
in the latter part the setting seems from a modern point of view
over-emphasized, it is so charmingly idyllic as almost, if not quite,
to justify the over-emphasis. But Lodge really gives us more than we
have a right to expect, for, as Mr. Gosse has pointed out,[1] we may
trace in the book "certain qualities which have always been
characteristic of English fiction, a vigorous ideal of conduct, a love
of strength and adventure, an almost quixotic reverence for
womanhood."

[Footnote 1: "Seventeenth-Century Studies," p. 18.]

_Shakespeare's Dramatization of "Rosalynde."_ When Shakespeare wrote
"As You Like It" he did precisely what so many dramatists of to-day
are blamed for doing, that is, he dramatized a well-known novel.
Lodge's "Rosalynde" was at this time (about 1598) in its third
edition, and the fact that the story was so familiar to the reading
public imposed upon Shakespeare certain restrictions which he
evidently did not feel in dealing with material that he took from
sources less well known. In the case of material drawn from foreign
sources he freely altered, omitted, or combined different stories as
suited the immediate purpose of his art. In the dramatization of
Lodge's "Rosalynde" he changed the plot comparatively little, altering
it only so far as was absolutely necessary to fit it for stage
presentation, contenting himself with shortening the time of the
action, omitting such incidents as were essentially nondramatic, and