INTRODUCTION.

We feel no hesitation in assigning “Titus Andronicus” to Shakespeare. Whether he may lay claim to it as the author of the entire tragedy, or only in a qualified sense, as having made additions to, and improvements in it, is a different and a more difficult question.

We find it given to him by his contemporary, Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, 1598, where he mentions “Titus Andronicus” in immediate connection with “Richard II.,” “Richard III.,” “Henry IV.,” “King John,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” It was also inserted in the folio of 1623 by Shakespeare's fellow-actors, Heminge and Condell, and they place it between “Coriolanus” and “Romeo and Juliet.” Had it not been by our great dramatist, Meres, who was well acquainted with the literature of his time, would not have attributed it to him; and the player-editors, who had been Shakespeare's “fellows and friends,” and were men of character and experience, would not have included it in their volume. These two facts are, in our view, sufficient^{1 note}.

It was, undoubtedly, one of his earliest, if not his very earliest dramatic production. We are not to suppose that at the time he first joined a theatrical company in London, when he might not be more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, his style was as formed and as matured as it afterwards became: all are aware that there is a most marked distinction between his mode of composition early and late in life; as exhibited, for instance, in “Love's Labour's Lost,” and in “The Winter's Tale;” and we apprehend that “Titus Andronicus” belongs to a period even anterior to the former. Supposing “Titus Andronicus” to have been written about 1588, we are to recollect that our dramatic poets were then only beginning to throw off the shackles of rhyme, and their versification partook of the weight and monotony which were the usual accompaniments of couplets. “Titus Andronicus” is to be read under this impression, and many passages will then be found in it which, we think, are remarkable indications of skill and power in

an unpractised dramatist: as a poetical production it has not hitherto had justice done to it, on account, partly, of the revolting nature of the plot. Compared with the versification of Greene, Peele, or Lodge, the lines in “Titus Andronicus” will be found to run with ease and variety, and they are scarcely inferior to the later and better productions of Marlowe. Neither is internal evidence wholly wanting, for words and phrases employed by Shakespeare in his other works may be pointed out; and in Act iii. sc. 1, we meet a remarkable expression, which is also contained in “Venus and Adonis.”

With reference to the general complexion of the drama, and the character of the plot, it must also be borne in mind that it was produced at a time, when scenes of horror were especially welcome to public audiences, and when pieces were actually recommended to their admiration in consequence of the blood and slaughter with which they abounded. Shakespeare, perhaps, took up the subject on this account, and he worked it out in such a way as, prior to the introduction and formation of a purer taste, would best gratify those for whose amusement it was intended.

The oldest known edition of “Titus Andronicus” bears date in 1600: two copies of it are extant, the one in the collection of Lord Francis Egerton, now before us, and the other in the Signet Library at Edinburgh. This second copy was not discovered until very recently, and we feel convinced that a more ancient impression will some time or other again be brought to light. That it once existed, we have the testimony of Langbaine, in his “Account of English Dramatic Poets,” 8vo. 1691, where he tells us that the play was “first printed 4to. Lond. 1594.” Consistently with this assertion we find the following entry in the Registers of the Stationers' Company:—

“6 Feb. 1593
John Danter] A booke entitled a noble Roman Historye of Tytus Andronicus.”

The Stationers' books contain several subsequent memoranda respecting “Titus Andronicus,” bearing date 19th April, 1602, 14th Dec. 1624, and 8th Nov. 1630; but none which seems to have relation to the editions of 1600 and 1611. No quarto impressions of a subsequent date are known, and the tragedy next appeared in the folio of 1623. The folio was printed from the quarto of 1611, but with the addition of a short scene in the third Act, which otherwise, according to the divisions there adopted, would have consisted of only one scene.

The wording of the title-page of the edition of 1600 is remarkable, although it has hitherto been passed over without due notice: it professes that the drama had been played not only by “the Lord Chamberlain's servants,” of whom Shakespeare was one, but by the

theatrical servants of the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Derby, and the Earl of Sussex. The performance of Shakespeare's plays seems almost uniformly to have been confined to the company to which he belonged; but we know from Henslowe's Diary that between 3rd June, 1594, and 15th Nov. 1596, the Lord Chamberlain's servants were acting in apparent conjunction with those of the Lord Admiral^{2 note}: one of the plays, enumerated by Henslowe as having been acted in this interval, is “Titus Andronicus,” which circumstance he records under date of 12th June, 1594. This may have been the very play Shakespeare had written, and which having been thus represented by several companies, although the Earl of Nottingham's servants was not one of them, the fact was stated on the title-page of the earliest extant impression. It is to be observed, however, that Henslowe has an entry of the performance of “Titus Andronicus” on the 23rd Jan. 1593–4, when it appears to have been a new play. The “Titus Andronicus,” therefore, acted on 12th June, 1594, may have been a repetition of a drama, which possibly had been got up for Henslowe, in consequence of the success of a tragedy upon the same story, the property of a rival company. There can be little doubt that Shakespeare's “Titus Andronicus” was written several years earlier.

It is very possible that Shakespeare's “Titus Andronicus” was founded upon some anterior dramatic performance, but on this point we have no evidence beyond what may be collected from the piece itself, in certain real or supposed dissimilarities of composition.

When Danter entered the “noble Roman History of Titus Andronicus” in 1593, he coupled with it “the ballad thereof,” which probably is the same printed in Percy's “Reliques,” vol. i. p. 241, edit. 1812. A play called “Andronicus” is mentioned by Ben Jonson in the Induction to his “Bartholomew Fair,” (played first in 1614,) as a piece of twenty-five or thirty years standing. This may have been Shakespeare's tragedy, that acted by Henslowe's company, or a drama which had served as the foundation of both. The oldest notice of “Titus Andronicus” (excepting that by Meres) is contained in a tract called “Father Hubbard's Tales, or The Ant and the Nightingale,” 4to. 1604, imputed to Thomas Middleton, where (Sign. E. 3) the author speaks of the “lamentable action of one arm, like old Titus Andronicus.” The loss of his hand by the hero would no doubt form an incident in every drama written upon the subject.

1 ^note.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ SATURNINUS, Son to the late Emperor of Rome, and afterwards declared Emperor. 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, Son to Titus Andronicus. QUINTUS, Son to Titus Andronicus. MARTIUS, Son to Titus Andronicus. MUTIUS, Son to Titus Andronicus. Young LUCIUS, a Boy, Son to Lucius. PUBLIUS, Son to Marcus the Tribune. ÆMILIUS [Aemilius], a noble Roman. ALARBUS, Son to Tamora. DEMETRIUS, Son to Tamora. CHIRON, Son to Tamora. 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. [Caius], [Valentine], [Goth 1], [Goth 2], [Goth], [Roman Lord], [Roman 1] SCENE, Rome; and the Country near it.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

Next section