RELIQUES

OF

ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY.

VOL. I.

OF

ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY:

CONSISTING OF

Old Heroic Ballads, Songs,

AND OTHER PIECES OF OUR EARLIER POETS;

L. A. LEWIS, 125, FLEET-STREET.

MDCCCXXXIX.

ΤΟ

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

ELIZABETH

COUNTESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND:

IN HER OWN RIGHT

BARONESS PERCY, LUCY, POYNINGS, FITZ-PAYNE, BRYAN, AND LATIMER.

MADAM,

THOSE writers, who solicit the protection of the noble and the great, are often exposed to censure by the impropriety of their addresses: a remark that will perhaps be too readily applied to him, who having nothing better to offer than the rude Songs of ancient Minstrels, aspires to the patronage of the Countess of Northumberland, and hopes that the barbarous productions of unpolished ages can obtain the approbation or the notice of her,