The Bagford Ballads were English
ballad
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 ...
s collected by
John Bagford (1651 - 1716) for
Robert Harley, first
Earl of Oxford
Earl of Oxford is a dormant title in the Peerage of England, first created for Aubrey de Vere by the Empress Matilda in 1141. His family was to hold the title for more than five and a half centuries, until the death of the 20th Earl in 1703. ...
. 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
The Harleian Library, Harley Collection, Harleian Collection and other variants ( la, Bibliotheca Harleiana) is one of the main "closed" collections (namely, historic collections to which new material is no longer added) of the British Library in ...
is a major contribution to scholarship.
The Bagford Ballads are generally folk compositions that document the last years of the
Stuart
Stuart may refer to:
Names
* Stuart (name), a given name and surname (and list of people with the name) Automobile
*Stuart (automobile)
Places
Australia Generally
*Stuart Highway, connecting South Australia and the Northern Territory
Northe ...
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
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
.
After Harley's death, the Bagford Ballads were obtained by the
Duke of Roxburge. They were published by the
Ballad Society
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 ...
in 1878, edited by
Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth
Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth (2 September 1824–7 June 1908) was an English clergyman, known as an editor of ballads, poet and artist.
Early life
Born on 2 September 1824 at 3 Gray's Walk, Lambeth, he was a younger son (in a family of 13 children ...
.
Notes
External links
* Bagford Ballads at the Internet Archive
Division 1Division 2
1878 poetry books
17th-century poems
British poetry anthologies
Ballad collections
English ballads
17th century in England
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