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THE

UNIVERSAL SONGSTER;

OR,

Museum of Mirth:

FORMING

THE MOST COMPLETE, EXTENSIVE, AND VALUABLE COLLECTION

OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN SONGS

IN

The English Language:

WITH A

COPIOUS AND CLASSIFIED INDEX,

WHICH WILL, UNDER ITS VARIOUS HEADS, REFER THE READER TO THE FOLLOWING DESCRIPTION

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Embellished with a humourous characteristic Frontispiece, and Twenty-nine Wood-outs, designed by
GEORGE and ROBERT CRUIKSHANK, and engraved by J. R. MARSHALL.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY JONES AND CO.

TEMPLE OF THE MUSES, (Late Lackington's), FINSBURY SQUARE.
1829.

INTRODUCTION.

WE have at length achieved our second volume, and it is no trifing satisfaction to remark, that the approbation of the public has kept pace with our ardent wish to ensure satisfaction, as the sale of our numbers has regularly augmented in proportion to their progressive increase.

In the introductory lines to our first volume we spoke of the dawn of lyric poetry, and it is only to be regretted that the major part of the historical ballads appertaining to our own country should have been lost in the overwhelming flood of time. Had it not been for that circumstance, the most curious records would have existed among us, which, in spite of their simple phraseology, would have spoken to the heart,-as may be exemplified in those specimens that are still extant.

However, not to confine ourselves to a few centuries back, in times far more remote we find the divine Homer no other than a blind and wandering minstrel, rehearsing his strains in the Siege of Troy and the Adventures of Ulysses to the melody of his harp, which, being collected after his decease, formed the Iliad and Odyssey, that still continue to command universal admiration. In after times, if we may credit succeeding poets, every entertainment boasted its harper, or minstrel; and Virgil, in his account of Dido's reception of Eneas, says

Cithara crinitus Iopas

Personat auratâ, docuit qùæ maxumus Atlas.
Hic canit.

What were the lyrics of Pindar but ballads? The renowned Anacreon was never satisfied without his bottle and his song; and the matchless

Horace abandoned the praises of Augustus and Maecenas to chant the adventures of his journey to Brundusium. In fine, the fraternity of bards and ballad-makers is more numerous and more honourable than many boasted orders of chivalry, whose fame scarcely survived the founders of such institutions.

The utility of songs is also proverbial, since to the couplets recording the fates of Fair Rosamond and Jane Shore, many a youthful mind has been indebted for a subsequent taste for history; and there is little doubt but the refined ideas emanating from love-effusions and the enthusiastic appeals to glory and patriotism have frequently tended to curb the impulse of unbridled passion, and to awaken a martial spirit to deeds of lasting fame and imperishable renown.

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