present time are, the reader They will not compare with What the lyrics of the may be supposed to know. those of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, but they are genuine, as far as they go. The best of them, to my thinking, are BARRY CORNWALL's—a venerable name, which must soon pass from amongst us. that which should Where The arrangement adopted here is always obtain in works of this nature, viz., the chronological one. The lyrics of each poet are placed in the order in which they were written, so far as I could ascertain it, and the whole in strict succession of time. several are taken from one poet, as in the case of SHAKESPEARE and FLETCHER, the date of the earliest determines his place in the century. SHAKESPEARE, for instance, is placed in the year 1592, the date assigned by DYCE to "Love's Labour's Lost;" and FLETCHER in 1610, the date of the publication of his "Faithful Shepherdess." Where an author's works were not published until after his death, the lyric, or lyrics, selected therefrom, are, of course, placed before his death. In such cases one can only approximate to correct chronology: certainty is impossible. The student of English Poetry will detect, in most cases, the reasons which have influenced me in assigning the conjectural dates. Had I made the collection for him alone, I would have added annotations of all sorts, which, by-the-way, I could hardly restrain myself from doing. But, working for the general reader, who seldom cares for the laborious trifles of the scholar, however curious they may be, I have let the poets speak for themselves, without note or comment from me. The text is as pure as I could make it. I dare not flatter myself, however, that it is absolutely pure, so much have the old poets been tampered with by those who have edited them, and those who have quoted from them. In the matter of spelling, punctuation, etc., I have conformed to the usage of to-day, not being able to see the sacredness of the old style of typography, the phonographic spelling of the author, the whims of his printers, and the blunders of the press generally.. NEW YORK, November 1, 1865. R. H. S. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 30 WILBYE'S MADRIGALS 33 THOMAS DEKKER 38 .FARMER'S ENGLISH MADRIGALS 40 .HENRY CONSTABLE 41 THOMAS WATSON 42 MORLEY'S MADRIGALS 43 DOWLAND'S BOOK OF SONGS 43 DOWLAND'S BOOK OF SONGS 44 DOWLAND'S BOOK OF SONGS 45 Madrigal. Madrigal Of Corinna's Singing. Madrigal A Song .WEELKES'S MADRIGALS 46 WEELKES'S MADRIGALS 47 .THOMAS CAMPION 47 THOMAS CAMPION 48 DAVISON'S POETICAL RHAPSODY 49 PAGE Ode Madrigal..... There is a Garden.. Song... ✓ Song Madrigal.... To Celia..... The Triumph of Charis. DAVISON'S POETICAL RHAPSODY 50 ALLISON'S HOUR'S RECREATION IN MUSIC 52 The Wooing Song of Panglory. "Shall I, wafting in despair ?". ............... "Call for the robin redbreaft and the wren "Hark, now every thing is ftill". "All the flowers of the Spring". Madrigal... The Character of a Happy Life On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia. The Indifferent...... Madrigal A Kiss Defired Death To Sleep........ JOHN FLETCHER 63 JOHN FLETCHER 63 ..JOHN FLETCHER 64 PILKINGTON'S MADRIGALS 65 GEORGE WITHER 65 JOHN WEBSTER 67 ..JOHN WEBSTER 67 JOHN WEBSTER 68 WARD'S MADRIGALS 69 .SIR HENRY WOTTON 69 ...SIR HENRY WOTTON 70 ..FRANCIS BEAUMONT 71 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 72 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 73 ....WILLIAM DRUMMOND 73 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 74 |