Note 38:B — Chapter V
Reading edition
Perhaps the opening stanza of the following scarce poem, entitled "Epicedium. A funerall Song, upon the vertuous life and godly death of the right worshipfull the Lady Helen Branch;
Virtus sola manet, cætera cuncta ruunt.
London, printed by Thomas Creed, 1594;" may allude to our author's Rape of Lucrece:—
"You that to shew your wits, have taken toyle In regist'ring the deeds of noble men; And sought for matter in a forraine soyle, As worthie subjects of your silver pen, Whom you have rais'd from darke oblivion's den. You that have writ of chaste Lucretia, Whose death was witnesse of her spotlesse life: Or pen'd the praise of sad Cornelia, Whose blamelesse name hath made her fame so rife, As noble Pompey's most renoumed wife: Hither unto your home direct your eies, Whereas, unthought on, much more matter lies."
Vide Brydges's Restituta, vol. iii. p. 297-299.