March 1, 1888.] 



KNOWLKDGE ♦ 



99 



day, and noting how great to us appears tlie earth itself, 

 though she is but the first step in an evergrowing series, 

 each successive term of which enormously surpasses the 

 preceding, we cannot but perceive that it is infinity, not 

 mere vastness with which we have to deal : " End is there 

 none to the universe of God : lo, also, there is no be- 

 ginning." 



SHAKESPEARE SELF-DRAWN. 

 By Besvolio. 



I.— "TITUS ANDRONICUS." 



lEAST attractive of all the Shakespearean 

 plays, in certain passages absolutely repul- 

 sive, " Titus Andronicus '' is yet in many 

 respects most interesting to the Shake- 

 spearean student. When as yet little had 

 been done towards classifying Shakespeare's 

 plays in the probable order of their pro- 

 duction, it was natural that this play 

 should simply be rejected as not Shakespeare's work at all, 

 save, perhaps, that a passage here or there might be 

 regarded as thrown in by his master hand. It was obvious 

 that the author of " Macbeth," " Othello," and " King Lear," 

 whose method of tr&iting tragic horrors is so powerful, ctin- 

 not have been also the author of the crude horrors, the 

 repulsive yet weak and almost ludicrous sensationalism of 

 " Titus Andronicus." And that remains obvious still. But 

 Shakespeare in 1.587-89 was not Shakespeare the author of 

 " Hamlet," " Julius Cresar," " Macbeth," and " Coriolanus." 

 He was a young man, country bred, impei-fectly educated, 

 associated with dramatists and actors of greater knowledge 

 and experience, one in whom the audacity of youthful 

 genius was tempered indeed, but not by his own judgment 

 but by deference to the judgment of men really his in- 

 feriors, whom he then naturally regardeel as his superiors. 

 Moreover, it must be remembered, that even if Shakespeare 

 himself, as a very young man (from twenty-three to 

 twenty-five) had been able, against the judgment of experi- 

 enced actors, to decide that plays like Kyd's " Spanish 

 Tragedy," and the other bloody tragedies which had been in 

 vogue for years before he came to London, were coarse and 

 repulsive, he wovdd still have been disposed to believe that 

 such tragedies, nevertheless, must be purveyed for audiences 

 whose tastes probably were as coarse as those of the 

 modern audiences at the Victoria Theatre and (till lately) 

 of the Surrey Theatre. It is certain that Shakespeare, 

 even far later in his career as a dramatist, wrote for the 

 groundlings as well as for the more cultured among his 

 audiences ; it is certain aLso, that, until late in that career, 

 he regarded play-writing as belonging to an inferior order of 

 literjiry work. We can hardly suppose that Shakespeare 

 failed to recognise later the value of his plays as poetrj' ; 

 but he had probaV)ly written a dozen plays before the time 

 when he would have set any of them on the same level 

 with his " Lucrece," or even with his " Venus and Adonis." 

 Thus, in considering Shakespeare's part in the production 

 of " Titus Andronicus," the earliest of all his plays, we are 

 free to admit much which we should at once reject if the 

 plaj' belonged to a later date ; while, in the case of offen- 

 sive, even repulsive passages, which we may thus either 

 attribute to Shakespeare's pen or regaid as having passed 

 his scrutiny uncondemned, we may recognise rather the 

 modesty of his youthful mind, accepting what his elders 

 approved, and even writing in the style which seemed to 

 them good, than absolutely coarse tastes even at the time 

 when he was little more than a half-educated country lad, 



Shakespeare's connection with " Titus Andronicus " is 

 much more clearly made out than his authorship of many of 

 the plajs which bear his name. The play is one of six 

 tragedies mentioned by Meres (Palladis Tamia, Wit's 

 Treasury) in L598, .as proving Shakespeare's excellence ; and it 

 must be remembered that the association of Shakespeare's 

 name with a plaj- in the days when as 3-et his fame was not 

 established on the firm footing which it afterwards had, is 

 much more decisive of the question of authorshi]j than 

 similar evidence would be in after years when Shakespeare 

 was the acknowledged leader among the dramatists of his 

 age. We can understand how Fletcher's name came to be 

 dropped from the title-leaf of " Henry VIII.," of which 

 Fletcher certainly wrote more than half; but had not 

 Shakespeare written much more than the half of " Titus An- 

 dronicus," his name would certainh' not have been associated 

 with it when it appeared (perhaps 1.589) or for many years 

 after. 



Even if we had to accept the whole play as Shakespeare's 

 (which, fortunately, is forbidden by external and internal 

 evidence alike) we should find scarcjly a gi'eater contrast 

 between "Titus Andronicus" and "King Lear" (the later 

 tr.agedy to which it is nearest akin), than there is between 

 " Love's Labour's Lost," the earliest comedy, and " Twelfth 

 Night," Shakespeare's finished work. As much of the 

 falsely heroic as there is in '' Titus Andronicus," so much 

 at least is there of false humour in " Love's Labour's 

 Lost." 



It has been remarked by a laborious Shakesjiearean 

 student respecting " Titus Andronicus," that it would be 

 unsafe to attempt to point out certain passages as Shake- 

 speare's, because we do not know the distinguishing features 

 of his style when be first began to write for the stage. To 

 my mind this remark suggests small critical acumen. It 

 would be unsafe to point out certain pas.sages as not Shake- 

 speare's, and for the reason indicated, that we do not know 

 what characteristics distinguished the Shakespeare of the 

 time when "Titus Andronicus" appeared. But this need 

 bj- no means prevent us from recognising passages as 

 undoubtedly Shakespearean which present characteristics 

 such as his work, and his alone, has displayed. 



Viewing " Titus Andronicus " thus, the student who has 

 entered into Shakespeare's mind and character, and has 

 learned to know the ring of his music, will, I believe, recog- 

 nise much more of " Titus Andronicus " as certainly Shake- 

 speare's than critics of the Furnivall school imagine ; while 

 he will be disposed to reject as not Shakespearean much less 

 than he would were the play to be dealt with as belonging 

 to the prime of Shakespeare's dramatic career. 



Nearly the whole of the fii'st scene Ls Shakespearean in 

 tone. In particular the description by INIarcus Andronicus 

 of his brother's services to Rome, all but the first few lines 

 is manifestly from the same hand, as yet, however, 

 unpractised, which later wrote Coriolanus's speech, be- 

 ginning " Hail, lords 1 I am returned your soldier." 

 Compare with this also the speech of Titus himself in 

 scene ii. : — 



Hail Rome, victorious in thy monrning weeds I 

 Lo, as the bark, that hath discharger! her fraught. 

 Returns with precious lading to the bay 

 From whence at tirst she weighed her anchorage, 

 Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs, 

 To re-salute his country with his tears. 



If in this speech and much which follows in scene ii. we 

 recognise the " 'prentis han'," that hand is still manifestly 

 the hand of Shake.speare. Even in the schoolboy Latin 

 introduced here and elsewhere throughout this crudely con- 

 cocted tragedy, we may find something Shakespearean, ay, 

 and something throwing light on Shakespeare's character ia 



