Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/14

viii to the Gest. Absolutely no independent additions were made of any sort; that is to say, no passage, no phrase even, will be found in any of the selections, which is not taken word for word from a recognized text of the ballad in question.

It is perhaps proper to state that the greater part of the Introduction was delivered in the shape of five lectures at the Johns Hopkins University, in the spring of 1893. F. B. G., 1 March, 1894.