DURING the time of Augustus Cæsar, emperor of Rome, there reigned n England (which was then called Britain) a king whose name was Cymbeline. 1 Cymbeline’s first wife died when his three children (two sons and a daughter) were very young. Imogen, the eldest of these children, was brought up in her father’s court; but by a strange chance the two sons of Cymbeline were stolen out of their nursery, when the eldest was but three years of age, and the youngest quite an infant; and Cymbeline could never discover what was become of them, or by whom they were conveyed away. 2 Cymbeline was twice married: his second wife was a wicked, plotting woman, and a cruel stepmother to Imogen, Cymbeline’s daughter by his first wife.