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When dedicating his first narrative poem, *Venus and Adonis*, to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare wrote: ‘If your Honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour.’ There is no reason to doubt that Shakespeare’s poem of *Lucrece* was the fulfilment of this vow. *Lucrece* was ready for the press in May, 1594, thirteen months after *Venus and Adonis*. During those thirteen months his labour as dramatist had occupied most of his time. In the interval he had probably been at work on as many as four plays, on *Richard III*, *Richard II*, *King John*, and *Titus Andronicus*. Consequently *Lucrece* was, as he had foretold, the fruit, not of what he deemed his serious employment, but of ‘all idle hours’¹. At the same time the increased gravity in subject and treatment which
¹ Between the dates of the issue of the two poems, a play, in the composition of which Shakespeare was concerned, had come from the printing-press for the first time. The subject was drawn like *Lucrece* from Roman history, and the play and the poem must have occupied Shakespeare’s attention at the same period. On February 6, 1594, licence had been granted to John Danter for the printing of *Titus Andronicus*, in which Shakespeare worked up an old play by another hand. Danter was a stationer of bad reputation. Shakespeare was not in all probability responsible for Danter’s action. The first edition of *Titus*, of 1594, of which the existence has been doubted, survives in a single copy. The existence of this edition was noticed by Langbaine in 1691, but no copy was found to confirm Langbaine’s statement till January, 1905, when an exemplar was discovered among the books of a Swedish gentleman of Scottish descent, named Robson, who resided at Lund (cf. *Atheuæum*, Jan. 21, 1905). The quarto was promptly purchased by an American collector for £2,000. The title-page runs:—
² The most lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: as it was Plaide by the Right Honourable the Earle of *Darbie*, Earle of *Pembrooke*, and Earle of *Sussex*, their Seruants. London, Printed by John Danter, and are
Shakespeare’s vow to his patron.
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