2 i. e. which ought to be rendered distinct by an ample

3 Your three motives' means 'the motives of you three.' So in Romeo and Juliet, both our remedies' means 'the remedy for us both."

4 Intergatories was frequently used for interrogatories, and consequently as a word of only five syllables. In The Merchant of Venice, near the end, it is also thus used :

'And charge us there upon intergatories.' 5 Spritely shows are groups of sprites, ghostly appearances.

6 A collection is a corollary, a consequence deduced from premises. So in Davies's poem on The Immortality of the Soul:

When she from sundry arts one skill doth draw; Gath'ring from divers sights one act of war; From many cases like one rule of law:

These her collections, not the senses are."

Sooth. The fingers of the powers above do tune
The harmony of this peace. The vision
Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke
Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant
Is full accomplish'd: For the Roman eagle,
From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
Lessen'd herself, and in the beams o' the sun
So vanish'd: which foreshow'd our princely eagle,
The imperial Cæsar, should again unite
His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,
Which shines here in the west.

Cym.
Laud we the gods;
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our bless'd altars! Publish we this peace
To all our subjects. Set we forward: Let
A Roman and a British ensign wave
Friendly together: so through Lud's town march:
And in the temple of great Jupiter

Our peace we'll ratify: seal it with feasts.-
Set on there :-Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.
[Exeunt.

THIS play has many just sentiments, some natural
dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are
obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To re-
mark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct,
the confusion of the names and manners of different
times, and the impossibility of the events in any system
of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbe-
cility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross
for aggravation.*

JOHNSON.

* Johnson's remark on the gross incongruity of names and manners in this play is just, but it was the common error of the age; in The Wife for a Month, of Beaumont and Fletcher, we have Frederick and Alphonso among a host of Greek names, not to mention the firing of a pistol by Demetrius Poliocortes in The Humorous Lieutenant.-Pye.

It is hardly necessary to point out the extreme injus

A SONG,

SUNG BY GUIDERIUS AND ARVIRAGUS OVER II-
DELE, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.

BY MR. WILLIAM COLLINS.

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb,

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.
No wailing ghost shall dare appear
To ver with shrieks this quiet grove ;
But shepherd lads assemble here,

And melting mrgins own their love.
No wither'd witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew:
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew.
The redbreast oft at evening hours

Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.
When howling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake the sylvan cell;
Or midst the chase on every plain,

The tender thought on thee shall dwell.
Each lonely scene shall thee restore;

For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd till life could charm no more;

And mourn'd till pity's self be dead.

tice of the unfounded severity of Johnson's animadver-
sions upon this exquisite drama. The antidote will be
found in the reader's appeal to his own feelings after
reiterated perusal. It is with satisfaction I refer to the
more just and discriminative opinion of a foreign critic,
to whom every lover of Shakspeare is deeply indebted,
cited in the preliminary remarks.
S. W. S.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

ΟΝ
N what principle the editors of the first complete |
edition of Shakspeare's works admitted this play
into their volume, cannot now be ascertained. The
most probable reason that can be assigned is, that he
wrote a few lines in it, or gave some assistance to the
author in revising it, or in some way or other aided in
bringing it forward on the stage. The tradition men-
tioned by Ravenscroft, in the time of King James II.,
warrants us in making one or other of these supposi-
tions. I have been told (says he, in his preface to an
alteration of this play, published in 1687,) by some
anciently conversant with the stage, that it was not
originally his, but brought by a private author to be
acted, and he only gave some master touches to one or
two of the principal parts.'

A booke, entitled A Noble Roman Historie of Titus Andronicus,' was entered at Stationers' Hall, by John Danter, Feb. 6, 1593-4. This was undoubtedly the play, as it was printed in that year (according to Lang. baine, who alone appears to have seen the first edition,) and acted by the servants of the Earls of Pembroke, Derby, and Sussex. It is observable that in the entry no author's name is mentioned, and that the play was originally performed by the same company of come. dians who exhibited the old draina, entitled The Con. tention of the Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, The old Taming of a Shrew, and Marlowe's King Edward II.; by whom not one of Shakspeare's plays is said to have been performed.

From Ben Jonson's Induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, we learn that Andronicus had been exhibited twenty-five or thirty years before; that is, according to the lowest computation, in 1589; or, taking a middle period, which is perhaps more just, in 1587.

