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ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET

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BY THE REV. JOHN HUNTER, M.A.

Instructor of Candidates for the Civil Service and other Public Examinations, and
formerly Vice-Principal of the National Society's Training College, Battersea.

Malone. S. 99.

LONDON:

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

THIS TRAGEDY is not known to have appeared in print before its publication in the folio of 1623; but it had been entered at Stationers' Hall in 1608, and in that year Malone thinks it was probably composed.

The dramatist has derived nearly every incident in his Antony and Cleopatra from the life of Antonius in Sir Thomas North's Plutarch, and has followed very closely even the language of that writer. A careful perusal, therefore, of the Extracts from Plutarch, given in this edition, will be found very helpful to a right appreciation of the play.

For a brief historical comparison of Shakspeare's three Roman plays the student is referred to the Introductory Remarks in the editor's Julius Cæsar.

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