1

Fall, and no more: and, to atone 1 your fears
With my more noble meaning,—not a man
Shall
pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds,

But shall be remedied, to your public laws
At heaviest answer.

Both.

"Tis most nobly spoken.

Alc. Descend, and keep your words.

The Senators descend, and open

Enter SOLDIER.

the gates.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead; Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea: And, on his grave-stone, this insculpture, which With wax I brought away, whose soft impression Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alc. [reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft.

Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!

Here lie I Timon, who, alive, all living men did

hate.

Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy gait.'

These well express in thee thy latter spirits.

1 Reconcile.

Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs, Scorn'dst our brain's flow,1 and those our droplets,

which

From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon; of whose memory

Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,

And I will use the olive with my sword;

Make war breed peace, make peace stint war; make each

Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.3

Let our drums strike.

[Exeunt.

1 Tears.

a Stop.

3 Physician.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

273

HISTORICAL NOTICE

OF

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

This sanguinary and disgusting tragedy is still suffered to retain its place among the works of our author, although it is rejected by all the commentators and critics except Capell and Schlegel. The editors of the first folio edition however have included it in that volume, which implies that they considered the play as his production. George Meres enumerates it among his works in 1598, and this author was personally esteemed and consulted by our poet. It is now generally supposed that the present drama found admission into the original complete edition of Shakspeare's works only because he had written a few lines in it, assisted in its revisal, or produced it on the stage. A tradition to this effect is mentioned by Ravenscroft in the preface to his alteration of this tragedy, as acted at Drury Lane in 1687, where he says, 'I have been told by some anciently conversant with the stage, that it was not originally Shakspeare's, but was brought by a private author to be acted; and he gave only some master-touches to one or two of the principal parts.' The events of this drama are not of historical occurrence, but were probably borrowed from an old ballad on the same subject entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in 1593, about