INTRODUCTORY REMARKS SPON THIS PLAY REJECTED AS SPURIOUS BY MANY ENGLISH CRITICS-EXTERNAL PROOF AS OTHERWISE-OPINIONS OF CONTINENTAL AND LATER ENGLISH CRITICS. A GREAT majority of the English Shakespearian editors, commentators, and critics, including some of the very highest names in literature, have concurred in rejecting this bloody and repulsive tragedy as wholly unworthy of Shakespeare, and therefore erroneously ascribed to him. Yet the external evidence of his authorship of the piece is exceedingly strong-indeed stronger than that for one half of his unquestioned works. It was repeatedly printed during the author's life; the first time (as appears from the Stationers' Register and Langbaine's authority, no copy being now known to be in existence) in 1593 or 1594, by J. Danter, who was also, in 1597, the publisher of ROMEO AND JULIET, in its original form. It was again reprinted in a quarto pamphlet in 1600 and in 1611. It was finally published in the first folio in 1623, and placed without question amongst the tragedies, between CORIOLANUS and ROMEO AND JULIET. The editors of this first collection of Shakespeare's "Comedies, and Histories, and Tragedies, published according to the true originall copies," announced to their readers, in their preface, 'the care and paine" they had taken so to publish "his writings, that where before you were abused with diverse stolen and surreptitious copies maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthe of injurious impostors; even these are now offered to view cured and perfect of their limbs; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them." It is then difficult to believe that editors who thus professed to reject even imperfect copies of genuine plays, should have admitted without doubt a whole play in which their author had no hand. Nor can we suppose them likely to be mistaken in such a matter, when we recollect that these editors were Heminge and Condell, long the managers of a theatrical company which had represented this very play, and to whom its author could not well have been unknown; who were, moreover, for years Shakespeare's associates in theatrical concerns, and his personal friends, and who, in connection with the great original actor of OTHELLO and RICHARD, HAMLET and LEAR, are remembered by the Poet in his will, by a bequest "to my fellows John Hemynge, Richard Burbage, and Henry Cundell, to buy them rings." 66 These editors had besides given no slight proof of their care and fidelity on this point, by rejecting at least fourteen other plays ascribed by rumor, or by the unauthorized use of his name, to Shakespeare, and a part of which were afterwards added to their collection by the less scrupulous publishers of the folios of 1664 and of 1685. TITUS ANDRONICUs is moreover unhesitatingly ascribed to Shakespeare by his contemporary Francis Meres, in the "Comparative discourse of our English Poets, with the Greek, Latine, and Italian Poets," contained in his "Palladis Tamia," 1598. The list of Shakespeare's works there given by Meres, has always been regarded as the best authority for the chronology of all the great Poet's works mentioned in it, and it contains the title of no other piece that ever has been questioned as of doubtful authenticity. Meres is said by Schlegel to have been personally acquainted with the Poet, and "so very intimately, that the latter read to him his sonnets before they were printed." I do not know on what authority he states this fact so strongly; yet it is remarkable that, in 1598, eleven years before Shakespeare's sonnets were printed, Meres had said "the sweete wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare; witness his VENUS AND ADONIS, his LUCRECE, his sugared sonnets among his private friends." It is besides certain, on other authority, that Meres, at the date of his publication, was intimately connected with Drayton, and he was very familiar with the literature and literary affairs of his day. Now all this chain of positive evidence applies, not merely to an obscure play unknown in its day, but to a piece which, with all its faults, suited the taste of the times, was several times reprinted, and was often acted, and that by different theatrical companies, one of which was that with which Shakespeare was himself connected. It would be without example, that the author of such a piece should have been content for years to have seen his work ascribed to another. Indeed, we find no trace of any doubt on the subject, until 1687, nearly a century after the first edition, when Ravenscroft, who altered TITUS ANDRONICUS to make it apply to a temporary political purpose, asserted that he had "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 characters." But Ravenscroft's tradition comes in a most suspicious shape, as he had some years before spoken of the piece as unquestionably and entirely Shakespeare's.