have given credit to the rumour of the day. For six of the plays which he has mentioned, (exclusive of the evidence which the representation of the pieces themselves might have furnished,) he had perhaps no better authority than the whisper of the theatre; for they were not then printed. He could not have been deceived by a title-page, as Dr. Johnson supposes; for Shakspeare's same is not in the title-page of the edition printed in quarto in 1611, and therefore we may conclude, was not in the title-page of that in 1594, of which the other was undoubtedly a re-impression. Had this mean performance been the work of Shakspeare, can it be supposed that the booksellers would not have endeavoured to procure a sale for it by stamping his name upon it? In short, the high antiquity of the piece, its entry on the Stationers' books, and being afterwards printed without the name of our author, 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 compositions, and the tradition mentioned by Ravenscroft, when some of his contemporaries had not been long dead, (for Lowin and Taylor, two of his fellow-comedians, were alive a few years before the Restoration, and Sir William D'Avenant, who had himself written for the stage in 1626, 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. 66 Kyd-probably original author of Andronicus, Locrine, and play in Hamlet.-Marloe, of H. 6. Ben Jonson, Barthol. Fair-ranks together Hieronymo and Andronicus, [time and stile]-first exposed him to the criticksshelter'd afterwards under another's name. "Sporting Kyd [perhaps wrote comedy] and Marloe's mighty line-Jonson. [might assist Lily,] Perhaps Shakspeare's additions outshone. "Tamburlaine mention'd with praise by Heywood, as Marloe's, might be different from the bombast one-and that written by Kyd." From a loose scrap of paper, in the hand writing of Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. In the library of the Duke of Bridgewater, at Ashridge, is a volume of old quarto plays, numbered R. 1.7; in which the first is Titus Andronicus. I have collated it with the tragedy as it stands in the edition of Shakspeare, 1793: and the following remarks, and various readings, are here assigned to their proper places. TODD. The ingenious and accurate Mr. Todd has most obligingly collated this tragedy (4to. 1600) with that in 8vo. 1793. Most of his collations, &c. will be found at the bottom of the following pages. STEEvens. Mr. Malone, in a preceding note, has expressed his opinion that Shakspeare may have written a few lines in this play, or given some assistance to the author in revising it. Upon no other ground than this, has it any claim to a place among our poet's dramas? Those passages in which he supposed the hand of Shakspeare may be traced, are marked wirh inverted commas. I cannot help thinking that this system of seizing upon every line possessed of merit as belonging of right to our great dramatist, is scarcely doing justice to his contemporaries, and resembles one of the arguments which Theobald has used in his preface to The Double Falshood: "My partiality for Shakspeare makes me wish that every thing which is good or pleasing in our tongue 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 his fable and the tenor of his dialogue, and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen." It is with the utmost diffidence that I venture to call in question the opinion of Dr. Farmer, who has ascribed Titus Andronicus to Kyd, and placed it on a level with Locrine; but it appears to me 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. PERSONS REPRESENTED. SATURNINUS, Son to the late Emperor of Rome, and afterwards declared Emperor himself. BASSIANUS, Brother to SATURNINUS; in love with LAVINIA. TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman, General against the Goths. MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People; and Brother to TITUS. LUCIUS, QUINTUS, Sons to TITUS ANDRONICUS. · MARTIUS, MUTIUS, Young LUCIUS, a Boy, Son to LUCIUS. AARON, a Moor, beloved by TAMORA. A Captain, Tribune, Messenger, and Clown ; Romans. Goths and Romans. 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. TITUS ANDRONICUS. ACT I. SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol. The Tomb of the Andronici appearing; the Tribunes and Senators aloft, as in the Senate. Enter, below, SATURNINUS and his Followers, on one side; and BASSIANUS and his Followers, on the other; with Drum and Colours. SAT. Noble patricians, patrons of my right, Defend the justice of my cause with arms; And, countrymen, my loving followers, Plead my successive title1 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. BAS. Romans,-friends, followers, favourers of my right, If ever Bassianus, Cæsar's son, I my SUCCESSIVE title-] i. e. my title to the succession. MALONE. Thus also Raleigh: "The empire being elective, and not successive, the emperors, in being, made profit of their own times." STEEVENS. 2- mine AGE-] My seniority in point of age. Tamora, in a subsequent passage, speaks of him as a very young man : "If Saturnine advance the queen of Goths, "She will a handmaid be to his desires; "A loving nurse, a mother to his youth." BOSWELL. 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, Know, that the people of Rome, for whom we stand A special party, have, by common voice, Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius For many good and great deserts to Rome: Lives not this day within the city walls: From weary wars against the barbarous Goths; Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms. And now at last, laden with honour's spoils, Whom you pretend to honour and adore, That you withdraw you, and abate your strength; |