To enter into a long disquisition to prove this piece not to have been written by Shakspeare would be an idle waste of time. To those who are not conversant with his writings, if particular passages were ex

amined, more words would be necessary than the subject is worth; those who are well acquainted with his works cannot entertain a doubt on the question. I will, however, mention one mode by which it may be easily ascertained. Let the reader only peruse a few lines of Appius and Virginia, Tancred and Gismund, The Battle of Alcazar, Jeronimo, Selimus Emperor of the Turks, The Wounds of Civil War, The Wara of Cyrus, Locrine, Arden of Feversham, King Edward Í., The Spanish Tragedy, Solyman and Perseda, King Leir, the old King John, or any other of the pieces that were exhibited before the time of Shakspeare, and he will at once perceive that Titus Andronicus was coined in the same mint.

The testimony of Meres, [who attributes it to Shakspeare in his Palladis Tamia, or the Second Part of Wits Common Wealth, 1598,] remains to be considered. His enumerating this among Shakspeare's plays may be accounted for in the same way in which we may ac count for its being printed by his fellow comedians in the first folio edition of his works. Meres was, in 1598, when his book first appeared, intimately connected with Drayton, and probably acquainted with some of the dramatic poets of the time, from some or other of whom he might have heard that Shakspeare interested himself about this tragedy, or had written a few lines for the author. The internal evidence furnished by the piece itself, and proving it not to have been the production of Shakspeare, greatly outweighs any single testimony on the other side. Meres might have been misinformed, or inconsiderately have given credit to the rumour of the day. In short, the high antiquity of the piece, its entry on the Stationers' books, and being afterwards printed without the name of Shakspeare, its being performed by the servants of Lord Pembroke, &c.; the stately march of the versification, the whole colour of the composition, its resemblance to several of our most ancient dramas, the dissimilitude of the style

from our author's undoubted plays, and the tradition mentioned by Ravenscroft when some of his contem poraries had not long been dead (for Lowin and Taylor, two of his fellow comedians, were alive a few years before the Restoration, and Sir Wm. Davenant did not die till April, 1668;) all these circumstances combined, prove with irresistible force that the play of Titus Andronicus has been erroneously ascribed to Shakspeare.'Malone,

"She has undone me, ev'n in mine own art, Outdone me in murder, kill'd her own child; Give it me, I'll eat it.""

with the same spirit that it was written; but Titus An'It rarely happens that a dramatic piece is altered dronicus has undoubtedly fallen into the hands of one whose feelings and imagination were congenial with those of the author.

'Let it be likewise remembered that this piece was not published with the name of Shakspeare till after his death. The quartos [of 1600] and 1611 are anony

'It was evidently the work of one who was acquainted Mr. Malone, in the preceding note, has expressed with Greek and Roman literature. It is likewise dehis opinion that Shakspeare may have written a few ficient in such internal marks as distinguish the trage. lines in this play, or given some assistance to the audies of Shakspeare from those of other writers; I mean thor in revising it. Upon no other ground than this has that it presents no struggles to introduce the vein of any claim to a place among our poet's dramas: humour so constantly interwoven with the business of Those passages in which he supposed the hand of his serious dramas. It can neither boast of his striking Shakspeare may be traced, he marked with inverted excellencies, nor of his acknowledged defects; for it commas. This system of seizing upon every line pos- offers not a single interesting situation, a natural cha>essed of merit, as belonging of right to our great dra-racter, or a string of quibbles, from first to last. That matist, is scarcely doing justice to his contemporaries; Shakspeare should have written without commanding and resembles one of the arguments which Theobald our attention, moving our passions, or sporting with has used in his preface to The Double Falsehood:- words, appears to me as improbable as that he should "My partiality for Shakspeare makes me wish that have studiously avoided dissyllable and trisyllable ter every thing which is good or pleasing in our tongue minations in this play and in no other. had been owing to his pen." Many of the writers of that day were men of high poetical talent; and many individual speeches are found in plays, which, as plays, are of no value, which would not have been in any way unworthy of Shakspeare himself; of whom, Dr. Johnson has observed, that "his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of the fable and the tenour of his dialogue; and that he that tries to recommend him by select quotations will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his nouse to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen." Dr. Farmer has ascribed Titus Andronicus to Kyd, and placed it on a level with Locrine; but it appears to be much more in the style of Marlowe. His fondness for accumulating horrors upon other occasions, will account for the sanguinary character of this play; and it would not, I think, be difficult to show by extracts from his other performances, that there is not a line in it which he was not fully capable of writing.'-Boswell.

