Produced by Beth Constantine, David Starner, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Quaint Gleanings From Ancient Poetry:
A COLLECTION OF CURIOUS POETICAL COMPOSITIONS
OF THE XVIth, XVIIth, AND XVIIIth CENTURIES.
EDITED From MSS. and Rare Printed Originals
BY EDMUND GOLDSMID, F.R.H.S.
INTRODUCTION.
The following curious collection I have gathered together during several years' reading in out-of-the-way corners. Manuscripts, in public and private libraries; old books picked up on dusty bookstalls, or carried away as prizes from the battlefield of the auction-room; even pencillings on the inside of tattered bindings,—all have been laid under contribution. I trust this medley, or pot-pourri, of snatches of song, grave and gay, will prove as interesting to my readers as they have been to myself. They claim attention on various grounds: some are the works of well-known men, such as Anthony Munday and Warren Hastings; some are bitter political squibs—such, for instance, as the "Satyre against the Scots," page 47; some, again, are exquisitely beautiful, as "The Dirge," page 53. A few have appeared in different collections: but none of my readers, I will undertake to say, have seen more than a half-dozen or so.
With these few words I beg to introduce Volume One of the "Collectanea
Adamantaea."
EDMUND GOLDSMID.
Edinburgh, March 6th, 1884.