William Elderton’s “New Yorkshire Song, intituled _Yorke, Yorke, for my Monie_,” (entered at Stationers’ Hall, 16 November, 1582, and afterwards “Imprinted at London by Richard Iones; dwelling neere Holbourne Bridge: 1584),” has the place of honour in the Roxburghe Collection, being the first ballad in the first volume. It consequently takes the lead in the valuable “Roxburghe Bds.” of the Ballad Society, 1869, so ably edited by William Chappell, Esq., F.S.A. It also formed the commencement of Ritson’s _Yorkshire Garland_: York, 1788. It is believed that Elderton wrote the “excellent Ballad intituled The Constancy of Susanna” (Roxb. Coll., i. 60; Bagford, ii. 6; Pepys, i. 33, 496). A list of others was first given by Ritson; since, by W. C. Hazlitt, in his _Handbook_, p. 177. Elderton’s “Lenton Stuff ys come to the town” was reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, for the Shakespeare Society, in 1846 (p. 105). He gives Drayton’s allusion to Elderton in Notes to Mr. Hy. Huth’s “79 Black-Letter Ballads,” 1870, 274 (the “Praise of my Ladie Marquess,” by W. E., being on pp. 14-16). Elderton had been an actor in 1552; his earliest dated ballad is of 1559, and he had ceased to live by 1592. Camden gives an epitaph, which corroborates our text, in regard to the “thirst complaint” of the balladist:— _Hic situs est sitiens, atque ebrius Eldertonus—_ _Quid dico—Hic situs est? his potius sitis est._ Thus freely rendered by Oldys:— _Dead drunk here Elderton doth lie;_ _Dead as he is, he still is dry;_ _So of him it may well be said,_ _Here he, but not his thirst, is laid._ A MS., time of James I., possessed by J. P. Collier, mentions, in further confirmation: _~Will Elderton’s~ red nose is famous everywhere,_ _And many a ballet shows it cost him very dear;_ _In ale, and toast, and spice, he spent good store of coin,_ _You need not ask him twice to take a cup of wine._ _But though his nose was red, his hand was very white,_ _In work it never sped, nor took in it delight;_ _No marvel therefore ’tis, that white should be his hand,_ _That ballets writ a score, as you well understand._ (See Wm. Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, pp. 107, 815; and J. P. Collier’s Extracts from Reg. Stat. Comp., _passim_, Indices, art. Elderton; and his Bk. of Roxb. Bds., p. 139.) Page 125 (orig. 14). _With an old Song, made by, &c._ The fashion of disparaging the present, by praising the customs and people of days that have passed away, is almost as old as the Deluge, if not older. Homer speaks of the degeneracy in his time, and aged Israel had long earlier lamented the few and evil days to which his own life extended, in comparison with those patriarchs who had gone before him. Even as we know not the full value of the Mistress or the friend whose affection had been given unto us, until separated from them, for ever, by estrangement or the grave, so does it seem to be with many customs and things. Robert Browning touchingly declares:—