"Matilda was first printed 1594, 4to., by Val. Simmes. Gaveston
appears by the Pref. to have been publish't before. Almost every
line in the old 4to. of Matilda differs from the copy in this
edit. A stanza celebrating Shakespeare's Lucrece is omitted in the
later edition.

"Idea. The Shepherd's Garland. Fashion'd in 9 Eglogs. Rowland's
sacrifice to the 9 Muses, 4to. 1593. But they are printed in this
Edition very different from the present Pastorals.

"A sonnet of Drayton's prefixed to the 2nd Part of _Munday's
Primaleon of Greece_, B.L. 4to. 1619."

[The stanza in _Matilda_, celebrating Shakespeare's _Lucrece_, to which
Dr. Farmer alludes, is thus quoted by Mr. Collier in his edition of
Shakespeare (viii. p. 411.):--

"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