Do then, dear heart, for heav'n shall hear our prayers,
Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim,
And stain the sun with fogs, as sometimes clouds,
When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.
Marcus. Oh! brother, speak with possibilities,
And do not break into these deep extremes.

Titus. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?
Then be my passions bottomless with them.

Marcus. But yet, let reason govern thy lament.
Titus. If there were reason for these miseries,
Then unto limits could I bind my woes.

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?
If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threat'ning the welkin with his big swoll'n face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
I am the sea, hark how her sighs do blow;
She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;
Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;
Then must my earth with her continual tears
Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd:
For why? my bowels cannot hide her woes,
But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
Then give me leave, for losers will have leave

To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.

Shakspere gives the same idea of death to Marcus as he had done to Titus, and makes him wish for it on that account. The reflection of Aaron is the scoff of impiety at religion, from the consideration of those who, professing it, have fallen into misfortune. But Titus inveighs against heaven in reproaches, doubts, and taunts, after the varied manner of Shakspere displayed in many characters. They behave, on appealing to heaven-as the player in Hamlet does speaking of Hecuba, as Laertes, as Lear, and others in succeeding dramas. By the terms Marcus applies to his brother's language, we see that it was not meant for religion, or even reason, but invective, and as such Titus defends it. He could see no reason for his miseries; he would not, therefore, address those supposed to have produced them with real supplication, confession, and resignation, as worshippers do towards the divinity. He had directed his bitter tongue against heaven, to ease his 'stomach,' the consolation which Shakspere always ministers to his characters under misfortunes.

When the hand of Andronicus is returned, with the heads of his two sons, then Marcus, hitherto the moderator of his brother, breaks forth

Now let hot Etna cool in Sicily,

And be my heart an ever-burning hell;

These miseries are more than may be borne.

To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal;
But sorrow flouted at is double death.

This action and these words coming immediately after the prayers of Titus and Lavinia, give a poignancy and additional meaning to the speech of Marcus.

Titus now bids adieu to sorrow, and laughs with joy at the thought of revenge as the bliss of the future. He says of his sons executed,—

For these two heads do seem to speak to me,

And threat me I shall never come to bliss,

Till all these mischiefs be return'd again,

Even in their throats that have committed them.

Another Coriolanus-he sends Lucius to raise an army of Goths against Rome. He tells Lavinia to kill herself. Marcus says,

Fie! brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay

Such violent hands upon her tender life.

Titus. How now! has sorrow made thee dote already?

Not only is the condemnation of suicide represented as the language of dotage, but a poor joke is made of the common conventional language for suicide-laying hands' on yourself—Lavinia having been deprived of her hands.

[Marcus strikes the dish with a knife.

What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?
Marcus. At that that I have killed, my lord; a fly.
Titus. Out on thee, murtherer; thou kill'st my heart;

Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:

A deed of death done on the innocent

Becomes not Titus' brother: get thee gone;

I see thou art not for my company.

Marcus. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.

Titus. But how, if that fly had a father and mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,

And buz lamenting doings in the air!

Poor harmless fly,

That with his pretty buzzing melody

Came here to make us merry; and thou hast kill'd him.

Marina, in Pericles, never hurt a fly, and, therefore, could not think why any one should wish to do her an injury. Likening the cruelty of the gods to man, to the killing of flies by boys, is in Lear; and commentators have seen an embryo Lear in the madness of Andronicus. It is a touch of philosophy common in Shakspere, which he extended to animals, at least in words, and which he could put himself in the situation of, as he does here, and in Jaques of As You Like It. It is expressive of his universal charity and reprehension of all injury, which it must be said of him, he would wipe from the world here, and from the thoughts of the world to come.

When Lavinia turns to Ovid's Metamorphoses which gives the story of Philomel, and a description of the place similar to the one where she met with her misfortunes, Marcus exclaims

O, why should nature build so foul a den,
Unless the gods delight in tragedies!

