INTRODUCTION (continued 3)

As to printed collections of ballads, the editions of the Roxburghe and Bagford Ballads, published by the Ballad Society, have been freely drawn upon. The labours of Mr. Chappell and Mr. Ebsworth have alone made it possible to select and put together ballads relating to any particular side of English history, and their researches into the questions of the origin and text of the ballads have furnished all students of any special kind of ballads with a solid basis for further investigations. To Mr. Ebsworth the editor is further indebted for personal assistance and encouragement.

Two other collections have also been of special service—The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited by Professor F. J. Child, 5 vols., Boston, 1895, and Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript, edited by Professor J. W. Hales and Dr. F. J. Furnivall, 3 vols., London, 1868.

There are also several special collections of Naval Ballads, to which references are frequently made in this introduction and in the notes. Of these the most important are:

(1) Early Naval Ballads of England, collected and edited by J. O. Halliwell for the Percy Society in 1851.

(2) Sea Songs and Ballads by Dibdin and others. London, Bell and Daldy, 1863. This contains an appendix consisting of ballads written before Dibdin’s day.

(3) Real Sailor Songs, collected and edited by John Ashton, 1891, which is valuable from the number of modern street ballads it contains.

(4) Sea Songs and Ballads, selected by Christopher Stone, with an introduction by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Oxford, 1906.

(5) A Sailor’s Garland, selected and edited by John Masefield, London 1906.

One word as to the text of the ballads and songs contained in this volume. It was at first intended to preserve the exact spelling of the originals. In the older pieces it was possible to do this because there was usually an authoritative text accessible, which it was easy to follow throughout. But the later ballads, issued on broadsheets and slips, and frequently reprinted again by country printers, swarmed with misprints due to mere carelessness which it would have been unnecessary and undesirable to reproduce. Moreover, it was often needful to compare several versions in order to obtain a tolerable text. For these reasons a certain number of obvious errors of the press have been corrected. Some variants, with comments on the text of the ballads, and an indication of the source from which the text is derived, will be found in the notes at the end of the volume. It should be noted that in order to save space two lines have often been printed as one.