Preface. IN presenting a New Edition of the PICTORIAL BOOK OF ANCIENT BALLAD POETRY, it is only necessary to state that some additions have been made to it, and the whole has been re-arranged; and though it is scarcely possible to fix upon the exact period of all the pieces, yet some attempt has been made to place most of them in chronological order, so that as the earliest belong to the reign of Henry VI., the volume will show the progress of Ballad Poetry from that time; when, however, more than one version of a Ballad is given, it has been thought best to place them together, the earliest preceding the later. The doings of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, which form a prominent feature in this collection, and are comprised in ten pieces, embracing the earliest known Ballad, and ending with that upon his death, from Ritson's Robin Hood's Garland, printed at York, have been also kept together, as to have separated them would have spoilt the interest of the subject, and lessened their value. The sources from which the Ballads have been derived are pointed out in the introductory notice prefixed to each, by reference to which it will be seen that not only Percy, Ritson, M191423 Evans, Scott, Jamieson, Buchan, and other well known and popular collections, have been resorted to, but also some reprints of the Percy Society, which are perhaps less familiar to the general reader. To the Editors of these, and of the other volumes from which any of our materials are taken, many thanks are due for the zeal and care they have exercised, in rescuing from loss so many poems, of which a large proportion existed only in collections, whose bulk concealed the beauties to be found there, or else in fly-sheets, extant only in the libraries of a few of the learned. The numerous popular imitations of Ancient Ballad Poetry from the pens of authors of so high a rank as Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Taylor, Percy, Chatterton, Leyden, Maginn, &c., mark so strongly the progress of national taste, and are themselves so fixed in the minds of old and young of our own times, that it was thought this publication would have been unsatisfactory without it contained a selection of them. And finally, to complete the subject in all its branches, and to show the resemblances as well as the differences between Foreign and English Ballads, a few translations have been added, very similar in structure to that of our own old Ballads, though their wild and fanciful nature contrasts strongly with the rough simplicity of the latter. Contents. PAGE ... THE ANCIENT BALLAD OF CHEVY CHASE. (Oldest Version)... Chevy Chase. (Later Version) ... Robin Hood and the Monk Robin Hood and the Beggar Robin Hood and the Stranger... Robin Hood, his Birth, Breeding, Valour, and Marriage Robin Hood and Little John ... Erlinton. (Supposed Original of the Child of Elle) The Child of Elle ... ... Adam Bel, Clym of the Cloughe, and Wyllyam of Cloudeslè Sir Hugh le Blond. (The Original of Sir Aldingar) 263 -Gil Morrice ... Patient Grissell ... The Drunkard's Legacy. (The English Ballad) Lord Beichan. (An English Version of the same) ... ... ... |