IN WEEKLY VOLUMES, price 3d.; or in Cloth, 6d. Edited by HENRY MORLEY, LL.D. List of Volumes now in course of publication. 62. The Tempest .. 63. Rosalind 64. Isaac Bickerstaff 65. Gebir, and Count Julian 66. The Earl of Chatham 67. The Discovery of Guiana, &c. 68 & 69. Natural History of Selborne. 2 vols. 70. The Angel in the House 71. Trips to the Moon JOHN KEBLE. CHARLES WATERTON. J. SHERIDAN KNOWLES. LORD MACAULAY. WM. SHAKESPEARE. 72. Cato the Younger, Agis, Cleomenes, &c.. PLUTARCH. 74. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1664-1665). .. 77&78. Knickerbocker's Hist.of N.York. 2 vols. 79. A Midsummer-Night's Dream 80. The Banquet of Plato, and other Pieces 81. A Voyage to Lisbon 82 My Beautiful Lady, &c. 83 & 84. Travels in Interior of Africa. 2 vols. 85. The Temple 86. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Jan. to Oct., 87. King Henry VIII. .. 88. An Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful 89. Lives of Timoleon, Paulus Æmilius, &c. 90. Endymion, and other Poems 91. A Voyage to Abyssinia 92. Sintram and his Companions, &c. 94. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Nov., 1666, 97. Poems 98. Colloquies on Society 99. Lives of Agesilaus, Pompey, & Phocion oo. The Winter's Tale 101. The Table-Talk of John Selden. WM. SHAKESPEARE. ALEXANDER POPE. WM. SHAKESPEARE. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY GEORGE HERBERT. WM SHAKESPEARE. EDMUND BURKE. WM. SHAKESPEARE. PLUTARCH. WM. SHAKESPEARE. 102. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (June to Oct., 1667). 103. An Essay upon Projects 104. The Cricket on the Hearth .. 105. Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. 106. Prometheus Unbound .. 107. Lives of Solon, Publicola, &c. 108. King Lear .. DANIEL DEFOE. CHARLES DICKENS. WM. SHAKESPEARE. The next Volume will be Seven Discourses on Art.-By SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. *For List of the First 52 Volumes of CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY see advertisement pages at end of this Book. INTRODUCTION. KING LEAR made his first substantial appearance in our literature in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of British Kings." That history, produced about the year 1147, was the work of an ingenious Welshman, who, five years afterwards, was made Bishop of St. Asaph. He resolved to balance the growing family of English chronicles, which took small note of anything before the modern days of Hengist and Horsa, with a more interesting chronicle of British kings, of kings who ruled in Britain before the English came, and who were the strong men before any English Agamemnon. This chronicler, well versed in Breton tales and Welsh traditions, gifted also with a quick imagination of his own, produced a book that was a fountain-head to much of the best romance of later years. He brought in King Arthur as our national hero, representing him, as it was complained at the time by honest chroniclers who stuck to fact, with a little finger stronger than the back of Alexander the Great. that chronicle the earliest English tragedy, Gorbeduc, derived its plot, and it was our first source of the story of King Lear. From In Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Chronicles of British Kings" Leir was the son of Bladud, who built the town now known as Bath, and made hot baths there about the time when the prophet Elias prayed that it might not rain upon earth, and it did not rain for three years and six months. Bladud was a very ingenious man, and practised magic till he tried to fly with wings, and went high into the air, but fell, and was dashed to pieces by falling on the Temple of Apollo, in the city of Trinovantum-that is to say, in London, where St. Paul's Cathedral now stands, on the top of Ludgate Hill. Then Leir became |