Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/295

[ 279 ] do not know what interval might have elaped between the compoition and the publication of that poem. There is indeed a paage in the dedication already mentioned, which, if there were not uch deciive evidence on the other ide, might induce us to think that he had not written, in 1593, any piece of more dignity than a love-poem, or at leat any on which he himelf et a value. “ If (ays he to his noble patron) your honour eem but pleaed, I account myelf highly praied, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with ome graver labour.” “ A booke, entitled a Noble Roman Hitory of Titus Andronicus,” (without any author's name) was entered at Stationers' hall, Feb. 6, 1593—4. This I uppoe to have been the play, as it was printed in that year, and acted (according to Langbaine, who alone appears to have een the firt edition) by the ervants of the earls of Pembroke, Derby, and ESS undefinedex. Mr. Pope thought, that Titus Andronicus was not written by Shakpeare, becaue Ben Jonon poke lightingly of it, while Shakpeare was yet living, This argument will not, perhaps, bear a very trict examination. If it were allowed to have any validity, many of our author's genuine productions mut be excluded from his works; for Ben Jonon has ridiculed everal of his dramas, in the ame piece in which he has mentioned Andronicus with contempt. It has been aid that Francis Meres, who in 1598 enumerated this among our author’s plays, might have been miled by a title-page; but we may preume that he was informed or deceived by ome other means; for Shakpeare’s name is not in the title-page of the edition printed in 1611, and therefore, we may conclude, was not in the title page of that in 1594, of which the other was probably a re-impreSS undefinedion. However, (notwithtanding the authority of Meres) the high antiquity of the piece, its entry on the Stationers’ books without the name of the writer, the regularity of the verification, the diSS undefinedimilitude of the tyle from that of thoe plays which are undoubtedly compoed by our author, and the tradition mentioned by Ravencroft, at a period when [S4]