In Weekly Volumes, price 3d. : or in Clo‘h, sd A SELECTION OF THE MOST POPULAR VOLUMES IN CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY The following are amongst those already published, and a full list will be sent by the Publishers post free on application. The Haunted Man DICKENS. Heroes and Huro-worship CARLYLE. The Complete Angier ISAAC WALTON. Friends in Council SIR A. HELPS. Tue Autobiography of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. The Rivals, and The School för seandai SHERIDAN. Warren Haslings MACAULAY. The Angel in the House COVENTRY PATMORE The Life of Nelson SOUTHEY. A Detence of Poesie PHILIP SIDNEY. Paradise Regained JOHN MILTON. A Christmas Carol, and Tüe chines DICKENS. Childe Harold BYRON. Murad the Unlucky EDEWORTH. My l'en Years' Imprisonment SILVIO PELLICO. Plays GOLDSMITH. Tales from the Decameron BOCCACCIO. Visions of England .. PALGRAVE. Rasselas JOHNSON, Paradise Lost (Vols. 1. & ii). MILTON. Sintra'n and his Companions, &o. LA MOTTE FOUQUR. Memorabie Thoughts of Socrates XENOPHON. Daphnaida, and other Poems.. SPENSER Undine, and The Two Captains LA Morre FOUQUE. The Bravo of Venice M. G. LEWIS. The Legends of St. Patrick AUBREY DE VERE, Voyages and Travels MAUNDEVILLE, The Custle of Otranto WALPOLE. Lives of Alcibiades, Aristides, &c. PLUTARCH MARTIN LUTHER. PLUTARCH, COVENTRY PATMORE. Sorrows of Werter GOSTHE. Lives of Butler, Denham, Dry ien, &c. SAMUEL JOHNSON. ReligioMedici .. SIR T. BROWVE. The North-West Passage RICHARD HAKLUYT. Lifes of Addison, Sava” e, and swift SAMUEL JOHNUN. Shakespeare's Plays :-Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, Much Ado about Nothing, Julius Cæsar, Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well that Ends Well, King Henry VIII., King John, A Winter's Tale, The Tempest, As You Like It, Coriolanus, Richard II., ķing Henry IV. (Part I.), King Henry IV. (Part II.), Merry Wives of Windsor, King Henry V., Iaming of the Shrew, King Lear, Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The next Volume will be Lives of Timoleon, Paulus Æmilius, &c.-By PLUTARCH. CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, Ludgate Hill, London. INTRODUCTION. JOHNSON'S " Lives of the Poets" were written to serve as Introductions to a trade edition of the works of poets whom the booksellers selected for republication. Sometimes, therefore, they dealt briefly with men in whom the public at large has long ceased to be interested. Richard Savage would be of this number if Johnson's account of his life had not secured for him lasting remembrance. Johnson's Life of Savage in this volume has not less interest than the Lives of Addison and Swift, between which it is set, although Savage himself has no right at all to be remembered in such company. Johnson published this piece of biography when his age was thirty-five; his other lives of poets appeared when that age was about doubled. He was very poor when the Life of Savage was written for Cave. Soon after its publication, we are told, Mr. Harte dined with Cave, and incidentally praised it. Meeting him again soon afterwards Cave said to Mr. Harte, “You made a man very happy t'other day.” “How could that be?” asked Harte. “Nobody was there but ourselves." Cave answered by reminding him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily that he did not choose to appear. Johnson, struggling, found Savage struggling, and was drawn to him by faith in the tale he told. We have seen in ou own time how even an Arthur Orton could find sensible and good people to believe the tale with which he sought to enforce claim upon the Tichborne baronetcy. Savage had literary skill, and he could personate the manners of a gentleman in days when there were still gentlemen of fashion who drank, lied, and swaggered into midnight brawls. I have no doubt whatever that |
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