* "Ravenscroft's contemporary, Langbaine, makes his authority appear of very little value. Langbaine notices an early edition of Titus Andronicus,' now lost, printed in 1594; he adds-"Twas about the time of the Popish Plot revived and altered by Mr. Ravenscroft.' Ravenscroft was a living author when Langbaine published his 'Account of the English Dramatic Poets,' in 1691; and the writer of that account says, with a freedom that is seldom now adopted except in anonymous criticism-'Though he would be thought to imitate the silk-worm, that spins its web from its own bowels; yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the blood of men.' This is introductory to an account of those plays which Ravenscroft claimed as his own. But, under the head of Shakespeare, Langbaine says that Ravenscroft boasts. in his preface to Titus, 'That he thinks it a greater theft to rob the dead of their praise than Thus it would really seem on the first view of the question, that it would be as extravagant an opinion to deny this play to be Shakespeare's, as it would be to reject the joint testimony of the editor of Sheridan's works, of his fellow managers in Covent Garden, and of the contemporary critics to the authenticity of any of his dramas, on account of its alleged or real inferiority to the other productions of that brilliant and irregular mind. But all this external and collateral proof of authenticity is thrown aside by a host of critics, and this without any plausible attempt to explain how the error arose, and why it prevailed so generally and so long. Their argument rests almost entirely upon the manifest inferiority of this play of accumulated physical horrors, to its alleged author's other tragedies, and its difference from their style and versification, so great as to be judged incompatible with their proceeding from the same author. Thus Johnson observes, that "all the editors and critics agree in supposing this play spurious. I see no reason for differing from them; for the colour of the style is wholly differ. ent from that of the other plays, and there is an attempt at regular versification, and artificial closes, not always inelegant, yet seldom pleasing. The barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience, yet we are told by Jonson that they were not only borne but praised. That Shakespeare wrote any part, though Theobald declares it incontestable, I see no reason for believing." Mr. Hallam, a still higher authority in taste and in knowledge of the elder English literature, pronounces, with a dogmatism quite unusual in his candid and guarded, as well as sure-sighted criticism, that "TITUS ANDRONICUS is now by common consent denied to be, in any sense, a production of Shakespeare's; very few passages, I should think not one, resemble his manner." He allows indeed the credit due to Meres's ordinary accuracy in his enumeration, but adds: "In criticism of all kinds, we must acquire a dogged habit of resisting testimony when res ipsa vociferatur to the contrary."-(Lit. of Europe, vol. ii, chap. 6.) To these critics of the nobler class may be added the names of Malone, Stevens, Boswell, Seymour, and a host of others, including, I believe, all the commentating editors, except Capell, until within the last ten years. Some few of them, as Theobald and Perry, qualify this rejection by supposing that Shakespeare had added "a few fine touches" to the work of an inferior hand. For myself, I cannot but think that Mr. Hallam's rejection of all external testimony on such a point, as being incompetent to oppose the internal indications of taste, talent, and style, is in itself unphilosophical, and in contradiction to the experience of literary history. There may be such an internal evidence showing that a work could not have been written in a particular age or language. This may be too strong to be shaken by other proof. The evidence of differing taste, talent, or style, is quite another matter. On the ground taken by Mr. Hallam, Walter Scott's last novel, showing no want of learning and of labor, would be ejected from his works on account of its fatal inferiority to all his other prose and verse, had his biographers chosen, from any reasons of delicacy, to veil from us the melancholy cause of its inferiority, in the broken spirits and flagging intellect of its admirable author. We might enumerate several of Dryden's works which would hardly stand this test of authenticity; but it will be enough to mention his deplorable and detestable tragedy of AMBOYNA, written in the meridian of his faculties, yet as bloody and revolting as ANDRONICUS, and far more gross, and this without any redeeming touch of genius or feeling. More especially is this rule to be sparingly applied to the juvenile efforts of men of genius. We know from a sneer of Ben Jonson's at the critics who "will swear that Jeronymo or Andronicus are the best plays yet," (Bartholomew Fair, Ind.,) that these plays had been popular for twenty-five or thirty years in 1614, which throws the authorship of ANDRONICUS back to the time when Shakespeare was scarcely more than one-and-twenty, if he was not still a minor. We have had in our own times the "Hours of Idleness, by George Gordon, Lord Byron, a minor," published in the noble poet's twentieth year. Lord Byron's education and precocious acquaintance with the world, had given him far greater advantages for early literary exploit than Shakespeare could have possibly enjoyed; yet it is no exaggeration of the merits of ANDRONICUS to say that, with all its defects, it approximates more to its author's after excellence, than the commonplace mediocrity of Byron's juvenile efforts do to any of the works by which his subsequent fame was won. Swift's poor Pindaric Odes, written after he had attained manhood, might be denied to be his, for the same or similar reasons, as differing in every respect, of degree and kind, from the talent and taste he afterwards exhibited—as too extravagant and absurd to have been written by the author of the transparent prose, trong sense, and sarcastic wit of Gulliver; and equally incompatible with the mind of the inventor of