Excerpt from Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets, Together With Some Few of Later Date Twenty years have near elapsed since the last edi tion of this work appeared. But, although it was sufficiently a favourite with the public, and had long been out of print, the original Editor. Had no desire to revive it. More important pursuits had, as might be expected. Engaged his attention and the present edition would have remained unpublished, had he not yielded to the importunity of his friends, and accepted the humble offer of an Editor in a nephew, to whom, it is feared, he will be found too partial. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.