The Rev. H.F. Sheppard, who worked with me for twelve years in rescuing these old songs, and in bringing them before the public, is now no more. A new edition has been called for, and in this some exclusions and some additions have been made. We do not think that the pieces we have removed are not good, but that we are able to supply their places with others that are better. Mr. Sheppard entertained a very strong objection to arranging any song he had not himself "pricked down" from the lips of the singers, and as Mr. Bussell had noted down hundreds as well, these, for the most part, had to be laid on one side. Mr. Sheppard was, doubtless, right in his assertion, that unless he had himself heard the song sung, he could not catch its special character, and so render it justly. Acting on the advice of Mr. Cecil Sharp, of the Conservatoire, Hampstead, who has kindly undertaken the musical editorship of this edition, I have introduced several interesting ballads and songs that, for the reason above given, were excluded from the first. Mr. F. Kidson has kindly afforded us information relative to such songs as he has come across in Yorkshire. In conclusion I give a few particulars relative to the Rev. H.F. Sheppard, my fellow-worker, and Mr. D. Radford, the instigator of the collection, both of whom have passed away. Henry Fleetwood Sheppard was a graduate of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and had been appointed Travelling Batchelor to the University. Through the whole of his clerical career he was closely associated with sacred music, especially with Plain-song, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer. As precentor of the Doncaster Choral Union from 1864 to 1884, he became the pioneer of improved church music in that part of Yorkshire. In the year 1868 he was presented to the Rectory of Thurnscoe, which at that time was an agricultural village numbering about 180 inhabitants, where he remained until 1898, when he resigned his living on account of his advancing years which precluded his coping satisfactorily with the population swelling to 3,366 souls, owing to the opening of coal mines in the parish. In 1888, as already intimated, he was associated along with myself in the collection of Devon and Cornish folk songs. When he resigned the incumbency of Thurnscoe, he retired to Oxford, where, in his declining years, he might, at his leisure, dip into those store houses of classical and musical literature in which his soul delighted. Three days before Christmas, 1901, a slight stroke of paralysis gave warning of possibly serious mischief. A sudden and fatal collapse ensued on S. John's Day, without further warning. He was laid to rest at Oxford on New Year's Eve. An inscription in the Vestry wall at Thurnscoe, was cut by one who was in Mr. Sheppard's choir for nearly forty years before his death. "Pray for the peace of Henry Fleetwood Sheppard, Rector of this Parish Church, 1868-1898, who went to rest, December 27th, 1901, aged 77 years."