that agreeable variety of English verse, in its lightest, easiest, simplest dress,— which he was born to introduce; Refined it first, and showed its use. Critics have vied with one another in loading this play with epithets of contempt; and indeed, as compared with the living of their money;' and Langbaine goes on to show that Ravenscroft's practice agrees not with his protestation,' by quoting some remarks of Shadwell upon plagiaries, who insinuates that Ravenscroft got up the story that Shakespeare only gave some mastertouches to TITUS ANDRONICUs, to exalt his own merit in having altered it. The play was revived about the time of the Popish Plot -1678. It was first printed in 1687, with this Preface. But Ravenscroft then suppresses the original Prologue; and Langbaine, with a quiet sarcasm, says 'I will here furnish him with part of his Prologue, which he has lost; and, if he desire it, send him the whole : the higher products of dramatic poetry, it has little to recommend it. But in itself, and for its times, it was very far from giving the indication of an unpoetical or undramatic mind. One proof of this is, that it was long a popular favorite on the stage. It is full of defects, but these are precisely such as a youthful aspirant, in an age of authorship, would be most likely to exhibit—such as the subjection to the taste of the day, good or bad, and the absence of that dramatic truth and reality which some experience of human passion, and observation of life and manners, can alone give the power to produce. This tragedy of coarse horror was in the fashion and taste of the times, and accordingly stands in the same relation to the other popular dramas of the age, that the juvenile attempts of Swift and Byron do to the poetry of their day which had excited their ambition. But it differs from their early writings in this, that while they fall very much below their models, this tragedy is at least equal to the once admired tragedies of Peele and Kyd, and if inferior in degree of power, yet not of an inferior class to the scenes of Marlowe and Green, the models of dramatic art and genius of their times. Theatrical audiences had not yet been taught to be thrilled "with grateful terror" without the presence of physical suffering; and the author of ANDRONICUs made them, in Macbeth's phrase, "sup full with horrors." He gave them stage effect and interest such as they liked, stately declamation, with some passages of truer feeling, and others of pleasing imagery. It is not in human nature that a boy author should be able to develope and pourtray the emotions and passions of Lear or of lago. It was much that he could raise them dimly before "his mind's eye," and give some imperfect outline and foreshadowing of them in Aaron and Andronicus. He who could do all this in youth and inexperience, might, when he had found his own strength, do much more. The boy author of TITUS ANDRONICUS might well have written LEAR twenty years after. The little resemblance of diction and versification of this play to after works, may also be ascribed to the same We do not need the experience or the authority of Dryden to prove that the mastery of "the numbers of his mother tongue," is one of those gifts which "nature never gives the young." cause. The young poet, born in an age and country having a cultivated poetic literature, good or bad, must, until he has formed his own ear by practice, and thus too by practice made his language take the impress and colour of his own mind, echo and repeat the tune of his instructors. This may be observed in Shakespeare's earlier comedies; and to my ear many lines and passages of ANDRONICUS,—such as the speech of Tamora in act ii, scene 2, “The birds chant melodies in every bush," etc., etc., and in this same scene the lines in the mouth of the same personage, "A barren detested vale, you see it is," recall the rhythm and taste of much of the poetry of the Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. The matchless freedom of dramatic dialogue and emotion, and of lyrical movement-the grand organ swell of contemplative harmony, were all to be afterwards acquired by repeated trial and continued practice. The versification and melody of TITUS ANDRONICUS are nearer to those of Shakespeare's two or three earlier comedies, than those are to the solemn harmony of Prospero's majestic morality. Nor can I find in this play any proof of the scholar-like familiarity with Greek and Roman literature, that Stevens asserts it to contain, and therefore to be as much above Shakespeare's reach in learning as beneath him in genius. This lauded scholarship does not go beyond such slight schoolboy familiarity with the more popular Latin poets read in schools, and with its mythology, and some hackneyed scraps of quotation such as the Poet has often shown elsewhere. The neglect of all accuracy of history, and of its costumes, the confusion of ancient Rome with modern and Christian habits, are more analogous to Shakespeare's own irregular acquirements than to the manner of a regularly trained scholar. Mr. Hallam has said of the undisputed Roman tragedies, that “it is manifest that in these, Roman character and still more Roman manners are not exhibited with the precision of the scholar”. a criticism from which few scholars will dissent as to the manner, though few will agree with it as to" Romar character." But if this be true in any extent of the historical dramas composed in the fullness of the Poet's knowledge and talent, we shall find the