The poem was printed in the same year, with this title: "LVCRECE. | LONDON. | Printed by Richard Field, for John Harrison, and are to be sold at the signe of the White Grey-hound in Paules Churh-yard. 1594 |. Dr. Furnivall remarks-Leopold Shakspere, Introduction, p. xxxv.-that "this first edition was probably seen through the press by Shakspere himself." Apparently, however, copies of the edition differ in some important points of reading; see Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. ix. p. xiv. Lucrece was reprinted in 1598 in octavo, and the Cambridge editors mention four other important editions, in 1600, 1607, 1616, and 1624. The edition of 1616 purported to be "newly revised;" but the words were evidently a publisher's trick to attract purchasers. It is clear, I think, from the comparatively limited number of impressions through which Lucrece passed, that the poem was never so popular as its forerunner, Venus and Adonis. Like the earlier book, Lucrece is dedicated to the Earl of Southampton; and we can scarcely be wrong in assuming it to be the "graver labour" of which the poet had previously spoken. The story of Lucrece had been told by various writers; among classical authors, by Livy in the first book of his history, chapters 57 and 58, and by Ovid in the second book of the Fasti; in English, by Chaucer-Legende of Good Women; by Lydgate-Falles of Princes, book iii.; and in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1567.

Ballad-writers, too, had dealt with the subject. In Arber's Transcript of the Stationers' Register are two interesting entries. The first, under date of the year 1568, mentions "a ballett,

the grevious complaynt of Lucrece;" the second notes that 4d, had been received from "James Robertes, for his lycense for the pryntinge of a ballett entituled The Death of Lucryssia." See Arber's Transcript, vol. i. pp. 379 and 416. Now with some of this literature Shakespeare must have been acquainted: the only question is, on which of the authors above mentioned did he draw most considerably? Myself, after reading Professor Baynes' elaborate treatment of the subject, I cannot doubt but that Ovid's Fasti was the source to which Shakespeare owed most. Parallelisms in literature, like facts and figures in ordinary life, are desperately misleading and unsatisfactory things: to this critic they mean so much; to that, nothing. Hence it is scarcely ever possible to give direct and positive proof that one author has borrowed from another. I forbear, therefore, to make any dogmatic statements on the matter: I will merely remark that a comparison of the two poems leads me to think, with Professor Baynes, that the Elizabethan poet had read—and read closely-the work of his classical forerunner. To grant this is not, of course, to detract in any way from the splendid merits of the poem.

A word as to the metre. "The versification," says Professor Dowden, "is freer and bolder; in the Venus and Adonis the stanza was one of six lines, consisting of a rhymed quatrain, followed by a couplet; here a fifth line is introduced between the quatrain and couplet, rhyming with lines two and four. This structure tends to encourage more variety in the arrangement of pauses, and may, perhaps, in some degree, explain the fact that runon lines are much more frequent in the Lucrece than in the Venus and Adonis. The proportion of the run-on lines in the Lucrece is 1 in 1081, in Venus and Adonis 1 in 25'40." See Furnivall's Introduction to the Leopold Shakspere, p. xxxiii.

From the besieged Ardea1 all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
And girdle with embracing flames the waist
Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.
Haply that name of "chaste" unhappily set
This bateless2 edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
That kings might be espoused to more fame,
But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!

And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done

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1 Ardea, the capital of the Rutuli, twenty-four miles south of Rome.

2 Bateless, not to be blunted.

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But beauty, in that white intituled,
From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field:
Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,
Which virtue gave the golden age to gild
Their silver cheeks, and call'd it then their shield;
Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,
When shame assail'd, the red should fence the
white.

This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,
Argu'd by beauty's red and virtue's white:
Of either's colour was the other queen,
Proving from world's minority their right:
Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;
The sovereignty of either being so great,
That oft they interchange each other's seat.

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He stories to her ears her husband's fame,
Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;
And decks with praises Collatine's high name,
Made glorious by his manly chivalry,
With bruised arms and wreaths of victory:
Her joy with heav'd-up hand she doth express,
And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success

Far from the purpose of his coming hither,
He makes excuses for his being there:
No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather
Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear;
Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
And in her vaulty prison stows the Day.

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Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining:

Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;

And when great treasure is the meed propos'd, Though death be adjunct, there's no death suppos'd.

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
That what they have not, that which they possess,
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess

Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
That one for all, or all for one we gage;
As life for honour in fell battle's rage;

141

Is madly toss'd between desire and dread;
Th' one sweetly flatters, th' other feareth harm;
But honest fear, bewitch'd with lust's foul charm,
Doth too-too oft betake him to retire,
Beaten away by brain-sick rude desire,

180

His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,
That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly;
Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye;
And to the flame thus speaks advisedly,
"As from this cold flint I enforc'd this fire,
So Lucrece must I force to my desire."
Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,
And in his inward mind he doth debate
What following sorrow may on this arise:
Then looking scornfully, he doth despise
His naked armour of still-slaughter'd lust,
And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:
"Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine:
And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine;
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:

Let fair humanity abhor the deed

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That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed.

"O shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
O foul dishonour to my household's grave!
O impious act, including all foul harms!
A martial man to be soft2 fancy's slave!
True valour still a true respect should have;
Then my digression is so vile, so base,
That it will live engraven in my face.

"Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive,
And be an eye-sore in my golden coat;
Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,
To cipher me how fondly I did dote;
That my posterity, sham'd with the note,
Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin
To wish that I their father had not bin.

"What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? 2 Soft, effeminate.

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