"What hast here! Ballads?"-The Winter's Tale, iv. 3

I.

OME around me, ye bountiful Masters,
My ballads and songs, pray, now hear!
I've laid in a fresh stock of Disasters,
To make you all shudder with fear.

I could curdle your blood, with a many;
Or make your flesh creep, with a few;
I might shock you to death, for one penny:
And warrant the whole of them true.

II.

But, I see, you need change from such diel;
(One remembers that toujours perdrix!)
You shall have, if you'll only be quiet,

Some rare Battles, on land or at sea ;
With as much Love and Mirth, for your money,
As a Cavalier Hector e'er knew:

Till around you the world becomes sunny,

And you fancy 'twas all made for you.

III.

Far away, from your present small troubles,
To the past of these ballads return :
There are gay hues, methinks, on their bubbles,
Bright sparks 'mid their embers yet burn.
Let the cynic growl, "Soap-suds! all hollow;"

Or the saint mutter, "Brands, for the flame !"
Street-songs were not scorn'd by Apollo,-

Take some of them now, in his name.

J. W. E.

13 September, 1877.

HERTFORD:

STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS.

"What hast here? Ballads?"-The Winter's Tale, iv. 3.

C

I.

OME around me, ye bountiful Masters,
My ballads and songs, pray, now hear!
I've laid in a fresh stock of Disasters,
To make you all shudder with fear.
I could curdle your blood, with a many;
Or make your flesh creep, with a few;
I might shock you to death, for one penny :
And warrant the whole of them true.

II.

But, I see, you need change from such diet;
(One remembers that toujours perdrix !)
You shall have, if you'll only be quiet,

Some rare Battles, on land or at sea;
With as much Love and Mirth, for your money,
As a Cavalier Hector e'er knew:

Till around you the world becomes sunny,

And you fancy 'twas all made for you.

III.

Far away, from your present small troubles,
To the past of these ballads return :
There are gay hues, methinks, on their bubbles,
Bright sparks 'mid their embers yet burn.
Let the cynic growl, "Soap-suds! all hollow;"

Or the saint mutter, "Brands, for the flame !"
Street-songs were not scorn'd by Apollo,-

Take some of them now, in his name.

J. W. E.

13 September, 1877.

Theseus.-"Come, now; what masks, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours,
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?"

A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act v.

UR Second Division completes the second volume of the original Folio Collection, and includes the whole of the third volume. The omissions are, as formerly specified, of Roxburghe Collection duplicates, reserved Civil-War Ballads, and some few broadsides not of lyric character. We have never felt ourselves restricted by a hard-and-fast rule, to the exclusion of everything that was neither song nor ballad. On one occasion, even such absolute prose as the Account of a Seamonster found in Fleet-ditch (our pp. 59 to 62,) "claimed kindred here, and had its claim allowed." But we admit few of the rhymed verses that were not intended to be sung, and each of these exceptions gains favour for some special reason, independent of any literary merit.

Readers will see the interest of the final volume to be of a different sort from that of the earlier portions. The first volume was, in truth, of somewhat heterogeneous materials; for John Bagford had thrust into it many fragmentary leaves and loose sheets, promiscuously. The second