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extracted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from Robert Greene’s Groatſworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance[1], in which there is an evident alluſion to our author’s name, as well as to one of his plays.
At what time ſoever he became acquainted with the theatre, we may preſume that he had not compoſed his firſt play long before it was acted; for being early incumbered with a young family, and not in very affluent circumſtances, it is improbable that he ſhould have ſuffered it to lie in his cloſet, without endeavouring to derive ſome profit from it; and in the miſerable ſtate of the drama in thoſe days, the meaneſt of his genuine plays muſt have been a valuable acquiſition, and would hardly have been refuſed by any of the managers of our ancient theatres.
Titus Andronicus appears to have been acted before any other play attributed to Shakſpeare; and therefore, as it has been admitted into all the editions of his works, whoever might have been the writer of it, it is entitled to the firſt place in this general liſt of his dramas. From Ben Jonſon’s induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, we learn that Andronicus had been exhibited twenty-five or thirty years before, that is, at the loweſt computation, in 1580; or, taking a middle period, (which is perhaps more juſt) in 1587. In our author's dedication of his Venus and Adonis to lord Southampton, in 1593, he tells us, as Mr. Steevens has obſerved, that that poem was “ the firſt heir of his invention:” and if we were ſure that it was publiſhed immediately, or ſoon, after it was written, it would at once prove Titus Andronicus not to be the production of Shakſpeare, and nearly aſcertain the time when he commenced a dramatick writer. But we
- ↑ This tract has no date, but was publiſhed after the author’s death, agreeably to his dying requeſt. It appears to have been written not long before his death; for near the conclu{(ls}}ion he ſays, “ Albeit weakneſs will ſcarce ſuffer me to write, yet to my fellow ſchollers about this citie will I direct theſe few inſuing lines.” He died, according to Dr. Gabriel Harvey's account, on the third of September 1592. Additions by Oldys to Winſtanley’s Lives of the Poets, Mſ.
againſt their own wickedneſſe, if they perſever to maintaine any more ſuch peaſants. For other new-commers, I leave them to the mercie of theſe painted monſters, who, I doubt not, will drive the beſt minded to deſpiſe them, &c.” Greene’s Groatſworth of Witte, &c. Sig. E. 4.
