tion of the old copies, and not second-hand or third-hand. The labours of both these gentlemen have been of eminent service to me, and it would only be regarded as a piece of ungraceful hypercriticism if I were to enter into the question how far their most creditable publications are implicitly trustworthy. It will be a source of gratification to myself to discover that I am as near being so, as Mr. Collier and Mr. Corser.

The British Bibliographer, Censura Literaria, and Restituta of Brydges, Haslewood, &c., have supplied me with much serviceable information; but, on the other hand, I have found that a great deal of caution was necessary in dealing with those publications, and not with them alone, but with all others of or about the same date.

The Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica furnishes very little which does not occur elsewhere in a more accurate and satisfactory shape; but in a few instances I have been obliged to resort to it. Its editor, I apprehend, was not a man of extensive information, nor a particularly careful corrector of the press.

It was, in point of fact, a superior kind of sale-catalogue, and salecatalogues, as a rule, are most uncertain and treacherous guides. Mr. Jolley's Catalogues, extending (intermittently) from 1843 to 1853, if not beyond, were I have understood, prepared by himself, and yet they present the most unfortunate slips of the pen or the compositor. I take it, that Lowndes drew very largely upon this description of authority, and perhaps, if he had not, we should have had a better book. I think that I could undertake to prove that his successor has done the same.

Independently of all the foregoing sources of information, there is one still to be adverted to, and it is the sum and extent of my own researches. I am happily in a position to assert that here, for the first time, hundreds of unique or nearly unique volumes are set down from the examination of the originals by myself, and, apart from that, a large number of early English books of the first rarity are catalogued agreeably to the descriptions forwarded to me from Oxford and Cambridge by gentlemen whose precision I have no ground to doubt.

The British Museum has acquired of late years a rich supplement of important articles in the class of literature which I have endeavoured to treat, and every use has been made of the extraordinary assemblage of title pages, which are preserved in the MS. Department of the Museum (Harl. MSS. 5900-39), and in the Printed Book Department under the press-mark 463, h. The latter collection, which has never hitherto been examined, was most kindly pointed out to me by a gentleman in the MS. room; the title-pages, &c., which are pasted, like those in the Harleian MSS., into large folio volumes, were discovered in a chest at a date posterior to the publication, I believe, of the old catalogue.

Both these collections have been of the highest use to me, and a minute investigation of their contents has convinced me that they have remained, so far as the generality of readers and bibliographers is concerned, sealed books down to the present time, especially the latter. There are 48 volumes of them altogether, but of these several are devoted exclusively to foreign literature and to the literature of Bagford's own day.

It was at first my intention and wish to have incorporated with this book the entire contents of the Roxburghe collection of Ballads in 3 volumes, folio, acquired by purchase for the nation at Mr. Bright's sale in 1845; but I arrived, on consideration, at the conclusion that they would occupy so much space as to add materially to the bulk and (as a consequence) to the costliness of the work; and I must leave that portion of the task to other hands.

At the same time, many of the earlier ballads have been given, arranged under various heads, and, about one thousand articles of this kind, belonging to the collections of Pepys, Wood, &c., appear in their places. The entire contents of the Elizabethan Garland, 1856, and of Mr. Halliwell's Catalogue, printed in the same year, are also amalgamated. The same may be said of a large proportion of the ballads and broadsides, the property of the Society of Antiquaries.

In the Bibliographer's Manual the practice has been adopted of affixing the prices at which each article (of any importance) has been sold during the present century, but unluckily there is no reliance on the figures given, and no chronological arrangement has been attempted; so that, to all persons who are not very intimately acquainted with the period at which, and the circumstances also under which, the particular books were sold, this feature is not of the slightest practical utility.

Probably it would be of very little use, even if the notion had been properly carried out. In the case of rare books, so much depends on the condition, internal and external, that in the absence of rather elaborate explanations and descriptions, it is impossible for anybody to judge by comparison what is the relative value of a volume in his possession or in the market.

