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SELECT PLAYS OF

Shakspere

The Rugby Edition

KING LEAR

RUGBY EDITION.

With an Introduction and Notes to each Play.

AS YOU LIKE IT. 25.

Edited by the Rev. CHARLES E. MOBERLY, M.A., Assistant-Master in Rugby School, and formerly Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford. "This is a handy, clearly printed school edition of Shakspere's bright play. The notes are sensible, and not overdone, and the Introduction is helpful."-Athenæum. "The notes are clear, to the point, and brief, and for the most part excellent." Standard.

MACBETH.

25.

Edited by the SAME.

"A very excellent text, very ably annotated."-Standard. "The plan of giving a brief sketch of each character in the play lends additional interest to it for the young learner. The notes are mainly explanatory, and serve the same useful purpose of clearing away difficulties from the path of the young reader. Of all school Shaksperes, this seems to us considerably the best."-Educational Times.

HAMLET. 2s. 6d. Edited by the SAME.

"The Introductions in this edition are particularly good, rising above the dull level of antiquarianism into a region of intelligent and sympathetic comment and analysis not often reached in school-books. The Rugby Edition will do well either | for school or home reading."-London Quarterly Review.

CORIOLANUS. 2s. 6d.

Edited by ROBERT WHITELAW, M. A., Assistant-Master in Rugby School, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

"The way in which the play is edited displays careful scholarship, and the whole edition is extremely well adapted for school use."-Educational Times.

"This number of the Rugby Edition of Select Plays of Shakspere we think the best of the series. There is more effort than before to bring out the characteristics of the central figure of the play, the notes are fuller, and the glossary too."-Athenæum.

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Edited by J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, M.A., Head-Master of Bedford Grammar School, formerly Fellow of New College, Oxford.

KING LEAR.

Edited by the Rev. CHARLES E. MOBERLY, M.A.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Edited by R. W. TAYLOR, M.A., Assistant-Master in Rugby School.

RIVINGTONS, LONDON, OXFORD, AND CAMBRIDGE.

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INTRODUCTION

IF the depth and pathos of a drama is proportionate to the importance of the law whose violation causes its tragic incidents, we are not surprised that Shakspere should have based this, his most pathetic tragedy, on filial ingratitude and disobedience. For the law that children must obey their parents is of all countries and of all times; all governments appeal to us in its name; Rome ruled through the vigour derived from its performance; Germany now builds her homely domestic life upon it; France still clings to it as her one fixed point amid revolutions; and we ourselves are anxiously thinking how it may be most firmly maintained amongst us, in spite of adverse influences. It has also afforded at all times an imposing theme to great authors; the tales of Orestes and of the house of Laius were written to enforce it; the sternest page of Tacitus is that in which he groups round the parricide Nero the spectacle of imperial corruption; and perhaps the best passage in the later Roman poets is where Claudian sees the last lingering sign of its sway in his simple-minded Etruscan peasant, who passionately weeps for his lost father, because he is too rustic to know the manners of the city, and too young for his heart to be yet crusted by hardness and want of natural affection.

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