A COLLECTION OF

PRINTED BROADS

IN THE POSSESSION OF

The Society of Antiquaries of I

COMPILED BY

ROBERT LEMON, ESQ., F.S

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIE

1866.

THE collection of papers which forms the su present Catalogue has long been in the posse Society of Antiquaries. Within the last few ye the late Prince Consort, and several other Fellows of the Society, have enriched it by valuable donat the year 1765 Bishop Percy referred to several 1 tioned in the present Catalogue, as being " pres archives of the Antiquarian Society, in a large fol of Proclamations, &c. made in the reigns of 1 VIII., King Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Eliz James I., &c." (Reliques of English Poetry, ii same collection was mentioned again, in 1781, in his History of English Poetry (iii. 145), and 1 quent writers upon our early poetical literature hav to time referred to some or other of its curious con

The words which we have quoted from Bishop P the Ballads in the possession of the Society with th tions, and down to the year 1852 Proclamations, 1 many other papers printed ballad-wise, on one sid or strip of paper, which now all pass under the go of Broadsides, formed one collection in the Society

The earliest trace in the Society's Minute B formation of this collection occurs under the date April, 1756, when Dr. Gifford, of the British M editor of the Society's edition of Folkes's Tabl reported to the Council, that under an authority given, he had purchased for the Society, at the

*The names of these Donors will be found commemorated in th present Catalogue, p. 196.

336029

with some manuscript additions,) led to an liberality on the part of that singular man Lincoln's Inn, not then a Member of the leman, as the entry on the Minutest declares, casions has approved himself a well-wisher or to this Society." Mr. Hollis presented, d, who had been his tutor, "a large and of State and other papers, from the time of Charles II. inclusive, in twelve volumes folio, 1 23rd January, 1756, in one lot, No. 941, at belonging to Mr. Charles Davis, bookseller in 1, in order to complete the set of Proclamaunderstood were purchased for the Society y Dr. Gifford, and of which valuable collection is originally a part. . . . The Society very wledged their great obligations to Mr. Hollis ible present and kind intention therein, and to acquaint him therewith."

sufficiently indicate the way in which the possessed of these collections. In the year of the fourteen large folio volumes in which ontained, and the condition of many of the s, were found to require attention, and after

it was deemed advisable to divide them into ections. The Proclamations, one of the most ons known to be in existence, were thrown lent chronological series, and the Broadsides, . i., 1754-1774.

‡ Ibid.

t

a

tl

re

its

see

lege

be f

2.

deer

of th

there

relat

ing t The

Engl

to the In

has c

singul

Catalogues both of the Proclamations and the Broa present publication comprises Mr. Lemon's Catal latter series passed through the press by himself, a own complete and comprehensive index.

It was hoped that he would have consummated 1 prefixing an Introduction. Some present infirmiti terfered with his accomplishment in this respect o tated design. His indisposition will probably so the restorative influences of his well-earned retir active duties; but, in the meantime, after consider the Catalogue is sent forth to the Members, with rence, and with merely the following general obse its contents.

The particular classes in literature under which t seem principally to fall are:

1. GRANTS OF INDULGENCES and other ecclesias leges. Some early printed examples of these docu be found at pp. 1, 2, and 166.

TH

2. BALLADS and other compositions in verse. deemed by many persons one of the most remarkal of the collection. Among those of the reign of H there occur eight ballads, most of them probably relation to a controversy or contest carried on in ve ing the character of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex The passages in Percy's Reliques and Warton's English Poetry to which we have already referred ha to these very remarkable productions.

In the same reign is placed another poem of this o has conduced to the establishment of the authors singular prose satire, a kind of English Reynard