Trusting that this, and all the other arrangements we are proposing to
ourselves, may meet with the approbation of our friends and subscribers, we
bid them Farewell! and wish them,--what we trust they wish to NOTES AND
QUERIES--a Happy New Year, and many of them!

* * * * *


NOTES.

OLD BALLAD UPON THE "WINTER'S TALE."

Some of your correspondents may be able to give me information respecting
an old ballad that has very recently fallen in my way, on a story similar
to that of Shakspeare's _Winter's Tale_, and in some particulars still more
like Greene's novel of _Pandosto_, upon which the _Winter's Tale_ was
founded. You are aware that the earliest known edition of Greene's novel is
dated 1588, although there is room to suspect that it had been originally
{2} printed before that year: the first we hear of the _Winter's Tale_ is
in 1611, when it was acted at court, and it was not printed until it
appeared in the folio of 1623.

The ballad to which I refer has for title _The Royal Courtly Garland, or
Joy after Sorrow_: it is in ordinary type, and was "Printed and sold in
Aldermary Churchyard, London." It has no date, and in appearance does not
look older than from perhaps, 1690 to 1720; it may even be more recent, as
at that period it is not easy to form a correct opinion either from
typography or orthography: black-letter has a distinguishing character at
various periods, so as to enable a judgment to be formed within, perhaps,
ten years, as regards an undated production: but such is not the case with