The Austiniad. 717 His heavy guns of Woodcuts they spiked right manfully, With small shot of their Nonpareil, much havoc next they made, They came, they saw, they conquer'd! no walls of Jericho Troy took ten years to conquer, while Austin needs but one For hard they all have labour'd to finish up this year The tome of Roxburghe Ballads: brave boys of Hertfordshire! A health to Austin's troop and Lambs, for they are workmen good! 4th Jan. 1883. The Ballad Society. 'THE BALLAD SOCIETY was started, on the completion of printing The Percy Folio Manuscript in 1868, to continue the work begun by that undertaking, viz. the rendering accessible to all subscribers at the cost of an annual guinea, of the large stores of rare Ballads in the public-and, so far as possible, the private-collections of the country. The founder's wish was to have started the Society's work by printing the rarest of the Collections, the Pepysian; but the holders of it, the Master and Fellows of Magdalen College, Cambridge, having refused to allow the printing of the Pepys Ballads by the Society, it became necessary to turn to the next most important set, The Roxburghe Ballads in the British Museum. This Collection was undertaken to be annotated, if not to be edited, by the author best known in connection with English Ballads, their tunes and history, Mr. William Chappell, F.S.A., who had proved England to possess a wealth of early Ballads and Ballad-music unsuspected before and unequalled by any other country. At his wish, before he began his task, the whole of the three large volumes of Roxburghe Collection were copied; and indexes were made by paid copyists of several other large Collections, in order that it might be known where duplicates or other issues (of earlier or later date, ascertainable by the names of printers and publishers,) were preserved. The whole of this preliminary copying was done at considerable expense, occupying a long time, during which the earliest needed of the original woodcuts belonging to The Roxburghe Collection were drawn and engraved. It was not until the Christmas of 1869 that the first portion of the result was placed before the members of the Society, in "The Roxburghe Ballads, Part I., with short Notes by Mr. Wm. Chappell." 'The delay caused by the necessity for copying and indexing so many hundreds of Ballads before any of the Roxburghes could be sent to press, rendered it expedient that some other Ballads should be produced in 1868. The Crvil War and Protectorate Ballads could not be prepared in time, therefore Mr. Furnivall, the founder of the Ballad Society, issued for its first year a volume of "Ballads and Poems on the Condition of England in Henry VIII's and Edward VI.'s Reigns (including the State of the Clergy, Monks, and Friars)," with a long Introduction on the same subject, containing a series of extracts from Manuscripts and rare early Tracts. The second text issued for 1868 was "Ballads from Manuscripts," Vol. II. Part I. It contained "The Poore Man's Pittance, poems on Babington's Conspiracy, the death of Essex and the Gunpowder Plot." The preliminary outlay for the Roxburghe Ballads was so large that for its first 3 or 4 years, whilst subscribers were most numerous, the Society wrote off a part of its income to meet the loss of capital sunk in cuts, indexes, and copies; thus the Members could not be furnished with large issues of texts.' Thus far, with some necessary retrenchment, we reproduce the usual prospectus advertisement that appears in full on the Ballad Society's wrappers. The remainder is virtually represented in the Hand-List of their Publications. PUBLICATIONS OF THE BALLAD SOCIETY. April, 1883. ALREADY ISSUED. Ballads from Manuscripts. Vol. 1 (2 Parts). Edited by FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A. 1868, 1872. Ballads from Manuscripts. Vol. 2 (2 Parts). Edited by F. J. FURNIVALL, The Roxburghe Ballads. Vols. 1, 2, and 3. (9 Parts.) Edited by WILLIAM The Roxburghe Ballads. (New Series, Vol. 1) Vol. 4. (3 Parts.) With Index and Copies of all the original Woodcuts. Including the Group of Anti-Papal Ballads, and First Group on the Duke of Monmouth's struggle for the Succession against the Duke of York. Edited, with the Illustrations, by J. W. EBSWORTH, M.A., F.S.A. 1881 to 1883. IN ACTIVE PREPARATION. Completion of the Roxburghe Ballads. Edited by J. W. EBSWORTH, as above. With his Copper-plate Portrait of Wm. Chappell, Editor of the earlier three volumes, and full Indexes to the entire Work. Songs, Ballads, and Political Poems of the Civil War and Protectorate. In Five Parts, arranged Chronologically. By the same Editor, with his Copies of all the original Woodcuts, Portraits, and Caricatures of the time. The First Volume includes "The Bishops' War," the opening of the Long Parliament, the judicial murder of Strafford, the Raising of the Royal Standard at Nottingham; ending with the Execution of Archbishop Laud. The Editor reserves to himself entire freedom of action in regard to the publication of this work, to avoid annoyance of interference; and he also reserves the copyright of all his Notes and Introductions, with his own Woodcuts, to each and all of his volumes. The Hon. Sec. of the Ballad Society is W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67, Victoria Road, Finsbury Park, London, N. The Subscription is One Guinea a year for small-paper copies; Three Guineas for large-paper. |