TITUS ANDRONICUS.

All the editors and criticks agree with Mr. Theobald in supposing this play spurious.  I see no reason for differing from them; for the colour of the style is wholly different from that of the other plays, and there is an attempt at regular versification and artificial closes, not always inelegant, yet seldom pleasing.  The barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre, which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience; yet we are told by Jonson, that they were not only borne, but praised.  That Shakespeare wrote any part, though Theobald declares it incontestable, I see no reason for believing.

The testimony produced at the beginning of this play, by which it is ascribed to Shakespeare, is by no means equal to the argument against its authenticity, arising from the total difference of conduct, language and sentiments, by which it stands apart from all the rest.  Meres had probably no other evidence than that of a title-page, which, though in our time it be sufficient, was then of no great authority; for all the plays which were rejected by the first collectors of Shakespeare’s works, and admitted in later editions, and again rejected by the critical editors, had Shakespeare’s name on the title[14], as we must suppose, by the fraudulence of the printers, who, while there were yet no gazettes, nor advertisements, nor any means of circulating literary intelligence, could usurp at pleasure any celebrated name.  Nor had Shakespeare any interest in detecting the imposture, as none of his fame or profit was produced by the press.

The chronology of this play does not prove it not to be Shakespeare’s.  If it had been written twenty-five years in 1614, it might have been written when Shakespeare was twenty-five years old.  When he left Warwickshire I know not; but at the age of twenty-five it was rather too late to fly for deer-stealing.

Ravenscroft, who in the reign of Charles II. revised this play, and restored it to the stage, tells us, in his preface, from a theatrical tradition, I suppose, which in his time might be of sufficient authority, that this play was touched, in different parts, by Shakespeare, but written by some other poet.  I do not find Shakespeare’s touches very discernible.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

This play is more correctly written than most of Shakespeare’s compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed.  As the story abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with great exactness.  His vicious characters sometimes disgust, but cannot corrupt, for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and contemned.  The comick characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled, and powerfully impressed.