He tells her to write

What God will have discover'd for revenge;

and on putting down on the sand the names of Chiron and Demetrius, the perpetrators of her violation, Titus says, in Latin

Magni Dominator poli,

Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?

Marcus. Oh, calm thee, gentle lord, although I know
There is enough written upon this earth

To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,

And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.

Oh heavens, can you hear a good man groan,
And not relent, or not compassion him?
Marcus, attend him in his ecstacy,

That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart
Than foemen's marks upon his batter'd shield;
But yet so just, that he will not revenge:
Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus.

F

The above is Shaksperian in the spirit of preceding and future examples. God is said to will revenge, and God on all occasions will be solicited for revenge. Titus' inveighing, turned into English, is 'O great ruler of the universe, how slow you are to hear, how slow to see wickedness.' Marcus, who again reproves him, yet admits that his miseries would make the mildest revolt against heaven, asks Titus to kneel and record a vow of vengeance against his enemies; and when Titus goes, he indulges in the upbraiding impiety of his brother, and casts a sort of reflection by comparison on the heavens, saying Titus is too just to revenge, and calling on the heavens to revenge. Did Shakspere, in his philosophy, think it unjust to punish gross offenders, as he exemplifies in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, and Cymbeline? Yet he evidences in his workst great disregard for human life, killing those who do not merit it, and whom it is quite unnecessary to kill. We must, therefore, ascribe much of these remarks of his to satire on justice here and hereafter. This is Shakspere, over and over again, in his reflections upon Providence.

The boy Lucius brings presents of arms from Andronicus to Chiron aud Demetrius, with a verse of Horace round them, expressing his knowledge of their guilt. While greeting them from Andronicus, the child says aside, 'pray the Roman gods confound them both.' The Empress is in labour, and one of her sons says―

Come, let us go, and pray to all the gods
For our beloved mother in her pains.

Aaron. Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over. This is a specimen how Aaron, the atheist, talks of religion in the style of Richard III., and he will kill the nurse in much the same style, who brings him his child to put to death.

The nurse enters with a blackamoor child, the offspring of Aaron, by the Empress.

Aaron. Well, God give her good rest!

What hath he sent her?

Nurse. A devil.

Aar. Why, then she is the devil's dam: a joyful issue.

The nurse thinks the contrary, and says to Aaron

The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal;
And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.

Aaron. Out, out, you whore! is black so base a hue ?
Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.

As they are not any of them Christians; and if they may be supposed, as was likely, to be acquainted with that faith, the allusion to christening is putting in the mouths of pagans a sarcasm on Christianity. Here at once Shakspere elicits a noble quality, a redeeming touch, in the character of Aaron, which, coupled with bravery, and the justness of the sentiments, make the reader sympathise for a moment with the Demetrius says—

man.

I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point:
Nurse, give it me, my sword shall soon dispatch it.

Aaron. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.
Stay, murtherous villains, will you kill your brother?
Demetrius. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus ?
Aar. My mistress is my mistress; this, myself;
The vigour, and the picture of my youth:
This, before all the world, do I prefer;
This, maugre all the world, will I keep safe,
Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.

Chiron. I blush to think upon this ignomy.

Aar. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:
Fie, treacherous hue! that will betray with blushing
The close enacts and counsels of the heart:

Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.

Look, how the black slave smiles upon the father;

As who should say, 'Old lad, I am thine own.'

He is your brother, lords; sensibly fed

Of that self-blood that first gave life to you:

And, from that womb, where you imprison'd were,
He is enfranchised and come to light:

Nay, he's your brother by the surer side,
Although my seal be stamped in his face.

The love of offspring natural to all mankind, as strong in the black as in the white, is here made stronger in the Moor father than in the Gothic mother. Shakspere, as Sir Charles Morgan, appears to explain the philosophy of parental love in the father as consisting in egotism, as arising from the