GLAND' HELICON, 1600, fubfcribed Ig
intitled, "In Imitation of C. Marlow,"

"COME live with me and be my dea
" And we will revel all the year,
« In plains and groves, &c."

Upon the whole I am inclined to attribute the
and RALEIGH; notwithstanding the auth.
fpeare's Book of Sonnets. For it is well kno
took no care of his own compofitions, fo was
gardless what Spurious things were fathered.
JOHN OLDCASTLE, PERICLES, and the I
DIGAL, were printed with his name at f
title-pages, while he was living, which yet v
rejected by his firft eaitors HEMINGE and C
were his intimate friends, and therefore
authority for fetting them afide.

no

The following fonnet appears to have been ( a great favourite with our earlier poets: imitation above-mentioued, another is to be DONNE's poems, intitled " The Bait," begin.

"COME live with me, and be my
" And we will some new pleasures pro
"Of golden fands, &c.”

As for CHR. MARLOW, who was in bigh Dramatic writings, he loft his life by a ftab brothel, before the year 1593. See A, Wood, 1.

IVE with me, and be my love,

L'And we wil all the pleafures pro

That hils and vallies, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

He mentions them both in bis will.

}

There will we fit upon the rocks,
And fee the fhepherds feed their flocks,
By fhallow rivers, to whofe falls
Melodious birds fing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of rofes
With a thousand fragrant pofies,
Α cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Imbrodered all with leaves of mirtle;

Α gown made of the fineft wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold,
With buckles of the pureft gold;

A belt of straw, and ivie buds,
With coral clafps, and amber ftuds:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

The fhepherd fwains shall dance and fing
For thy delight each May morning:
If thefe delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love,

IF

THE NYMPH'S REPLY.

F that the World and Love were young,
And truth in every fhepherd's toung,

These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy lave.

But time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
And all complain of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yield:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancies fpring, but forrows fall.

Thy gowns, thy fhoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy pofies,
Soon break, foon wither, foon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reafon rotten.

Thy belt of ftraw, and ivie buds,
Thy coral clafps, and amber ftuds;
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy love.

But could youth laft, and love ftill breed,
Had joyes no date, nor age no need;
Then thofe delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

。

15

20

5

XI. TITUS

XI.

TITUS ANDRONICUS's COMPLAINT.

The reader has here an ancient ballad on the fame fubje& with the play of TITUS ANDRONICUs, and there is no doubt, but the one was borrowed from the other: which of them was the original it is not easy to decide. And yet, if the arguments offered above in p. 190 for the priority of the ballad of the JEW OF VENICE be admitted as conclufive, fomewhat of the fame kind may be urged here; for this ballad differs from the play in feveral particulars, which a fimple Ballad-writer would be less likely to alter than an inventive Tragedian. Thus in the ballad is no mention of the conteft for the empire between the two brothers, the compofing of which makes the ungrateful treatment of TITUS afterwards the more flagrant: neither is there any notice taken of his facrificing one of Tamora's fons, which the tragic poet has affigned as the original caufe of all her cruelties. In the play Titus lofes twenty-one of his fons in war, and kills another for affifting Baffianus to carry off Lavinia: the reader will find it different in the ballad. In the latter fhe is bethrothed to the Emperor's Son: in the play to his Brother. In the tragedy only Two of his fons fall into the pit, and the Third being banished returns to Rome with a victorious army, to avenge the wrongs of his houfe: in the ballad all Three are entrapped and fuffer death. In the fcene the Emperor kills Titus, and is in return ftabbed by Titus's furviving fon. Here Titus kills the Emperor, and afterwards himself.

Let

Let the Reader weigh thefe circumstances and fome others wherein he will find them unlike, and then pronounce for himself. After all, there is reafon to conclude that this play was rather improved by Shakespeare with a few fine touches of his pen, than originally writ by him, for not to mention that the file is lefs figurative than his others generally are, this tragedy is mentioned with difcredit in the Induction to Ben Jonson's BARTHOLOMEW-FAIR, in 1614, as one that had then been exhibited "five and twenty, or thirty "years" which, if we take the lowest number, throws it back to the year 1589, at which time Shakespeare was but 25: : an earlier date, than can be found for any other of his pieces and if it does not clear him entirely of it, fhews at leaft it was a first attempt.

The following is given from a Copy in" The Golden Gar"land" intitled as above; compared with three others, two of them in black letter in the Pepys Collection, intitled "The Lamentable and Tragical Hiftory of Titus Andronicus, "&c.-To the tune of Fortune."-Unluckily none of these have any

YOU

dates.

YOU noble minds, and famous martiall wights,
That in defence of native country fights,

Give eare to me, that ten yeeres fought for Rome,
Yet reapt difgrace at my returning home.

In Rome I lived in fame fulle threefcore yeeres,

5

My name beloved was of all my peeres;
Full five and twenty valiant fonnes I had,

Whofe forwarde vertues made their father glad.

For

The earliest known, is KING JOHN in two parts 1591. 410. tal. let. This play he afterwards intirely new wrote,as we now kuve it.