Lilli Burlero (both Parts, and the Epigram), 1688-89
King William's Birthday: a November Guy

Sorrowful Complaint of Conscience and Plain-Dealing.
The Maid of Lynn (First Song)

The Lass of Lynn's Sorrowful Lamentation (Second Song).

PAGE

370

416

431

462

463

End of the First Division; in the middle of Original Second Volume.

66

Bagford was the most hungry and rapacious of all book and print
collectors; and, in his ravages, he spared neither the most delicate nor costly speci-
mens. He seems always to have expressed his astonishment at the most common
productions; and his paper in the Philosophical Transactions ["drawn up by
Wanley"] betrays such simplicity and ignorance that one is astonished how my
Lord Oxford, and the learned Bishop of Ely, could have employed so credulous
a bibliographical forager. A modern collector and lover of perfect copies will
witness, with shuddering, among Bagford's collection of title-pages in the
[British] Museum, the frontispieces of the Complutensian Polyglot, and Chauncy's
History of Hertfordshire, torn out to illustrate a History of Printing. His
enthusiasm, however, carried him through a great deal of laborious toil; and he
supplied in some measure, by this qualification, the want of other attainments.
His whole mind was devoted to book-hunting; and his integrity and diligence
probably made his employers overlook his many failings. His handwriting is
scarcely legible, and his orthography is still more wretched; but if he was
ignorant, he was humble, zealous, and grateful; and he has certainly done
something towards the accomplishment of that desirable object, an accurate
General History of Printing."-T. F. Dibdin's Bibliomania, edit. 1811, p. 431.

Dn Political Street-Ballads and Ballad-Singers.

ALTER SCOTT, when concluding his first
Waverley Novel, wrote "A Postscript
which should have been a Preface." He
acknowledged his reasons, with his usual
manliness: 66
First, that most novel-
readers, as my own conscience reminds
me, are apt to be guilty of the sin of

omission respecting that same matter of prefaces. Secondly, that it is a general custom among that class of students, to begin with the last chapter of a work; so that, after all, these remarks, being introduced last in order, have still the

BAGFORD.

b

best chance to be read in their proper place." Likely to be twice read, we may add.

As with other prefatory matter, the Introduction which welcomes our readers to such entertainment for man and beast as the Bagford Ballads are capable of affording, is the Editor's final work on the present undertaking. It is not written until he has reached the Appendix-end, and when he has already girded up his loins to run a much harder race, for the same fellow-members of the Ballad Society: viz. the editing with his utmost care that valuable series of broadsides and fly-leaves which fluttered amid the crowd from 1642 to 1660. THE CIVIL WAR AND THE PROTECTORATE, UNTIL THE RESTORATION: ILLUSTRATED BY THE BALLADS AND POEMS OF THE TIME. This is the work which, if they desire it, he hopes to speedily produce, in self-complete portions,1 for the perusal of (let us hope) an increased number of subscribers. The importance of such a Library Edition, as a trustworthy and scholarly record of the most interesting period of our English History, he thoroughly weighs. He can give no better proof of his doing so, than thus willingly devoting some of the best remaining years of his life to the task; if, indeed, the years remain to be given.

The present series of Bagford Ballads, however desultory and miscellaneous they may appear, will scarcely be undervalued by thoughtful students. Rough and clumsy as is the workmanship in many of them, they are genuine records of the last days of Stuart rule, and of the unquiet time which followed the Revolution of 1688, until the end of the century. It seemed unadvisable to alter the order of succession, in which the original documents were arranged, although it had been made, for the most part, on a very hap-hazard principle. It would have caused "confusion, worse than death," in all external references to the Bag

1 Thus, the first annual portion would be devoted to the time between the outbreak of the Scotch Rebellion and the death of Strafford or Laud. The Second Part would continue the history of Charles until his trial and execution. The Third would extend to the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1653. The Fourth would end with the great storm of September, 1658, in which the soul of Cromwell passed away. The Fifth and last would give the next two years, including the Restoration, and the death of the Regicides. If found desirable, the Editor could give the opening-portion at an early date; not interfering with the resumed publication of the Roxburghe Ballads: after 1878.

ford Collection. The Ballads might have been re-distributed, chronologically (an undoubted advantage in itself), supposing that we arrived at an exact determination of the date when each Ballad appeared. Even this might not have sufficed. They might have been grouped according to their subjects; which was the intention of John Bagford (see our p. 247), but the development was imperfect. We were further hampered, moreover, by the necessity of omitting such ballads as are duplicates of those in the Roxburghe Collection, whether yet reprinted or merely projected; thus even the original grouping was disturbed. So here is the Collection reproduced without emasculation, or partiality, for readers to con at leisure. The Editor has performed his task single-handedly, having personally copied every line from the original poems and ballads; and afterwards collated every proof himself, line by line, with the exemplars in the British Museum.

He claims his usual privilege of friendly converse in this General Introduction, and makes no disguise of his political convictions, founded on earnest study of English history. With Dame Quickly, he "cannot abide swaggerers"; and there were many of that evil breed who made themselves disagreeable, as Members of Parliament, paid spies and informers, in days preceding the Revolution of 1688. They left a hopeful progeny behind them. Our concern with them is chiefly in the pages 646-843. At no time, except during the agitation against removal of the Catholic Disabilities, in our own century, was there a more virulent and insane epidemic of bigotry than during the years 1676-93; a period specially illustrated by our Bagford Ballads. We have never scrupled to express our abhorrence

Let it be understood that we have endeavoured to faithfully give these historical documents in their entirety. Where offensive words occur, they are retained, to the shame of the past writers and singers, not of ourselves, the merely antiquarian students. To our mind, there is more disgrace on the land for having encouraged the spiteful bloodthirstiness of the Sham-Plot "discoverers," the rebelliousness, the hypocrisy, and the bigotry of the ten years following 1678, than for the bad taste displayed in a few loose amatory ditties or equivocal pleasantries. It was not for nothing that lampoons and burlesques bore the name and spelling of "Satyrs." The goats' feet clatter somewhat too noisily on the pavement. The horns are undisguised and obtrusive. But the animalism, although not to be commended, is less offensive than the wickedness and falsehood of certain political schemers, who kept libellous pamphleteers and ballad-writers in pay to circulate sedition and calumny.