I tell

you, lords, you do but plot your deaths By this device.

CHI.

Aaron, a thousand deaths

Would I propofe," to achieve her whom I love.
AAR. To achieve her!-How?

DEM.

Why mak'ft thou it so strange?

She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won;7

Would I propofe,] Whether Chiron means he would contrive a thousand deaths for others, or imagine as many cruel ones for himself, I am unable to determine. STEEVENS.

Aaron's words, to which these are an answer, seem to lead to the latter interpretation. MALONE.

7 She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;

She is a woman, therefore may be won;] Thefe two lines occur, with very little variation, in the First Part of King Henry VI:

"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;

"She is a woman, therefore to be won."

This coincidence may lead one to fufpect that the author of the prefent play was also author of the original Henry VI. I do not, indeed, conceive either to be the production of Shakspeare; for, though his hand is fufficiently vifible in fome parts of the other play, particularly in the fecond scene of the fourth Act, there does not appear a fingle line in this, which can have any pretenfions to that honour: and therefore the teftimony of Meres and the publication of the players must neceffarily yield to the force of intrinfick and circumftantial evidence, It is much to be regretted that the dramatick works of our earliest tragick writers, as Greene and Peele, for instance, and “ fporting Kyd," and Marlowe's mighty line," are not collected and published together, if it were only to enable the readers of Shakspeare to difcriminate between his. ftyle and that of which he found the ftage, and has left fome of his dramas, in poffeffion; and of which I confider this play, and at least four fifths of the Firft Part of King Henry VI. (including the whole of the first Act) the performances, no doubt, of one or other of the writers already named, as a genuine and not unfavourable specimen. Indeed, I should take Kyd to have been the author of Titus

She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.
What, man! more water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of; and easy it is
Of a cut-loaf to steal a fhive, we know:
Though Baffianus be the emperor's brother,
Better than he have yet worn Vulcan's badge.
AAR. Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.

[Afide. DEM. Then why fhould he defpair, that knows to court it

With words, fair looks, and liberality?
What, haft thou not full often ftruck a doe,*
And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nofe?

Andronicus, because he seems to delight in murders and scraps of Latin; though I must confefs that, in the firft of those good qualities, Marlowe's Jew of Malta may fairly difpute precedence with the Spanish Tragedy. Some few of the obfolete dramas I allude to, are, it is true, to be found in the collections of Dodfley and Hawkins: though I could with that each of thofe gentlemen had confined his researches to the further fide of the year 1600. Future editors will, doubtlefs, agree in ejecting a performance by which their author's name is difhonoured, and his works are difgraced. RITSON.

8

more water glideth by the mill &c.] A Scots proverb : "Mickle water goes by the miller when he fleeps." Non omnem molitor quæ fluit unda videt."

66

STEEVENS.

9 to fteal a fhive,] A fhive is a flice. So, in the tale of Argentile and Curan, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602: "A heeve of bread as browne as nut."

Demetrius is again indebted to a Scots proverb:

I

"It is fafe taking a

have yet worn-]

hive of a cut loaf.'

STEEVENS.

Worn is here ufed as a diffyllable. The modern editors, however, after the fecond folio, read-have yet worn. MALONE.

Let him who can read worn as a diffyllable, read it fo. As I am not of that defcription, I muft continue to follow the fecond folio. STEEVENS.

-ftruck a doe,] Mr. Holt is willing to infer from this

AAR. Why then, it feems, fome certain fnatch

or fo

Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.

Why, hark ye, hark ye,-And are you fuch fools, To fquare for this ?4 Would it offend you then That both should speed?

CHI.

I'faith, not me.

paffage that Titus Andronicus was not only the work of Shakfpeare, but one of his earliest performances, because the ftratagems of his former profeffion feem to have been yet fresh in his mind. I had made the fame obfervation in King Henry VI. before I had seen his; but when we confider how many phrases are borrowed from the sports of the field, which were more followed in our author's time than any other amusement, I do not think there is much in either his remark or my own.-Let me add, that we have here Demetrius, the son of a queen, demanding of his brother prince if he has not often been reduced to practise the common artifices of a deer-stealer :—an absurdity right worthy the reft of the piece. STEEVENS.

Demetrius furely here addresses Aaron, not his brother.

MALONE.

3 'Would you had hit it too ;] The fame pleasant allufion occurreth alfo in Love's Labour's Loft, Vol. VII.

p. 83.

AMNER.

4 To fquare for this ?] To Square is to quarrel. So, in A MidSummer-Night's Dream:

66

they never meet,

"But they do fquare."

Again, in Drant's tranflation of Horace's Art of Poetry, 1567 : "Let them not fing twixt act and act,

"What fquareth from the reft."

But to Square, which in both these inftances fignifies to differ, is now used only in the very oppofite fenfe, and means to agree. STEEVENS.

DEM.

So I were one.

Nor me,

AAR. For fhame, be friends; and join for that you jar.

'Tis policy and ftratagem must do

That you affect; and fo muft you refolve;
That what you cannot, as you would, achieve,
You must perforce accomplish as you may.
Take this of me, Lucrece was not more chafte
Than this Lavinia, Baffianus' love,

A speedier course than lingering languishment 5
Muft we pursue, and I have found the path.
My lords, a folemn hunting is in hand ;
There will the lovely Roman ladies troop:
The forest walks are wide and spacious;
And many unfrequented plots there are,
Fitted by kind for rape and villainy:
Single you thither then this dainty doe,
And strike her home by force, if not by words:
This way, or not at all, ftand you in hope.
Come, come, our emprefs, with her facred wit,"
To villainy and vengeance confecrate,

Will we acquaint with all that we intend;

5 A Speedier courfe than lingering languishment-] The old copies read:

this lingering &c.

which may mean, we muft purfue by a speedier course this coy languishing dame, this piece of reluctant foftness.. STEEVENS. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

by kind-] That is, by nature, which is the old fignification of kind. JOHNSON.

a

7with her facred wit,] Sacred here fignifies accurfed; Latinifm:

66

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
"Auri facra fames?" Virg. Malone,

And the fhall file our engines with advice,8
That will not fuffer you to fquare yourselves,
But to your wishes' height advance you both.
The emperor's court is like the house of fame,
The palace full of tongues, of eyes, of ears :9
The woods are ruthlefs, dreadful, deaf, and dull;
There speak, and ftrike, brave boys, and take your

turns:

There ferve your luft, fhadow'd from heaven's eye, And revel in Lavinia's treafury.

CHI. Thy counsel, lad, fmells of no cowardice. DEM. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits, Per Styga, per manes vehor.1

8

[Exeunt.

file our engines with advice,] i. e. remove all impediments from our defigns by advice. The allufion is to the operation of the file, which, by conferring smoothness, facilitates the motion of the wheels which compofe an engine or piece of machinery. STEEVENS.

9 →of eyes, of ears :] Edit. 1600:-of eyes and eares.

till I find the ftream

TODD,

To cool this heat,] Thus likewise, the festive Strumbo in the tragedy of Locrine: " - except you with the pleasant water of your fecret fountain, quench the furious heat of the fame."

AMNER.

2 Per Styga, &c.] Thefe fcraps of Latin are, I believe, taken, though not exactly, from fome of Seneca's tragedies.

STEEVENS.