p. 294. p. 297. is supposed to take place near a gate of the city, as the Ladies enter it. SCENE VI. which he did end all his :- Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 has, "which he did ear [i. e., plough] all his;" and this has been received with favor, though it is admitted that it makes a transposition necessary, and requires us to read, "holp to ear the fame Which he did reap all his.” But there is not the least necessity for this violence to the original text. Aufidius helped to reap the fame which Coriolanus made, in the end, all his. "He waged me with his countenance":-i. e., he paid me, &c.; gave me his countenance as wages. “No more”: —i. e., as Mason remarked, No more than a boy. "Flutter'd your Volsces" : It is hardly worth while to mention that the folio misprints, Flatter'd," &c. do it presently : i. e., instantly, at the present moment. The change in the meaning of this word which, used always as it is here in Shakespeare's day, is now universally used to mean a time between on the instant and by and by seems to indicate that procrastination is inherent in man. "The most lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus. As it hath sundry times beene playde by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke, the Earle of Darbie, the Earle of Sussex, and the Lorde Chamberlaine theyr Seruants. AT LONDON, Printed by I. R. for Edward White, and are to bee solde at his shoppe, at the little North doore of Paules, at the signe of the Gun." 1600. 4to. 40 leaves. The Same. "As it hath sundry times beene plaide by the Kings Maiesties Seruants." London, 1611. 4to. 40 leaves. The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus occupies twentytwo pages in the folio of 1623, viz., from p. 31 to p. 52 inclusive, in the division of Tragedies. It is divided into Acts, but not into Scenes; and Rowe first gave it a list of Dramatis Persona. (334) TITUS ANDRONICUS. A INTRODUCTION. BOUT the year 1678 Edward Ravenscroft produced a revised and rewritten version of this play. In 1687 this version was printed with a preface, in which Ravenscroft says, touching Shakespeare's reputed authorship of the drama in its original form, "I have been told 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 or characters." Upon this assertion, supported by the date at which Titus Andronicus is known to have been written, and its inferiority both in matter and style to Shakespeare's undoubted works, rested for many years a belief that it was not his. This was the opinion of Theobald, Johnson, Farmer, Malone, and Steevens, and also of Hallam, who was, doubtless, justified in remarking that "Titus Andronicus is now [1837] by common consent denied to be in any sense a production of Shakespeare." (Introduction to the Literature of Europe, Vol. II. p. 177, ed. 1847.) Mr. Knight, in the same spirit which marked his treatment of the question of the authorship of King Henry the Sixth, and with his accustomed enthusiasm, came forward in 1841 to maintain that, on the contrary, Titus Andronicus is, in every sense of the word, the work of Shakespeare. Mr. Collier, who differed from him upon so many other points, agreed with him on this; and the general opinion, following their guidance, seems now to be nearly, if not quite, the reverse of what it was when Hallam wrote. But ere we go with the multitude either of the past or the present day, let us examine the evidence for ourselves. The task will be a brief one. Although at least three editions of Titus Andronicus had been printed before 1623, it was not published as Shakespeare's until it appeared as a part of the first collected edition of his works; in which respect it is like Romeo and Juliet and Henry the Fifth. |