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HISTORICAL NOTICE

OF

CYMBELINE.

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This play is conjectured by Malone to have been written in the year 1609, although it was neither entered on the books of the Stationers' Company nor printed till 1623. The main incidents on which the plot rests occur in a novel of Boccace; but our author is supposed to have derived them from an old storybook popular in that age, intitled Westward for Smelts.' All he knew of Cymbeline he acquired from Holinshed, who is sometimes closely followed, and sometimes strangely perverted. This king, according to the old historian, succeeded his father in the 19th year of the reign of Augustus; and the play commences about the 24th year of Cymbeline's reign, which was the 42d of the reign of Augustus, and the 16th of the Christian era; notwithstanding which, Shakspeare has peopled Rome with modern Italians, Philario, Iachimo, &c. Cymbeline is said to have reigned 35 years, leaving at his death two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus.

This drama, if not in the construction of its fable one of the most perfect of our author's productions, is, in point of poetic beauty, of variety and truth of character, and in the display of sentiment and emotion, one of the most interesting; and ill deserves the

sweeping censure of Dr. Johnson, who decides its merits in the following summary manner: This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes; but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism on unresisting imbecility; on faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.'

ARGUMENT.

The princess Imogen, only daughter to Cymbeline, king of Britain, secretly marries an accomplished courtier, named Posthumus, whose presumption is punished by a sentence of perpetual exile by the angry monarch. Deprived of the society of his amiable wife, the banished Posthumus repairs to Rome, where his confidence in the unshaken attachment of his princess is unhappily exchanged into a conviction of her infidelity by the false intelligence which he receives from Iachimo, a perfidious Italian; and the misguided husband immediately despatches orders to Pisanio, a faithful attendant residing in Britain, to put his mistress to death. Disregarding these cruel injunctions, Pisanio induces the unhappy lady to avoid the malice of her stepmother, and the importunities of her son Cloten, by flight. Disguised in male attire, Imogen arrives near Milford-haven, where she procures hospitable entertainment in the cottage of Belarius, a banished nobleman in the garb of a peasant, who had revenged the injuries which he had formerly sustained at the hands of Cymbeline, by stealing his two infant sons, and educating them as his own in this retreat. Cloten shortly after arrives in pursuit of Imogen, and is slain by the eldest of the princes in single combat. In the mean time Posthumus and Iachimo accompany a Roman army to Britain, where Imogen, under the assumed name of Fidele, becomes a page to the Roman general, who sustains a signal defeat, in which the intrepid valor of Belarius and the two princes, assisted by Posthumus in the disguise of a British soldier, is chiefly conspicuous. Iachimo is taken prisoner, and makes a confession of his guilt to Cymbeline; Imogen is restored to her husband, Belarius pardoned, and the two princes publicly recognised; while the queen dies in despair at the loss of her son, and the disappointment of her am bitious projects.

166

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

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CYMBELINE, king of Britain.

CLOTEN, Son to the Queen by a former husband.

LEONATUS POSTHUMUS, a gentleman, husband to Imogen.

BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of

Morgan.

GUIDERIUS, Sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the names of ARVIRAGUS, Polydore and Cadwal, supposed sons to Belarius. PHILARIO, friend to Posthumus,

IACHIMO, friend to Philario,

Italians.

FRENCH GENTLEMAN, friend to Philario.

CAIUS LUCIUS, general of the Roman forces.
ROMAN CAPTAIN. TWO BRITISH CAPTAINS.

PISANIO, Servant to Posthumus.

CORNELIUS, a physician.

Two GENTLEMEN.

:WO JAILERS.

QUEEN, wife to Cymbeline.

IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen.

HELEN, woman to Imogen.

Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, Apparitions, a Soothsayer, a Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish Gentleman, Musicians, Officers, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Sometimes in Britain, sometimes in Italy.

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