fuch reception, as is ufually fhewn to poets and hiftorians, by those whofe consciousness of merit makes it their intereft to be long remembered.

I am,

MADAM,

Your LADYSHIP'S

Moft Humble

And moft devoted Servant,

THOMAS PERCY.

! The PRE FACE.

THE

HE Reader is here presented with select remains of our ancient English Bards and Minstrels, an order of men who were once greatly refpected by our ancestors, and contributed to foften the roughnefs of a martial and unlettered people by their fongs and by their mufic.

The greater part of them are extracted from an ancient folio manufcript, in the Editor's poffeffion, which contains near 200 poems, fongs, and metrical romances. This MS. was written about the middle of the last century, but contains compofitions of all times and dates, from the ages prior to Chaucer, to the conclufion of the reign of Charles I.

This manuscript was fhown to feveral learned and ingenious friends, who thought the contents too curious to be configned to oblivion, and importuned the poffeffor to select some of them, and give them to the prefs. As most of them are of great fimplicity, and feem to have been meerly written for the people, he was long in doubt, whether in the present state of improved literature, they could be deemed worthy the attention of the public. At length the importunity of his friends prevailed, and he could refuse nothing to fuch judges as the author of the RAMBLER, and the late Mr. SHEN

STONE.

Accordingly fuch fpecimens of ancient poetry have been felected as either fhew the gradation of our language, exhibit the progrefs of popular opinions, dif play the peculiar manners and cuftoms of former ages, or throw light on our earlier claffical poets.

They