DERBY: BEMROSE AND SONS, IRONGATE.
MDCCCLXVII.
to
His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, k.g.,
Lord-Lieutenant and Custos-Rotulorum
of the county
whose ballads are here for the first time collected,
this Volume is,
as a mark of personal esteem,
and as a tribute to the true nobility of his character
and to
his high intellectual attainments,
most gratefully dedicated by
The Editor.
Introduction.
It is certainly somewhat curious that, in a county so confessedly rich in ballads and in popular songs as Derbyshire is, no attempt should hitherto have been made to collect together and give to the world even a small selection of these valuable and interesting remains. Such, however, is the fact, and the ballads, the traditions, and the lyrics of the county have remained to the present day uncollected, and, it is to be feared, uncared for, by those to whom the task of collection in days gone by would have been tolerably easy. It has therefore remained for me, with my present volume, to initiate a series of works which shall embrace these and kindred subjects, and vindicate for Derbyshire its place in the literary history of the kingdom.