External links
- Bagford Ballads at the Internet Archive: Division 1, Division 2
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The Bagford Ballads were English ballads collected by John Bagford (1651 - 1716) for Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford. Bagford was originally a cobbler, but he became a book collector in his later years, and he assembled this set of ballads from the materials he had been collecting. Harley was interested in all sorts of antiquarian literature, and the Harleian collection is a major contribution to scholarship.
The Bagford Ballads are generally folk compositions that document the last years of the Stuart reign in the close of the 17th century (a subject that was not remote for Harley). Therefore, in contrast to what Thomas Percy would collect, these ballads were not primarily antiquarian or efforts at preserving a vanished literature. Rather, they seem to have been selected for their value as genuine folk art and populist ephemera.
After Harley's death, the Bagford Ballads were obtained by the Duke of Roxburge. They were published by the Ballad Society in 1878, edited by Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth. [1]
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A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating 8 and 6 syllable lines.
Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is bibliophilia, and someone who loves to read, admire, and collect books is called a bibliophile.
Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, KG PC FRS was an English and later British statesman of the late Stuart and early Georgian periods. He began his career as a Whig, before defecting to a new Tory Ministry. He was raised to the peerage of Great Britain as an earl in 1711. Between 1711 and 1714 he served as Lord High Treasurer, effectively Queen Anne's chief minister. He has been called a Prime Minister, although it is generally accepted that the de facto first minister to be a prime minister was Robert Walpole in 1721.
John Pinkerton was a Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist, historian, and early advocate of Germanic racial supremacy theory.
Miles Joseph Berkeley was an English cryptogamist and clergyman, and one of the founders of the science of plant pathology. The standard author abbreviation Berk. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, also known as The Laidly Worm of Bamborough, is a Northumbrian ballad about a princess who is changed into a dragon.
The Wood Street Compter was a small prison within the City of London in England. It was primarily a debtors' prison, and also held people accused of such misdemeanours as public drunkenness, although some wealthier prisoners were able to obtain alcohol through bribery. The prison was built and opened in 1555, replacing the earlier Bread Street Compter, from which many prisoners were transferred. Wood Street was closed and replaced by Giltspur Street Compter in 1791.
"King John and the Bishop" is an English folk-song dating back at least to the 16th century. It is catalogued in Child Ballads as number 45 and Roud Folk Song Index 302.
John Bagford was an English antiquarian, writer, bibliographer, ballad-collector and bookseller.
The Habeas Corpus Parliament, also known as the First Exclusion Parliament, was a short-lived English Parliament which assembled on 6 March 1679 during the reign of Charles II of England, the third parliament of the King's reign. It is named after the Habeas Corpus Act, which it enacted in May 1679.
John Conyers was an English apothecary and pioneering archaeologist. He was known "to collect such Antiquities as were daily found in and about London."
Many a true word is spoken in jest is an adage, aphorism or proverb. A version of this appears in the Prologue to "The Cook's Tale" by Geoffrey Chaucer: "Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd saye!".
Samuel Gordon Armistead was a prominent American ethnographer, linguist, folklorist, historian, literary critic and professor of Spanish. He is considered one of the most notable Hispanist scholars of the second half of the 20th and early 21st century.
Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth (1824–1908) was an English clergyman, known as an editor of ballads, poet and artist.
A Ballad upon the Popish Plot is an early modern English broadside ballad about a fabricated conspiracy known as "The Popish Plot" that occurred between 1678 and 1681 in the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, during a period of widespread social and cultural prejudice against Catholicism. The song records an indictment of the Plot—a crucial consequence of national religious conflict that arguably began with the English Reformation—in the form of the ballad, one of the most time-honored and influential styles of popular music.
Amintor's Lamentation for Celia's Unkindness is an English broadside ballad from the 17th century that tells the story of a young man who falls in love with a "coy" woman who does not love him back. He pursues his love to the point that she must leave the country. The ballad begins with Amintor lamenting Celia's refusal to return his love, and concludes with Celia's response, in which she accuses Amintor of using charm and arts to try to steal her purity. Sung to the tune of "Since Celia's My Foe." Copies of the broadside can be found in the British Library and the National Library of Scotland. On-line transcriptions of the ballad are also available for public consumption.
The Beggars Chorus OR The Jovial Crew is an English broadside ballad from the mid-18th century. It celebrates the life of a beggar, and treats begging as a legitimate English trade. Sung to the tune of A Begging We Will Go. Copies of the broadside can be found in the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the Huntington Library.
The Wandering Virgin is an English broadside ballad from the late 17th century. The narrator warns fellow virgins not to be too coy unless they also want to wander the world round looking for the lover who has given up on their courtship. She tells the story of how she dresses like a man and travels over sea, land, desert, and forest to find her love. Sung to the tune of Over Hills and High Mountains, or Ah! Chloris Awake, depending on the broadside. Copies of the broadside are available in National Library of Scotland, the University of Glasgow Library, the British Library, and Magdelene College.
Joseph Leathley Cowell, born Joseph Leathley Hawkins-Witshed, was an English actor, author, and painter.
David Cooke Gibson was a Scottish painter and poet.