"With Orient pearl, with ruby red,
With marble white, with sapphire blue,
Her body every way is fed,
Yet soft to touch, and sweet in view."
But when this fair representative of all flowers and gems, "smiling to herself to think of her new entertained passion," lifts up the music of her voice in that enchanting madrigal,—
"Love in my bosom, like a bee,
Doth suck his sweet;
Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet,"—
we know her at once for the kinswoman and precursor of another and dearer Rosalind, who, with boyish swagger and tell-tale grace,
"like a ripe sister,"
gathers from the trees of Arden the first fruits of Orlando's love. It was Lodge who pointed the way to that enchanted forest, where exiles and rustics waste the jocund hours, where toil and care are alike forgotten, where amorous verse-making represents the serious occupation of life, and where the thrice fortunate Jaques can afford to dally with melancholy for lack of any cankering sorrow at his heart.
