"Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long,
Lately revived to live another age,
And here arrived to tell of Tarquin's wrong,
Her chaste denial, and the tyrant's rage, {29}
Acting her passions on our stately stage:
She is remember'd, all forgetting me,
Yet I as fair and chaste as e'er was she;"--

who remarks upon it as follows:--

"A difficulty here may arise out of the fifth line, as if
Drayton was referring to a play upon the story of Lucrece, and
it is very possible that one was then in existence. Thomas
Heywood's tragedy, _The Rape of Lucrece,_ did not appear in print
until 1608, and he could hardly have been old enough to have been
the author of such a drama in 1594; he may, nevertheless, have
availed himself of an elder play, and, according to the practice
of the time, he may have felt warranted in publishing it as his
own. It is likely, however, that Drayton's expressions are not to
be taken literally; and that his meaning merely was, that the
story of Lucrece had lately been revived, and brought upon the
stage of the world: if this opinion be correct, the stanza we have
quoted above contains a clear allusion to Shakespeare's _Lucrece_;
and a question then presents itself, why Drayton entirely omitted
it in the after-impression of his _Matilda_. He was a poet who, as
we have shown in the Introduction to _Julius Caesar_ (vol. viii.
p. 4.), was in the habit of making extensive alterations in his
productions, as they were severally reprinted, and the suppression
of this stanza may have proceeded from many other causes than
repentance of the praise he had bestowed upon a rival."]

* * * * *

BODENHAM, OR LING'S POLITEUPHUIA.

Sir,--The following is an extract from a Catalogue of Books for sale,
issued by Mr. Asher, of Berlin, in 1844:--

"Bodenham? (Ling?), Politeuphuia. Wits commonwealth, _original
wrapper, vellum_. VERY RARE.

"80 fr. 8vo. London, for Nicholas Ling, 1597.

"This book, 'being a methodical collection of the most choice
and select admonitions and sentences, compendiously drawn from
infinite varietie,' is quoted by Lowndes under Bodenham, as first
printed in 1598; the Epistle dedicatory however of the present
copy is signed: 'N. Ling', and addressed 'to his very good friend
Maister I.B.,' so that Ling appears to have