same sort of defects in TITUS ANDRONICUS, and carried to a greater excess. The story is put together without any historical basis, or any congruity with any period of Roman history. The Tribune of the people is represented as an efficient popular magistrate, while there is an elective yet despotic emperor. The personages are Pagans, appealing to " Apollo, Pallas, Juno, or Mercury," while at the beginning of the play we find a wedding according to the Catholic ritual, with "priest and holy water," and tapers "burning bright;" and at the end an allusion to a Christian funeral, with "burial and mournful weeds and mournful bell;" to say nothing of Aaron's sneer at "Popish ceremonies," or of the “ruined monastery" in the plain near Rome. (See note, act v, scene 1.) For all these reasons, I am so far from rejecting this play as spurious, that I regard it as a valuable and curious evidence of the history of its author's intellectual progress. A few years ago this opinion, advanced in the face of such an array of critical decisions, would have appeared paradoxical. The only editor or commentator of the last century who dared to maintain it, was Capell, an acute critic well versed in old English literature, but so unfortunate in a singularly confused style and dark peculiarity of expression, that his opinions carried with them no weight of authority, until recently, when later editors, who have profited by his labours, have joined in acknowl edging his merits. But in later times, Schlegel, Horn, Ulricci, and all the authors and translators of the Teutonic school of criticism, have agreed to recognize this as an early work of Shakespeare's; and some of them, in their adoration of the author, have given it higher praise than it deserves. An excellent critical article on Shakespearian literature in the Edinburgh Review for 1840, transiently expresses the same opinion as to its authenticity, but without going into any detail of argument. Finally, the last and best English editions of SHAKESPEARE,—those of Mr. Knight, and that of Mr. Collier-which agree on so few points admitting of any reasonable difference of opinion, concur in considering TITUS ANDRONICUS as one of the earliest, if not the very earliest dramatic production of Shakespeare. Mr. Collier, while" he has no hesitation in assigning it to Shakespeare," only doubts whether he was the author of the entire tragedy, or was only so in a qualified sense, as having made additions to and improvements on it." Mr. Knight and his critical associates wholly reject this qualification, and maintain with the German critics, "the simple belief that Shakespeare is in every sense of the word the author of TITTS ANDRONICUS." ARCHITECTURAL DECORATIONS AND SCENERY OF THE ROMAN TRAGEDIES. The period of TITUS ANDRONICUS is so vaguely indefinite, that any of the remains of Roman magnificence, down to the latest period of the Empire, are equally appropriate to it, of whatever date. Nor is there any great probability of much antiquarian inquiry ever being applied to its details. For the architectural decorations and illustra tions of JULIUS CESAR, and the other historical Roman tragedies, this edition is mainly indebted to the designs of Mr. Poynter, in the London Pictorial. The principle by which Mr. Poynter was guided in making his drawings is thus explained by himself in a note to the Pictorial Editor:-" Augustus found Rome of brick and left it of marble. I am inclined to think it would be an ungrateful task to illustrate the Rome of brick :-the attempt would produce nothing either true or interesting. I propose, therefore, to give the Forum, the Capitol, &c., not as scenes, but as illustrations, and to represent them as they actually were some two centuries later." COSTUME, ARMS, ETC., OF THE ROMAN DRAMAS. No poetic or dramatic author, in himself, needs less than Shakespeare the aid of historical accuracy of costume, architecture and decoration, except perhaps in the dramas founded on English history. But in our days, when under the impulse given by the Kembles, the stage has become so learnedly exact in its dresses and decorations, and when too the arts of design in every branch have found innumerable subjects in Shakespeare's pages, a knowledge of this historical costume in which these scenes should be arrayed, either on the stage or the canvass, has become a very useful and agreeable adjunct to Shakespearian literature. Indeed, in the present diffusion of pictorial literature, a moderately informed reader or spectator will find his habitual associations disturbed by incongruities and anachronisms, to which Shakespeare and his audience were alike blind. We have therefore transferred to this edition the substance of the notices of Roman costume in the Pictorial edition, which are applicable alike to the historical period of the republic, to the days of Cæsar and Anthony which ended it, and to the indefinite date of Andronicus in the decline of the Roman empire. For the very curious learning here collected in an agreeable form, the reader is mainly indebted to J. R. Planché, well known in various literary walks, who himself acknowledges his obligation to the most learned and classical of tailors, M. Combré, of Paris, whose practical and professional skill cleared up difficulties which puzzled Grevus, Gronovus, Montfaucon, and a host of other scholars in the last century. “From the reign of Augustus downwards innumerable authorities exist for the civil and military costume of the Romans; but before that period