BY THE REV. JOHN HUNTER, M.A. One of the National Society's Examiners of Middle-Class Schools; Malone J. 127 LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1872. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. FOR the story of this play, Shakspeare took the chief incidents of one of the tales in Boccaccio's Decameron, and involved them with an ancient portion of British History which he found in the Chronicle of Holinshed. An amusing imitation of Boccaccio's tale appeared in a collection of stories entitled 'Westward for Smelts,' which Malone says was printed in 1603; but no edition of it earlier than 1620 is known to exist. It is not, however, this English version, but the story in the Decameron, that Shakspeare's incidents most resemble. We have no evidence that any earlier play contributed to the production of Shakspeare's Cymbeline. The earliest known edition of Cymbeline is in the folio collection of 1623. But it may be supposed to have been written very little earlier or later than 1609, as in versification it closely resembles The Tempest and A Winter's Tale, both of which were probably composed about that period. The following extracts from Holinshed include all that is requisite to show what use Shakspeare made of his favourite chronicler in this play. 'After the death of Cassibellane, Theomantius or Lenantius, the youngest son of Lud, was made king of Britain in the year of the world 3921, after the building of Rome 706, and before the coming of Christ 45. Theomantius ruled the land in good quiet, and paid the tribute to the Romans which Cassibellane |