ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE THIRTEENTH VOLUME. ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. 1. Lear, Edgar, King, and Fool, (King Lear) from a Painting by Smirke. Frontispiece. KING LEAR. 2. Lear, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, &c.-Fuseli. 5. Cordelia, Lear. and Kent.-Smirke. 6. Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms.-Barry. ROMEO AND JULIET. 7. Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Guests, &c.-Miller. 8. Juliet and Nurse.-Smirke. 9. Romeo, Juliet, and Nurse. Rigaud. 10. Juliet, Capulet, Lady Capulet, Friar, &c.-Opie.. 11. Juliet awaking.-Northcote. PAGE 14 278 292 HISTORICAL NOTICE ОР KING LEAR. This noble tragedy, the composition of which is assigned by Malone to the date of 1605, was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company Nov. 26, 1607, and is there mentioned to have been played the preceding Christmas before his majesty at Whitehall. The story was originally related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and thence transcribed in Holinshed's Chronicle, which Shakspeare certainly consulted, though he appears to have been more indebted to an old drama on the same subject by an anonymous writer, which made its appearance in 1594. The episode of Gloster and his sons, which is blended by our author with such consummate skill in the development of his main design, was derived from the narrative of the blind king of Paphlagonia, in the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney. Geoffrey of Monmouth informs us that Lear, who was the eldest son of Bladud, nobly governed his country for sixty years.' According to that historian, he died about eight hundred years before the Christian era. The tragedy of Lear,' says Dr. Johnson, is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so |