The author, whoever he was, might have borrowed the story, &c. from an old ballad which is entered in the books of the Stationers' Company immediately after the play to John Danter, Feb. 6, 1593: and again entered to Tho. Pavyer, April 19, 1602. The reader will find it in Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i. Painter, in his Palace of Pleasure, tom. ii. speaks of the story of Titus as well known, and particularly mentions the cruelty of Tamora. And there is an allusion to it in A Knack to Know a Knave, 1594. I have given the reader a specimen (in the notes) of the changes made in this play by Ravenscroft; and may add, that when the Empress stabs her child, he has supplied the Moor with the following lines:

mous.

Could the use of particular terms, employed in no other of his pieces, be admitted as an argument that he found; among which is palliament for robe, a Latinism, was not its author, more than one of these might be which I have not met with elsewhere in any English writer, whether ancient or modern; though it must have originated from the mint of a scholar. I may add, that Titus Andronicus will be found on examination to contain a greater number of classical allusions, &c. than are scattered over all the rest of the performances on which the seal of Shakspeare is indubitably fixed.Not to write any more about and about this suspected thing, let me observe, that the glitter of a few passages in it has, perhaps, misled the judgment of those who ought to have known that both sentiment and descripfabric of a tragedy. Without these advantages many tion are more easily produced than the interesting plays have succeeded; and many have failed, in which they have been dealt about with lavish profusion. It does not follow that he who can carve a frieze with minuteness, elegance, and ease, has a conception equal to the extent, propriety, and grandeur of a temple.

"Whatever were the motives of Heming and Condell for admitting this tragedy among those of Shakspeare, all it has gained by their favour is, to be delivered down to posterity with repeated remarks of contempt-a to be derided.'-Steevens. Thersites babbling among heroes, and introduced only

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

SATURNINUS, Son to the late Emperor of Rome, and | ALARBUS,
afterwards declared Emperor himself.
BASSIANUS, Brother to Saturninus; in love with La-

vinia.

CHIRON,
DEMETRIUS,

}

Sons to Tamora.

AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora.

A Captain, Tribune, Messenger, and Clown; Ro-
Goths and Romans.

mans.

TAMORA, Queen of the Goths.

LAVINIA, Daughter to Titus Andronicus.
A Nurse, and a Black Child.

Kinsmen of Titus, Senators, Tribunes, Officers,
Soldiers and Attendants.

SCENE-Rome; and the Country near it.

And, countrymen, my loving followers,
Plead my successive title' with your swords:
I am his first-born son, that was the last
That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;
Then let my father's honours live in me,
Nor wrong mine age2 with this indignity.

1 i. e. my title to the succession. The empire being elective and not successive, the emperors in being made profit of their own times.'-Raleigh.

2 Saturninus means his seniority in point of age. In

Bas. Romans,-friends, followers, favourers off
my right,-

If ever Bassianus, Cæsar's son,
Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,
Keep then this passage to the Capitol ;
And suffer not dishonour to approach
The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,
To justice, continence, and nobility:
But let desert in pure election shine;
And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.
Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the Crown.
Mar. Princes that strive by factions, and by
friends,

Ambitiously for rule and empery,

MORA, with ALARBUS, CHIRON, DEMETRIUS,
AARON, and other Goths, prisoners; Soldiers and
People following. The Bearers set down the Cof-
fin, and TITUs speaks.

Tit. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning
weeds!

Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught,
Returns with precious lading to the bay,
From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,
Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
To re-salute his country with his tears;
Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.-
Thou great defender of this Capitol,2
Stand gracious to the rights that we intend!-

Know, that the people of Rome, for whom we stand Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,

A special party, have, by common voice,

In election for the Roman empery,
Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius,

For many good and great deserts to Rome;
A nobler man, a braver warrior,
Lives not this day within the city walls:
He by the senate is accited' home,
From weary wars against the barbarous Goths;
That, with his sons, a terror to our foes,
Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.
Ten years are spent, since first he undertook
This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms
Our enemies' pride: Five times he hath return'd
Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons
In coffins from the field;

And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,
Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,
Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.
Let us entreat,-By honour of his name,
Whom, worthily, you would have now succeed,
And in the Capitol and senate's right,
Whom you pretend to honour and adore,-
That you withdraw you, and abate your strength;
Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,
Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.
Sat. How fair the tribune speaks to calm my
thoughts!

Bas. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy
In thy uprightness and integrity,

And so I love and honour thee and thine,
Thy nobler brother Titus, and his sons,

And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,
Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,
That I will here dismiss my loving friends;
And to my fortunes, and the people's favour,
Commit
my cause in balance to be weigh'd.
[Exeunt the Followers of BASSIANUS.
Sat. Friends that have been thus forward in my
right,

I thank you all, and here dismiss you all;
And to the love and favour of my country
Commit myself, my person, and the cause.

