acknowledgments for the means of enriching the Annotated Edition of
the English Poets with a volume which, in some respects, is the
most curious and interesting of the series.

Subsequently to the publication of his collection by the Percy
Society, Mr. Dixon had amassed additional materials of great value;
and, conscious that the work admitted of considerable improvement,
both in the way of omission and augmentation, he resolved upon the
preparation of a new edition. His reasons for rejecting certain
portions of the former volume are stated in the following extract
from a communication with which he has obliged me, and which may be
considered as his own introduction to the ensuing pages.


The editor had passed his earliest years in a romantic mountain-
district in the North of England, where old customs and manners,
and old songs and ballads still linger. Under the influence of
these associations, he imbibed a passionate love for peasant
rhymes; having little notion at that time that the simple
minstrelsy which afforded him so much delight could yield hardly
less pleasure to those who cultivated more artificial modes of
poetry, and who knew little of the life of the peasantry. His
collection was not issued without diffidence; but the result
dissipated all apprehension as to the estimate in which these
essentially popular productions are held. The reception of the
book, indeed, far exceeded its merits; for he is bound in candour
to say that it was neither so complete nor so judiciously selected
as it might have been. Like almost all books issued by societies,
it was got up in haste, and hurried through the press. It
contained some things which were out of place in such a work, but