TITUS ANDRONICUS.

It is not necessary to say much about this play. Its chief interest is certainly not æsthetic, but, from a biographical point of view, it derives some importance as indicating a very early and rude phase of the Poet's mental development. Since the biographical method is not followed in these essays, each drama must be regarded according to its own intrinsic worth, and not in its relation to the author. Two questions of some interest may be briefly noticed-the authenticity of the play, and its proper dramatic classification.

Titus Andronicus has often been declared not to be a work of Shakespeare's. The wish is here father to the thought; only internal evidence can be adduced in support of such an opinion, for the statement of Ravenscroft seems utterly untrustworthy. The external evidence is altogether too strong; many plays whose genuineness is not questioned are not so well authenticated. The testimony of Meres, and the insertion in the First Folio, are two facts which must be accepted, and which carry along with them an irresistible conclusion. Conjecture has sought to explain them away into a slight revision on the part of Shakespeare; so it may be, but alas! so, too, it may not be.

The second doubtful point is concerning the position of Titus Andronicus among the historical plays. Its right to such a place, though claimed by some critics, may be

questioned. Its historical setting is manifest— the action occurs in an historical State, in an historical period, amid a great historical conflict; yet the story, as such, seems to be wholly legendary. But the political element equals, if it does not overtop, the domestic element; this is the essential test of an historical play. Tamora, the Gothic Queen, avenges upon Andronicus the defeat of her nation, as well as the slaughter of her son; also Aaron, the Moor, manifests the hatred of race, and his union with Tamora hints the union of the most diverse conquered peoples against their conqueror.

The most satisfactory way, therefore, is to consider this play as the termination of the Roman Historical series. For Rome herself was tragic-retribution came at last from those outlying barbarous peoples against which she had committed so many wrongs for hundreds of years. It was necessarily a scene of pure human butchery, the like of which, in quantity and degree, was probably never seen before or since—that of mad savagery turned loose upon its oppressor. Hence, after all that may be said against it, the play of Titus Andronicus, with its accumulated horrors, gives a true reflex of the end of Roman History.

KING JOHN.

King John strikes the key-note of the whole series of English Historical plays, namely, nationality. Its very beginning utters a defiance against France, the hereditary foe of England. The glory and supremacy of Fatherland constitute the theme; there is a glow of patriotic exultation, which makes many verses shine like diamonds, while the spirit of the whole work is one grand outburst of the love of country. There is in it the intense consciousness of English greatness, English freedom, English manhood. The style, though varied, is always an exalted reflection of its thought and feeling; the poetic fervor rises at times to a sort of national ecstasy. Other strong passions of the human soul are portrayed in the play, but they are all subordinated to supreme devotion to country. Such is the atmosphere which we here breathe, and which nerves the spirit with a new inspiration. Indeed, there is a special character introduced as the representative of nationality

It is

a character which gives tone to the entire drama. Falconbridge, whose story is the golden thread which both illumines and holds together the other parts of the action. Following his career, we are perpetually reminded of the theme which furnishes life and unity to the work.

In reading King John the chief disappointment seems to arise from the fact that nothing is said of the Great Charter. It would appear almost necessary that the great Dramatic Epos of English History should begin with the

struggle from which England dates her liberties, and to which she points as the origin of her first and most important constitutional document. Thus the rise and growth of the English constitution would be the subject of the English Historical plays. But in King John the Great Charter is not even mentioned, and the nobles who revolt proceed on grounds very different from those recited in that famous instrument. It is clear that Shakespeare did not attach as much importance to the covenant at Runnymede as we do, if, indeed, he knew of its contents at all; the discussions and conflicts of a succeeding age first disturbed the dust on the venerable parchment. The struggle for individual liberty, which the Great Charter was supposed to guarantee, had not yet arisen, though its mutterings were plainly heard by the last of the Tudors. Under the Stuarts it broke forth and resulted in the Great Civil War. Then the origin of rights became the theme of warm discussion and diligent investigation; they were traced back to ancient grants and charters with that peculiar reverence for precedent in every Anglo-Saxon bosom

a reverence which will never accept a new idea unless dressed up in old, worn-out garments.

Personal liberty, in its universal sense, was certainly not the essential point in the conflict between King John and his barons; that conflict arose between the rights of the nobility and the rights of the crown. The people, as such, occupy no prominent place in the Great Charter. But in the time of the Stuarts the struggle lay between the people on the one side, and the crown and nobility on the other. Had the Poet lived earlier or later, he might have taken one or the other form of this collision; as the case stands, he takes neither. The age of Elizabeth was not a

struggle between the throne and the barons, nor between these united and the people. The elements of the nation were in harmony, hence it was a period of internal peace and national development. But there was a dynastic conflict with a foreign State, and a religious conflict with a foreign Church. The consciousness arising from this condition of affairs is precisely the foundation of the present dama; hence its theme is, primarily, the Right of Succession to the crown. Must the title vest absolutely in the eldest of the line? Is it necessary or just that the heir should always be monarch? Here the answer will be given by Shakespeare. Secondary, but important, is the conflict with the See of Rome. The Poet cannot live out of his own time, in any true sense of the term; he writes his play, though it be historical, from the standpoint of his age.

The action will show the nation upholding the king, both against the legal heir of the throne and against the Church, as long as that king, in so doing, maintains the right and supremacy of the State. It will also show the nation falling off from the sovereign when the latter abandons his national principle and seeks to support his authority by violence and by external power. Thus there will be a transition from the true monarch of the people to the unfit occupant of a throne. The consciousness which underlies the whole fabric is that the right of a nation to a ruler is superior to the right of an heir to the crown. A kingdom is not a mere piece of personal property, subject to the laws of inheritance, or even of possession. Such is the conflict, plainly indicated; it is the universal right of the State against the individual right of the heir or of the possessor.