Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/513

ii s. vi. NOV. so, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

was long believed that the earliest extant quarto of 'Titus Andronicus' was that bearing date 1600. From this was printed another quarto dated 1611. Neither of these quartos bears Shakespeare's name.

Nevertheless Francis Meres in a well- known passage in his 'Palladis Tamia,' dated 1598, distinctly mentions 'Titus Andronicus' among other works of Shakespeare.

A quarto of this play, some years earlier than 1598, was discovered in Germany not long ago. It has been purchased by an American gentleman, and is now, I presume, in his private collection. Like the other quartos mentioned above, it does not bear Shakespeare's name. Of this the bookseller who first purchased it has assured me, though he declined to give me the name of the present possessor.

It has seemed to me that if it were collated we might find evidences that between its date (? 1594) and the date of 'Palladis Tamia' (1598) Shakespeare so far interfered with it as to justify Meres in attributing the play to him. I will give some examples of imagery and expression which seem to me distinctly Shakespearian, and if these are not found in the newly discovered quarto, I should infer that Shakespeare improved the play after the date of its publication, but before 1598.

(a) 'Tit. And.,' Act H. sc. i. 1. 83:—

Cf. Sonnet XLI.:—

If in 1598 Francis Meres meant by "hi sugred sonnets among his private friends' the collection we know under that name, we have here an indication of Shakespeare's hand in 'Titus Andronicus,' and the newly discovered quarto may help to determine between what dates that interference began.

On the ground of the parallel above indicated, I am disposed to recognize Shakespeare's hand in '1 Henry VI.,' V. iii. 77-8:

There is no quarto of '1 Henry VI.' It first appears in Folio, 1623.

(b) 'Tit. And.,' III. ii. (ad fin.):—

Cf. 'Richard II.,' V. i. 41 (? date 1594):—