Now judge what cause* had Titus to revenge
These wrongs, unspeakable, past patience,
Or more than any living man could bear.

Now you have heard the truth, what say you, Romans?
Have we done aught amiss,-show us wherein,
And, from the place where you behold us now,

The poor remainder of Andronici

Will, hand in hand, all headlong cast us down,
And on the ragged stones beat forth our brains,
And make a mutual closure of our house.
Speak, Romans, speak! and if you say we shall,
Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall!

EMIL. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,
And bring our emperor gently in thy hand,
Lucius our emperor; for well I know

The common voice do cry, It shall be so!

ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal emperor! a
MARC. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor,

To be adjudg'd some direful-slaughtering death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.

[To Attendants, who go into the house.

ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!
LUC. Thanks, gentle Romans: may I govern so,
To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe!
But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
For nature puts me to a heavy task;

Stand all aloof;-but, uncle, draw you near,
To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.-
O, take this warm kiss on thy pale-cold lips,
These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain❜d † face,
The last true duties of thy noble son!

MARC. Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss,
Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips:
O, were the sum of these that I should pay,

Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!

[Kisses TITUS.

LUC. Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn of us To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well:

Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,

Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;
Many a matter hath he told to thee,

Meet and agreeing with thine infancy;

In that respect, then, like a loving child,

Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring,
Because kind nature doth require it so:

(*) Old text, course.

(†) Old text, bloud-slaine.

ROMANS. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal emperor!] This and the subsequent line,

'Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!"

are in the old copies ascribed to Marcus; but surely in error.

Friends should associate friends in grief and woe:
Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;
Do him that kindness, and take leave of him.

BOY. O, grandsire, grandsire! even with all my heart
Would I were dead, so you did live again!—
O, lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping!
My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.

Re-enter Attendants, with AARON.

1 ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes: Give sentence on this execrable wretch,

That hath been breeder of these dire events.

LUC. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him, There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food:

If any one relieves or pities him,

For the offence he dies. This is our doom.

Some stay to see him fasten'd in the earth.

AARON. O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?
I am no baby, I, that with base prayers

I should repent the evils I have done :
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will:
If one good deed in all my life I did,

I do repent it from my very soul.

Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor hence.
And give him burial in his father's grave

My father and Lavinia shall forthwith
Be closed in our household's monument:

As for that heinous tiger, Tamora,

No funeral rite, nor man in mournful weeds,
No mournfula bell shall ring her burial;

But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey:
Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity,
And, being so, shall have like want of pity.
See justice done on Aaron, that damn'd Moor,
By whom our heavy haps had their beginning:
Then, afterwards, to order well the state,
That like events may ne'er it ruinate. (1)

• No mournful bell-] Query, "No solemn bell," &c.?

[Exeunt.

ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENTS.

(1) SCENE III.

ACT II.

Be unto us as is a nurse's song
Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.]

Douce, in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare," has an interesting note on the burden lullaby.

"It would be a hopeless task to trace the origin of the northern verb to lull, which means to sing gently; but it is evidently connected with the Greek is, loquor, or Aάan, the sound made by the beach at sea. Thus much is certain, that the Roman nurses used the word lalla to quiet their children, and that they feigned a deity called Lallus, whom they invoked on that occasion; the lullaby or tune itself was called by the same name. As lallare meant to sing lalla, to lull might in like manner denote the singing of the nurse's lullaby to induce the child to sleep. Thus in an ancient carol composed in the fifteenth century, and preserved among the Sloane MSS. No. 2593:

"che song a slepe w her lullynge

here dere sone our savyoure.'

"In another old ballad, printed by Mr. Ritson in his Ancient Songs, p. 198, the burden is lully, lully, lullaby, lullyby, sweete baby,' &c.; from which it seems probable that lullaby is only a comparatively modern contraction of lully baby, the first word being the legitimate offspring of the Roman lalla. In another of these pieces, still more ancient, and printed in the same collection, we have 'lullay, lullow, lully, bewy, lulla

"The Welsh appear to have been famous for their lullaby songs. Jones, in his Arte and science of preserving bodie and soule, 1579, 4to., says:-The best nurses, but especially the trim and skilfull Welch women, doe use to sing some preaty sonets, wherwith their copious tong is plentifully stoared of divers pretie tunes and pleasaunt ditties, that the children disquicted might be brought to reste: but translated never so well, they want their grace in Englishe, for lacke of proper words: so that I will omit them, as I wishe they would theyr lascivious Dymes, wanton Lullies, and amorous Englins. "Mr. White, in reviewing his opinion of the etymology of good-by, will perhaps ineline to think it a contraction, when properly written good b'ye, of God be with you, and not 'may your house prosper!'

