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LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS

Addison Savage Swift

IN WEEKLY VOLUMES, brice 3d.: or in Cloth, 5ď

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.

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Table Talk

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LA MOTTE FOUQUE.
XENOPHON.
SPENSER.

LA MOTTE FOUQUE.
M. G. LEWIS.
AUBREY DE VERE.
MAUNDEVILLE.
WALPOLE.

PLUTARCH.

MARTIN LUTHER.

The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck (Vols I. & 11.).

The Natural History of Selborne (Vols. I. & II.)

Lives of Pericles, Fabius Maximus, &e.

Victories of Love

Sorrows of Werter

Lives of Butler, Denham, Dryden, &c.
Religio Medici...

The North-West Passage

GILBERT WHITE.
PLUTARCH,

COVENTRY PATMORE.
GOETHE.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.
SIR T. BROWNE.
RICHARD HAKLUYT.
SAMUEL JOHNSON.

Liges of Addison, Sava e, and Swift
Shakespeare's Plays:-Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth,
Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, Much Ado about
Nothing, Julius Caesar, 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., King Henry IV.
(Part 1.), King Henry IV. (Part II), Merry Wives of Windsor, King
Henry V., Taming 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.

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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 our 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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