The best account of the collections of old ballads which exist in various public libraries is given by Chappell in the introduction to volume i. of the _Roxburghe Ballads_, published by the Ballad Society. The British Museum contains the collections known as the Roxburghe and Bagford Ballads, besides others of minor importance. The four volumes of the Roxburghe collection contain 1,466 ballads, the Bagford collection and the smaller ones referred to about 1,500 more. Since 1871, when Mr. Chappell made this estimate, others have been added. The Bodleian Library contains the collections formed by Wood, Ashmole, Rawlinson, and Douce, numbering 1,500 or 1,600. At Cambridge there is the Pepys collection, which consists of 1,800 ballads, and is of special value for naval history, because Pepys, by virtue of his office, was peculiarly interested in that subject. The Society is under great obligations to the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, for permitting the publication of ten of the Pepysian ballads in this volume, and for allowing the editor the opportunity of thoroughly searching the collection for the purpose. The library of the University of Cambridge possesses a large collection of ballads printed during the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, which has proved extremely useful as supplementing and continuing the older collections. It was formed by Sir Frederick Madden, and has been hitherto neglected by nearly all students of ballads, but deserves to be searched carefully by anyone interested in the later history of the English ballad. The University of Glasgow possesses a collection of 408 black-letter ballads presented to it by Mr. Euing. The Euing collection consists mainly of ballads printed during the reign of Charles II., and has supplied several on the Dutch wars and other incidents of the period. Of collections in private hands, that of the Earl of Crawford has proved particularly useful. The Society is indebted to him for three ballads reprinted in this volume, and the editor has found the catalogue of Lord Crawford’s ballads invaluable throughout his work (_Bibliotheca Lindesiana: Catalogue of a Collection of English Ballads of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_. Privately printed, 1890). As to printed collections of ballads, the editions of the _Roxburghe_ and _Bagford Ballads_, published by the Ballad Society, have been freely drawn upon. The labours of Mr. Chappell and Mr. Ebsworth have alone made it possible to select and put together ballads relating to any particular side of English history, and their researches into the questions of the origin and text of the ballads have furnished all students of any special kind of ballads with a solid basis for further investigations. To Mr. Ebsworth the editor is further indebted for personal assistance and encouragement.