So far as the present publication is concerned, prices are not furnished as a rule, nor have I professed to supply them in every instance, even where, in Lowndes perhaps, for example, a long array of figures is exhibited to view. Where I have added the prices at which a volume has been sold, I have endeavoured to do so with a strict attention to chronological propriety, and the sums produced by unique or almost unique works, or works of unusually high interest, when brought to the hammer, have invariably been noted down.

Nor has it been thought irrelevant, here and there, to intersperse anecdotes connected with the sale, discovery, or fluctuating value of some of the more remarkable remains of our early literature, where such anecdotes appeared to be entitled to credit.

In the preparation of this Work, I have had two classes of difficulty to contend with, and, so far as I could, conquer. One was the necessity of hunting out editions of books and tracts which former bibliographers had neglected to notice, and which I believed or suspected to exist; and the second difficulty was the weeding out of imaginary editions mentioned by Warton and his suc

cessors.

My success in both these departments has been even beyond my expectations. I have been enabled to expunge impressions of volumes which certainly never had being, and to incorporate, on the contrary, a large number of impressions of which our elder antiquaries had no knowledge. The gain has been double.

For example's or illustration's sake, I may refer to Fulwell's Ars Adulandi, 1576, the Ethiopian History of Heliodorus, 1569, and Howell's New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets (hitherto supposed to be lost books).

Of the Book of Merry Riddles, I cite eight editions, Lowndes (new ed.) only four. Under Martin Parker, Lowndes has about half-a-dozen pieces imperfectly described: I give nearly 40. Under Elderton, Lowndes has one article: I have 15. To Alexander Julius he assigns five pieces (of which he makes six by a blunder): I assign to him 14 pieces. I might go on in the same way through the Alphabet, from A to Z. But I must furnish one or two more instances. Lowndes quotes editions of John Heywood's Works in 1576 and 1577; but the truth is, that the edition of 1576 has in the Colophon the date 1577; there was only one impression. Ovid's Remedie of Love, translated by F. L., was licensed in 1599, and printed in 1600; Lowndes, upon no better ground than this, makes editions in both those years, whereas there was but one-that of 1600.

Lowndes (and others before and after him) asserts that John Heywood's Play of Love was printed by John Rastell in 1533, and reprinted by R. Wyer. The only edition known was printed by John Waley, and the only copy of that yet seen has no title-page, but the fact is ascertained from the Colophon. Even the name of the Drama is consequently conjectural. Lowndes also mixes up together in hopeless confusion the Play of Love and the Play of the Wether.

The article SHAKESPEARE in these pages will not be quite so lengthy as it appears in another place; but it is trusted that it will make amends by being more accurate. The present Work, in fact, does not profess to deal with Shakesperiana, or with the modern editions of the Poet, or with the translations which exist in foreign languages; it confines itself to the old English quartos and folios.

Attention is solicited to the large assemblage of Garlands, which is now for the first time brought together; they range in date from 1624 to 1690, but

the latter rest their claim to admittance solely on the fact that they are reprints of much earlier impressions.

Under Love, and again under MARRIAGE, is arranged a very remarkable series of anonymous pieces, ballads, and satirical broadsides, many of which are, it is apprehended, new to all but the most industrious bibliographers. Sometimes it will be the production itself that is not known; sometimes the edition or editions of it.

I have placed under WALES a number of tracts, poetical and satirical, (1641-1660) which have no mark of authorship, and which, like a very considerable proportion of the contents of this book, have never been catalogued properly or completely before. Under JEST-BOOKS and DROLLERIES the reader will probably discover some articles which are fresh to him, but he must expect to be sent by cross-references to several publications, which I have preferred to shift to other, and, as it seemed to me, more appropriate heads.

Respecting one point, a few words of explanation are unquestionably necessary. All anonymous Dramas, instead of coming under their own titles, have been collected into one body, and catalogued as Plays, Anonymous.

