Note 866 — Chapter I

At Braintree fair in Essex. Hist. Eng. Poet. vol. iii. p. 292. This was a century and a half back, when twenty shillings was a considerable sum. The ancient ballade have frequently this colophon: "Printed by A. B. and are to be sold at the stalls of the ballad-singers." But an ordinance published by Oliver Cromwell against the strolling fiddlers, silenced the ballad-singers, and obliged the sellers to shut up shop. Hawkins, Hist. Music, vol. iv. p. 113.