"To add to the stock of our old lullaby songs, two are here subjoined. The first is from a pageant of The slaughter of the innocents, acted at Coventry in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by the taylors and shearers of that city, and most obligingly communicated by Mr. Sharpe. The other is from the curious volume of songs mentioned before in p. 262. Both exhibit the simplicity of ancient manners :--

(2) SCENE IV.-A precious ring, that lightens all the hole.] The gem supposed to possess a property of emitting native light was called a carbuncle, and is frequently men. tioned in early books; thus, in "The Gesta Romanorum," b. vi. :-" He further beheld and saw a carbuncle in the hall that lighted all the house." So also in Lydgate's "Description of King Priam's Palace," L. II. :

"And for most chefe all derkeness to confound,

A carbuncle was set as kyng of stones all,

To recomforte and gladden all the hall.
And to enlumine in the blacke night
With the freshnes of his ruddy light."

And so Drayton, in "The Muses' Elysium :"

"Is that admired mighty stone,
The carbuncle that's named;
Which from it such a flaming light
And radiancy ejecteth,

That in the very darkest night
The eye to it directeth."

But the best illustration of the passage we have met with occurs in a letter from Boyle, containing "Observations on a Diamond that shines in the dark:"-"Though Vortomannus was not an eye-witness of what he relates, that the King of Pegu had a true Carbuncle of that bigness and splendour, that it shined very gloriously in the dark; and though Garcias ab Horto, the Indian Vice-Roy's physician, speaks of another carbuncle only on the report of one that he discoursed with; yet as we are not sure that these men that gave themselves out to be eye-witnesses, speak true, yet they may have done so for aught we know to the contrary. I must not omit that some virtuosi questioning me the other day at Whitehall, and meeting amongst them an ingenious Dutch gentleman whose father was long embassador for the Netherlands in England, I learned of him that he is acquainted with a person who was admiral of the Dutch in the East Indies, and who assured this gentleman Monsieur Boreel, that at his return from thence, he brought back with him into Holland a stone which though it looked but like a pale dull diamond, yet it was a real carbuncle; and did without rubbing shine so much, that when the admiral had occasion to open, a chest which he kept under deck in a dark place where it was forbidden to bring candles for fear of mischances, as soon as he opened the trunk, the stone would by its native light shine so as to illustrate a great part of it."-Boyle's Works, Vol. II. D. 82.

VOL. VI.

R

(1) SCENE III.

ACT V.

Then, afterwards, to order well the state,
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.]

The following is the ballad registered by Danton when he entered the “Historye of Tytus Andronicus" on the Stationers' Rolls. It is extracted from Percy's "Reliques of Antient Poetry," Vol. I. :

"TITUS ANDRONICUS'S COMPLAINT.

"You noble minds and famous martiall wights,
That in defence of native country fights,
Give ear to me, that ten yeers fought for Rome,
Yet reapt disgrace at my returning home.

"In Rome I lived in fame fulle threescore yeeres,
My name beloved was of all my peeres;
Full five and twenty valiant sonnes I had,
Whose forwarde vertues made their father glad.

"For when Romes foes their warlike forces bent,
Against them stille my sonnes and I were sent;
Against the Goths full ten yeeres weary warre
We spent, receiving many a bloudy scarre.

"Just two and twenty of my sonnes were slaine
Before we did returne to Rome againe :

Of five and twenty sonnes, I brought but three
Alive the stately towers of Rome to see.

"When wars were done I conquest home did bring,
And did present my prisoners to the King.
The Queene of Goths, her sons, and eke a Moore,
Which did such murders, like was nere before.

"The emperour did make this queene his wife,
Which bred in Rome debate and deadlie strife;
The Moore, with her two sonnes did growe soe proud,
That none like them in Rome might be allowd."

"The Moore soe pleased this new-made empress' eie,
That she consented to him secretlye

For to abuse her husbands marriage bed,
And soe in time a blackamore she bred.

"Then she, whose thoughts to murder were inclined,
Consented with the Moore of bloody minde
Against myself, my kin, and all my friendes,
In cruell sort to bring them to their endes.

"Soe when in age I thought to live in peace,
Both care and griefe began then to increase:
Amongst my sonnes I had one daughter bright,
Which joy'd, and pleased best my aged sight:

"My deare Lavinia was betrothed than

To Cæsars sonne, a young and noble man:
Who in a hunting by the emperours wife
And her two sonnes, bereaved was of life.

"He being slaine was cast in cruel wise
Into a darksome den from light of skies.
The cruell Moore did come that way as then
With my three sonnes, who fell into the der..