Page:Political ballads of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (IA politicalballads01wilk).pdf/9



one hundred and fifty years have elaped ince the lat Collection of State Poems was publihed. And that collection, which was compried originally in two, but afterwards augmented to four volumes, relates only to a period of our hitory extending over little more than half a century—namely, from the uurpation of Cromwell to the acceion of Queen Anne. But for the fact that the volumes in quetion are “by various hands,” and therefore repreent more fully than any others the atirical wit of the limited period to which they refer, they would carcely deerve a paing notice, o very partial and inaccurate are the contents of them. They contain, moreover, few political ballads, properly o called; but conit almot entirely of long and inipid “poems,” chiefly from the pens of Buckingham, Rochester, and other exalted peronages, who exercied in their day coniderable