t,
upon which a mighty voice could blow soul-animating strains.

One of the most fascinating questions in the study of the sonnet-cycles
is as to how much basis the story has in reality. Stella we know, the
star-crossed love of Sidney, and Spenser's happy Elizabeth, but--

"Who is Silvia? What is she
That all the swains commend her?"

Who is Delia, Diana, Coelia, Caelica, and all the rhyming of musical
names? And who is the Dark Lady? What personalities hide behind these
poet's imaginings? We know that now, as in troubadour days, the praises
of grand ladies were sung with a warmth of language that should indicate
personal acquaintance when no such acquaintance existed; and the
sonneteers sometimes frankly confessed their passion "but supposed." All
this adds to the difficulty of interpretation. In most cases the poet
has effectually kept his secret; the search is futile, in spite of all
the "scholastic labour-lost" devoted to it. Equally tantalising are the
fleeting symbolisms that suggest themselves now and then. The
confession sometimes made by the poet, that high-flown compliment and
not true despair is intended, prepares us to accept the symbolic
application where it forces itself upon us, and to feel the presence
here and there of platonic or spiritual shadowings. Those who do not
find pleasure in the Arcadian world of the sonneteer's fancy, may still
justify their taste in the aspiration that speaks in his flashes of
philosophy.

PHILLIS

HONORED WITH PASTORAL
SONNETS, ELEGIES, AND
AMOROUS DELIGHTS

BY

THOMAS LODGE

THOMAS LODGE

One of the first to take up the new fashion of the sonnet-cycle, was
Thomas Lodge, whose "Phillis" was published in 1595. Lodge had a wide
acquaintance among the authors of his time, and was in the thick of the
literary activity in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. But
in spite of his interesting personality and genius, he has had to wait
until the present time for full appreciation. To his own age he may have
appeared as a literary dilettante, who tried his hand at several forms
of writing, and being outshone by the more excellent in each field, gave
up the attempt and turned to the practice of medicine. This profession
engaged him for the last twenty-five years of his life, until his death
in 1625 at the advanced age of sixty-seven or eight. During all these
years the gay young "university wit" of earlier days was probably
forgotten in