1. THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. TITUS ANDRONICUS. (Her) "Tongue is now a stringless instrument."-Richard II. "On horrors' head, horrors accumulate."Othello. "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, IN treating a play of so doubtful a character as this, it will perhaps be better to give the external evidence relating to it before proceeding to state any opinion as to Shakespeare's connection with it. Ben Jonson, in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, says: "He that will swear, Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here, as a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five-and-twenty or thirty years." This would place the production of Andronicus between 1584 and 1589, if we take the statement literally. [Cf. the reference to "old Hieronimo, as it was first acted"-"a dozen years since" in the Induction to the same author's Cynthia's Revels, 1600.] B Henslowe's Diary, under date April 11th, 1592, speaks of a play called Tittus and Vespacia, as acted "by Lord Strange's men" [whom Prof. Ward unaccountably identifies with the Lord Admiral's Company]. From the same source, we learn that a Tittus and Ondronicus was produced as a new play, January 23rd, 1594. Shortly afterwards, 6 Feb., 1593 [4], there is the following entry on the Stationers' Register :— "John Danter] a booke entitled a noble Roman Historye of Tyttus Andronicus. Entered also by him, by warrant from Mr. Woodcock, the ballad thereof.” 1594. In this year also, according to Langbaine (1691), Titus Andronicus was first printed; but no copy of the quarto is extant. 1594. We also learn from Henslowe, that a play called Andronicous was acted on June 5th, 1594, at the Rose Theatre. 1594. In the play entitled A Knacke to Knowe a Knave, printed in this year, there is an allusion to Titus Andronicus. 1598. Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, mentions the play as one of Shakespeare's tragedies. 1600. A quarto edition appeared, bearing the following title: "The most lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus. As it hath been sundry times playde by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembroke, the Earle of Darbie, the Earle of Sussex, and the Lord Chamberlaine theyr Servants. At London, printed by J. R[oberts] for Edward White, and are to bee solde, &c. 1600.” 1602, April 19th. We have the following entry1 on the Stationers' Register:— I I have quoted this entry in full, because I do not think it supplies ground for Mr. Fleay's statement (N. S. S. Trans. 1874, vol. i. p. 47) that among Millington's copyrights sold to Pavier was a Titus Andronicus. The entries seem quite distinct; and we know that Millington had the copyright of the two "Tho. Pavier] by Assignt. from Tho. Millington salvo jure cujuscumq. The 1st and 2nd pts. of Henry the VI. : ii. books. "Tho. Pavier] Titus and Andronicus, entered by warrant under Mr. Setons hand." 1611. In this year, White brought out another quarto, entitled : "The most lamentable tragedie of Titus Andronicus. As yt hath sundry times been plaide by the King's Majesties Servants. Printed for Edward White, 1611." 1623. In the folio which was brought out in this year, Titus Andronicus was included among "the Tragedies," which were given in the following order: Troilus and Cressida [pages unnumbered, (see p. 99)], Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens (see p. 132), Julius Cæsar, &c. 1624. On the 14th Dec., Pavier again entered the play as Titus Andronnicus. 1626. Aug. 4th, "Mr. Pavier's rights in Shakespeare's plays," including Tytus and Andronicus, were transferred to Brewster and Birde; and in 1630. Birde assigned them to Richard Cotes. It should be added, as Dr. Latham says (Two Dissertations on the Hamlet, &c.), that, as early as 1600, a tragedy on this subject was acted in Germany by English players. It has been thought, by Cohn and others, that this must be the play mentioned by Henslowe on April 11th, 1592, as Tittus and Vespacia, for Vespasian (afterwards Emperor) is a character in the German play. That Shakespeare had some connection with a play upon the subject seems to be placed beyond doubt by the mention by Meres, and by the insertion in the First Folio; but, if the play as given in that edition be the one which is connected plays mentioned in the first entry (see Register, under March 12th, 1593), while we do not know that he had the copyright of any other play attributed to Shakespeare; the Henry V., which he had a share in bringing out in 1600, appears to have been the property of Creede the printer (see May 14th, 1594), and was probably transferred to Pavier on August 14th, 1600. with our poet's name [as indeed seems probable from a consideration of several passages in it (see Mr. H. B. Wheatley, N. S. S. Trans., 1874, vol. i., pp. 126-129)], then the classical allusions, the peculiar words, &c., compel us to adopt Ravenscroft's tradition that it is an old play revised by Shakespeare. In what year this revision took place it is very difficult to say; of course, it must have been before 1598, when Meres mentions it, and therefore before the Pembroke and other companies were merged into the Lord Chamberlain's Company, at which time Mr. Fleay thinks several old plays (Titus Andronicus being one) passed into the hand of the corps to which Shakespeare belonged. The adaptation was probably early in his dramatic career, though Jonson's reference in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair must surely be to the old play. Another point, which seems to follow from a consideration of the above data, is the existence of at least two dramas upon the subject; Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps thinks that Shakespeare's play (which may have been the one entered by Danter in 1594) has probably been lost. Prof. Ward (Eng. Dram. Lit., vol. i., p. 367), having quoted Kurz to the effect that "the play is in a manner earlier than Henry VI.; and that while it contains no reminiscences from Tamerlane, it contains one from the Spanish Tragedy," comes to the conclusion "that this play, if Shakspeare's, was written by 1589, and produced by that year; and that it is probably the third of the three plays mentioned by Henslowe, under the date of June 3rd, 1594.” "Our Mr. Fleay (Shakespeare Manual, p. 44) says: present play is not Shakespeare's; it is built on the Marlowe blank-verse system, which Shakespeare in his early work opposed and did not belong to his Company till 1600." It may be added that a writer in one of the last numbers of the North British Review was of opinion “that Titus Andronicus was an ironical censure on Marlowe's style." |