much obscurity remains to be dispersed, notwithstanding the labours of learned men. 46 Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth King of Rome, an Etruscan by birth, introduced among the Romans many of the manners and habits of his native country. He first distinguished the senators and magistrates by particular robes and ornaments, surrounded the axes carried before great public functionaries with bundles of rods (fasces), and established the practice of triumphing in a golden car drawn by four horses. The toga pura, prætexta, and picta, the trabea, the paludamentum, the tunica palmata, and the curule chairs, were derived from the Etruscans, and from the Greeks and Etruscans the early Romans borrowed their arms, offensive and defensive. It is, therefore, amongst Grecian and Etrurian remains that we must look for the illustration of such points as are still undecided respecting the habits of the Romans during the commonwealth, and not on the columns and arches of the emperors, which may almost be termed the monuments of another nation. The date assigned to the death of Caius Marcius Coriolanus is B. c. 488. Julius Cæsar was assassinated B. c. 44. During four hundred years little alteration took place in the habiliments of the Romans, and the civil and military dress of the earlier play may, with very few exceptions, be worn by similar personages in the other, and exhibit together the most particular dresses in use during the whole period of the republic. The civil dress of the higher classes amongst the ancient Romans consisted of a woollen tunic, over which, in public, was worn the toga. The toga was also of wool, and its colour, during the earlier ages, of its own natural yellowish hue. It was a robe of honour, which the common people were not permitted to wear, and it was laid aside in times of mourning and public calamities. The form of the toga has been a hotly-contested point; Dionysius Halicarnassus says it was semi-circular; and an ingenious foreigner," who devoted many years to the inquiry, has practically demonstrated that, though not perfectly semicircular, its shape was such as to be better described by that term than any other. "The Roman tunic was of different lengths, according to the caprice of the wearer; but long tunics were deemed effeminate during the time of the republic. Cicero, speaking of the luxury of Catiline's companions, says they wore tunics reaching to their heels, and that their togas were as large as the sails of a ship. Some wore two or more tunics; the interior one, which held the place of the modern shirt, was called interula or subucula. The subucula of Augustus was of wool, according to Suetonius; and there does not appear any proof that linen was used for this garment by men before the time of Alexander Severus, who, according to Lampridius, was particularly fond of fine linen. Women, however, appear to have generally used it, for Varro mentions, as an extraordinary circumstance, that it had long been the custom of the females of a particular Roman family not to wear linen garments. The common people wore over their tunics a kind of mantle or surtout, called lacerna, which was fastened before with a buckle, and had a hood attached to it (cucullus). It was generally made of wool, and dyed black or brown. In the time of Cicero it was a disgrace for a senator to adopt such a habit; but it was afterwards worn by the higher orders. The birrhus was a similar vestment, also with a hood, but usually of a red colour. When travelling, the heads of the higher classes were generally covered by the petasus, a broad-brimmed hat, which they had borrowed from the Greeks. The common people wore the pileus, a conical cap, which was also the emblem of liberty, because it was given to slaves when they were made free. "Various kinds of covering are mentioned for the feet, and many were called by the Romans calceus which are found under their own names, as pero, mulleus, phæcasium, caliga, solea, crepida, sandalium, baxea, etc. The caliga was the sandal of the Roman soldiery, such as had nails or spikes at the bottom. The pero is supposed by some to be the boot worn by the senators; the phæcasium was also a kind of boot, covering the foot entirely. According to Appianus, it was of white leather, and worn originally by the Athenian and Alexandrian priesthood at sacrifices: it was worn in Rome by women and effeminate persons. "The mulleus is described by Dion Cassius as coming up to the middle of the leg, though it did not cover the whole foot, but only the sole, like a sandal; it was of a red colour, and originally worn by the Alban kings. "The cothurnus, which it resembled both in colour and fashion, is described as having a ligature attached to the sole, which passed between the great and second toes, and then divided into two bands. And Virgil tells us that it was worn by the Tyrian virgins. "The armour of the Romans at the commencement of the republic consisted, according to Livy, of the galea, the cassis, the clypeus, the ocreæ or greaves, and the lorica, all of brass. This was the Etruscan attire, and introduced by Servius Tullius. The lorica, like the French cuirass, was so called from having been originally made of * "The late Mons. Combré, costumier to the Theatre Français, Paris. This intelligent person, at the recommendation of Talma, was engaged by Covent Garden Theatre, for the revival of Julius Cæsar, and made the beautiful togas which have since been worn in all the Roman plays at that theatre. |