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PREFACE |
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Words and letters torn off the original sheets have been supplied within square brackets; but no attempt has been made to smooth away or omit the three or four objectionable words that occur. Bowdlerizing is out of the question in a work of this kind.
The separate introductions purpose to give the necessary bibliographical details, to establish the date, to indicate where the tune can be found, and to present appropriate facts about the author and the general situation of the ballad. It has not been possible to realize this aim for all the ballads, but perhaps it is permissible to call attention to the large number here first identified with entries in the Stationers' Registers, to the sources found for most of them, and to the identification of tunes heretofore wrongly assigned or unknown. As the texts themselves present few difficulties to any one versed in Elizabethan literature, annotations have been reduced to the minimum, and such explanation of archaic words and of names as seems desirable has been put for the most part in the glossarial index.
Grateful acknowledgment must be made to the authorities of the Pepysian, Bodleian, and Manchester Free Reference Libraries for permission to reproduce ballads from their collections, especially to Mr Morshead, of Magdalene College, whose interest and aid have been unceasing; to Mr S. C. Roberts, of the Cambridge University Press, for help in securing rotographs of all the ballads contained in this book and for many valuable suggestions as the book was passing through the press; to Mr Alfred Rogers, of the Cambridge University Library, for a transcript of the fourth ballad; to Miss Addie F. Rowe, of the Harvard College Library, for verifying a number of references and quotations; to my colleague, Dr Albert S. Borgman, for his help in the proof-reading; and to Professor C. H. Firth, whose essay on "The Ballad History of the Reign of James I" (Royal Historical Society Transactions, 3rd Series, v, 21—61) has been frequently consulted. It would be churlish to fail to mention the |
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