THE RYE-HOUSE, NEAR HODDESDON, HERTFORDSHIRE:

where the assassination of Charles II. was to have been attempted in 1683. (Drawn and engraved by the Editor, F. W. Ebsworth, from an old original Water-Colour View, in King George III's Collection of Maps and Plans, at the British Museum.)

The

Roxburghe Ballads:

Ellustrating the last Years of the Stuarts.

EDITED,

WITH SPECIAL INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES,

BY

J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A., CANTAB., F.S.A.
EDITOR OF FOUR REPRINTED "DROLLERIES OF THE RESTORATION,"
"THE BAGFORD BALLADS" WITH THEIR " AMANDA GROUP
OF POEMS," "THE TWO EARLIEST QUARTOS OF

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, 1600," AND
AUTHOR OF "KARL'S LEGACY; OR,
OUR OLD COLLEGE AT NIRGENDS."

WITH HIS COPIES OF ALL THE ORIGINAL WOODCUTS.

Vol. V.

Absalom's mild nature suited best ;
Unblam'd of life (ambition set aside),
Not stain'd with cruelty, nor puff'd with pride,
How happy had he been, if Destiny

Had higher placed his birth-or not so high!.
Strong were his hopes a Rival to remove,

With blandishments to gain the public love;
To head the Faction while their zeal was hot,

And popularly prosecute the Plot.

To further this, Achitophel unites
The malcontents of all the Israelites;

Whose differing parties he could wisely join,
For several ends to serve the same design."

-Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.

HERTFORD:

Printed for the Ballad Society,

BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS.

To his Friend, a Reviver of Old Literature,

ALEXANDER

BALLOCH

GROSART, LL.D.,

EDITOR OF MANY FAMOUS AUTHORS, INCLUDING A LONG LINE OF

Cavalier Poets and Puritan Divines ;

WHOSE WRITINGS HE HAS GIVEN BACK TO THE WORLD WITH

UNTIRED ZEAL, INDUSTRY, AND INTELLIGENCE; NOT

ALONE THE ACKNOWLEDGED

WORTHIES,' OF

FULLER AND OF CHERTSEY, BUT ALSO, TO

SECURE TARDY JUSTICE AND FAME

FOR THEIR NEGLECTED GENIUS,

The Inheritors of Unfulfilled Renown:'

This Fifth Volume of The Roxburghe Ballads,

(issued on the Bicentenary of Monmouth's Insurrection)

Illustrating the last years of the Stuarts in Political and Social History,

IS HERE

DEDICATED,

With affectionate esteem by his Friend and Fellow-Student,

JOSEPH WOODFALL EBSWORTH.

MIDSUMMER, 1884.