[Exeunt the Followers of SATURNINUS.
Rome, be as just and gracious unto me,
As I am confident and kind to thee.-
Open the gates, and let me in.

Bas. Tribunes! and me, a poor competitor.
[SAT. and BAs. go into the Capitol, and exeunt
with Senators, MARCUS, &c.
SCENE II. The same.

others.

Enter a Captain, and

Cap. Romans, make way; the good Andronicus,
Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,
Successful in the battles that he fights,
With honour and with fortune is return'd,
From where he circumscribed with his sword,
And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.
Flourish of Trumpets, &c. Enter MUTIUS and
MARTIUS; after them two Men bearing a Coffin
covered with black; then QUINTUS and LUCIUS.
After them, TITUS ANDRONICUS; and then TA-

a subsequent passage Tamora speaks of him as a very

young man.

1 Summoned.

2 Jupiter, to whom the Capitol was sacred.

3 Earthy. Ed 1600.

Half of the number that king Priam had,
Behold the poor remains alive, and dead!
These, that survive, let Rome reward with love;
These that I bring unto their latest home,
With burial amongst their ancestors:

Here Goths have given me leave to sheath my
sword.

Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,
Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?-
Make way to lay them by their brethren.

[The Tomb is opened.

There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars!
O, sacred receptacle of my joys,

Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,

How many sons of mine hast thou in store,
That thou wilt never render to me more?

Luc. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs, and, on a pile,
Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh,
Before this earthly3 prison of their bones;
That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,
Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.*
Tit. I give him you; the noblest that survives,
The eldest son of this distressed queen. [queror,
Tam. Stay, Roman brethren;-Gracious con-
Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother's tears in passion for her son:
And, if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son to be as dear to me.
Sufficeth not, that we are brought to Rome,
To beautify thy triumphs, and return,
Captive to thee, and to thy Roman yoke;
But must my sons be slaughter'd in the streets,
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O! if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge;
Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.

Tit. Patients yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld
Alive, and dead; and for their brethren slain,
Religiously they ask a sacrifice:

To this your son is mark'd; and die he must,
To appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
Luc. Away with him! and make a fire straight;
And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,
Let's hew his limbs, till they be clean consum'd.

[Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and
MUTIUS, with ALARBUS.
Tam. O, cruel, irreligious piety!
Chi. Was ever Scythia half so barbarous ?
Dem. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.
Alarbus goes to rest; and we survive
To tremble under Titus' threatening look.
Then, madam, stand resolv'd; but hope withal,
The selfsame gods, that arm'd the queen of Troy

4 It was supposed that the ghosts of unburied people
appeared to solicit the rites of funeral.
5 i. e. in grief.

6 This verb is used by other old dramatic writers. Thus in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

'Patient yourself, we cannot help it now.'

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

With opportunity of sharp revenge
Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent,1
May favour Tamora, the queen of Goths,
(When Goths were Goths, and Tamora was queen,)
To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.
Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MU-
TIUS, with their Swords bloody.

Luc. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd
Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,
And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,

Whose smoke, like incense, doth perfume the sky.
Remaineth nought, but to inter our brethren,
And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.
Tit. Let it be so, and let Andronicus
Make this his latest farewell to their souls.

[Trumpets sounded, and the Coffins laid in My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;
Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,
Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges; here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep:

In prace and honour rest you here, my sons!
Lav. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long:
My noble lord and father, live in fame!
Lo! at this tomb my tributary tears
I render, for my brethren's obsequies:
And at thy feet I kneel with tears of joy
Shed on the earth, for thy return to Rome:

bless me here with thy victorious hand,
Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud.
Tit. Kind Rome, thou hast thus lovingly reserv'd
The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!-
Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,
And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!2
Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS, SATURNINUS, BAS-I

Mar. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,
Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!
Tit. Thanks, gentle tribune, noble brother Mar-

Mar. And welcome, nephews, from successful

1 Theobald says that we should read, in her tent; allusion to the Ajax of Sophocles, of which no transla other occasion he observes, that the writer has a plain i. e. in the tent where she and the other Trojan women tion was extant in the time of Shakspeare.' were kept; for thither Hecuba by a wile had decoyed Polymnestor, in order to perpetrate her revenge. Stee-phical, yet poetical sense. 2 Tooutlive an eternal date' is, though not philoso vens objects to Theobald's conclusion, that the writer be longer than his, and her praise longer than fame to gleaned this circumstance from the Hecuba of EuriHe wishes that her life may pides, and says, he may have been misled by the pas-nounced happy before his death. 3 The maxim alluded to is, that no man can be prosage