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- When dedicating his first narrative poem, Venus ami shake-
Adonis^ to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare Jo^^s^p^jj-on
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, 1 5-94, thirteen months after Fenus and Jdonis. 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 11^
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". At the same
time the increased gravity in subject and treatment which
' 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, 15" 5'+) 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 lytj-f, of which the existence has been
doubted, survives in a single copy. The existence of this edition was
noticed by Langbaine in i6'(ji, but no copy was found to confirm Langbaine's
statement till January, 19O), when an exemplar was discovered among the
books of a Swedish gentleman of Scottish descent, named Robson, who
resided at Lund (ch Athenau?n, Jan. 21, ipo^). The quarto was promptly
purchased by an American collector for j/,'2,ooo. The title-page runs :—
' The most lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus : as it was
Plaide by the Right Honourable the Earle of Barbie^ Earle of Femhrooke, and
Earle of Sussex, their Seruants. London, Printed by John Danter, and are
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