The difficulty of determining how to place many of these productions suggested such a course; and it cannot possibly be attended by much, if any, inconvenience to readers, because, in the case of all dramatic works, which are not assignable to an author, they will have merely to turn to PLAYS, where they will meet with what they require in its chronological order.

I must observe that the doubtful Plays of Shakespeare have been made to enter into this department; for it was serving no good literary or indeed bibliographical purpose to set down side by side with Dramas known to be by Shakespeare, Dramas known not to be by him.

Independently of the old ballads incorporated with the book, there are hundreds of broadsides. Where these related to counties, and the writer's name was not traceable, they have been placed under the county to which they belong. If I had followed the old fashion, I should have catalogued A Relation of the Murder of Mr. Jones, of Putney, or, The True Loves of So-and-So, of Acton, under JONES and TRUE, but according to my plan they would come under Surrey and Middlesex respectively. In this way a humble contribution will be made to the history of nearly all the counties in England, Wales, and Scotland; and collectors, as a class, are undoubtedly more interested in a ballad or a satire on account of its local bearing, than in connection with the name or names which may appear in it, or the mere title. Where books, or pamphlets, or sheets, are strictly anonymous, and do not refer to any person of distinction, the very last resource, in my opinion, is the title. In a purely topographical publication, a subdivision into towns and particular localities would have been obviously preferable, but here

no such refinement has been attempted, partly because the class of literature which I have selected for treatment was so restricted, as well in its character, as in its date.

Upon the whole, it seemed to be due to my exertions, in order that some idea might be formed of the improvements and corrections which I have been able to introduce upon Ames, Herbert, Dibdin, Lowndes, and others, to distinguish by a mark those articles which are entirely new, or which have been so imperfectly described by former bibliographers as to be almost worse than undescribed; and this has been indicated throughout by prefixing in such cases a †.

The most agreeable part of my duty remains. I have to acknowledge myself the debtor of many noblemen and gentlemen who have responded to my call for information and help.

At Oxford, the Rev. H. O. Coxe, M.A., Keeper of the Bodleian, and George Waring, Esq., M.A., have been of very important service to me in communicating particulars respecting the early literature deposited in that noble institution. I have also to thank the Rev. I. H. Eld, Librarian of St. John's College, for a kindness which he would have multiplied if I had required it at his hands, and likewise the librarian of Corpus Christi College. At Glasgow, my friend, John Alexander, Esq., has favoured me with some notes on the valuable contents of the Hunterian Museum.

At Cambridge, Henry Bradshaw, Esq., of King's College, whose deep interest in this subject is so well known, supplied me with full and accurate intelligence in regard to some of the precious volumes in the University Library, now under his charge. W. Aldis Wright, Esq., F.S.A., performed a similar service for me at Trinity College, where Capel's Shakespeariana have remained to this day almost unexamined! The Rev. W. C. Green, Robert Potts, Esq., and my friend, G. A. Greenhill, Esq., attended to my wants at St. John's College, enriched by the donation of the Socius Ejectus, Thomas Baker. Francis Pattrick, Esq., helped me most kindly at the Pepysian.

At Lambeth Palace, the Rev. William Stubbs, M.A., Librarian to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, most promptly and cordially complied with my wishes, so far as the collections under his care were concerned. In examining many choice volumes at Sion College, every facility was afforded to me by the Rev. Canon Milman.

I have experienced courtesies and assistance of various kinds from His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, the Right Honourable Earl Fitzwilliam; W. Tite, Esq., M.P.; the Rev. J. A. Hessey, D.C.L.; J. O. Halliwell, Esq., F.R.S.; G. H. Kingsley, Esq., M.D., Librarian to the Right Honourable the Earl of Ellesmere; James Maidment, Esq., Advocate; the Rev. Alexander Dyce, B.A.; Thomas Jones, Esq., of the Chetham Library, Manchester; H. E. Moberley, Esq., of Winchester College Library; C.W. Reynell, Esq.; and Mrs. Sotheby.