The

Bagford Ballads.

EDITED,

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,

BY

JOSEPH WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A., CANTAB.

EDITOR OF THE REPRINTED "DROLLERIES' OF THE RESTORATION."

WITH COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL WOODCUTS.

Part H.

HERTFORD:

Printed for the Ballad Society,

BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS.

16.

HERTFORD:

STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS.

Prefatory Notice.

M

EMBERS of the Ballad Society may be pleased to learn that the last remaining portion of our work is now so far advanced as to be virtually completed. Almost all of the important third volume of the original folio Bagford Collection is in type; several sheets are printed: little remaining to be done except the Appendix of later discoveries, the Index to the text and notes, with a brief General Introduction on Street Ballads and Ballad-Singers. This will count as part of the subscription for 1878.

By the time the first snow-flakes are falling, to close us in with their white curtains for the night, and deaden the harsh noises of a world that grows sometimes wearisome, the Editor hopes to have reached the word finis, and thus to let the light labours of a past twelvemonth speak a kindly message for him to those who now await the Third Volume.

Its interest will be found to be of a different sort from that which, he ventures to believe, belongs to the earlier pages. Those had been of miscellaneous subjects, social life diversified, but even they, for the most part, bore a relation to historical events; so that they brought us closely in contact with the men and women of two hundred years ago. We shared their joys, their griefs, their boastfulness, their anger; followed their ever-varying emotion. But in the third volume there is a more intimate connexion of the parts, so that they almost form a single narrative of the troubled times immediately preceding the Revolution of 1688. Here, if we choose to pay attention, are clearly written the contemporary records of how men felt and spoke during the mad excitement, the servile terror, and the ferocious hatred of the days when clamours echoed against "The Popish Plot." Strangely enough, a due consideration of this time was absolutely necessary to make the earlier volumes clearly intelligible, as historical documents. The materials are fortunately offered to us in the final portion of the Bagford Ballads.

August, 1877.

J. W. E.

The Bagford Ballads.

"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,-

So I offer them now, in his name.

J. W. E.

13 September, 1877.