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do not know what interval might have elapſed between the compoſition and the publication of that poem. There is indeed a paſage in the dedication already mentioned, which, if there were not ſuch deciſive evidence on the other ſide, might induce us to think that he had not written, in 1593, any piece of more dignity than a love-poem, or at leaſt any on which he himſelf ſet a value. “ If (ſays he to his noble patron) your honour ſeem but pleaſed, I account myſelf highly praiſed, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with ſome graver labour.”
“ A booke, entitled a Noble Roman Hiſtory of Titus Andronicus,” (without any author's name) was entered at Stationers' hall, Feb. 6, 1593—4. This I ſuppoſe to have been the play, as it was printed in that year, and acted (according to Langbaine, who alone appears to have ſeen the firſt edition) by the ſervants of the earls of Pembroke, Derby, and Eſſex.
Mr. Pope thought, that Titus Andronicus was not written by Shakſpeare, becauſe Ben Jonſon ſpoke ſlightingly of it, while Shakſpeare was yet living, This argument will not, perhaps, bear a very ſtrict examination. If it were allowed to have any validity, many of our author's genuine productions muſt be excluded from his works; for Ben Jonſon has ridiculed ſeveral of his dramas, in the ſame piece in which he has mentioned Andronicus with contempt.
It has been ſaid that Francis Meres, who in 1598 enumerated this among our author’s plays, might have been miſled by a title-page; but we may preſume that he was informed or deceived by ſome other means; for Shakſpeare’s name is not in the title-page of the edition printed in 1611, and therefore, we may conclude, was not in the title page of that in 1594, of which the other was probably a re-impreſſion.
However, (notwithſtanding the authority of Meres) the high antiquity of the piece, its entry on the Stationers’ books without the name of the writer, the regularity of the verſification, the diſſimilitude of the ſtyle from that of thoſe plays which are undoubtedly compoſed by our author, and the tradition[1] mentioned by Ravenſcroft, at a period when
- ↑ I have been told, by ſome anciently converſant with the ſtage, that it [Titus Andronicus] was not originally his, but brought by a private author to be acted, and he only gave ſome maſter
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