Moreover, a good many accompanists complained that the arrangements were too elaborate, except for very skilled pianoforte players. We have now simplified the settings. Then, we have omitted twenty-two songs, and have supplied their places with others, either because the others are intrinsically better, or that they have earlier and more characteristic melodies, or again because the songs though sung by the people, did not seem to us to have been productions of the folk-muse. Again, when our first edition was published, modal melodies were not appreciated, and we had regretfully to put many aside and introduce more of the airs of a modern character. Public taste is a little healthier now, and musicians have multiplied who can value these early melodies. Consequently we have not felt the same reserve now that we did in 1889. INTRODUCTION Dorothy Osborne, in a letter to Sir William Temple, in 1653, thus describes her daily home life. "The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o'clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep or cows, and sit in the shade singing ballads. I go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but trust me these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so. Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings to their heels." ("Letters of Dorothy Osborne," London, 1888, p. 103.) Before that Sir Thomas Overbury, in his "Character of a Milkmaid," had written: "She dares go alone and unfold her sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none: yet, to say truth, she is never alone, she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones." During the reign of Queen Mary, the Princess Elizabeth was kept under close guard and restraint, but was suffered to walk in the palace grounds. "In this situation," says Holinshed, "no marvel if she, hearing upon a time, out of her garden at Woodstock, a certain milkmaid singing pleasantlie, wished herself to be a milkmaid as she was; saying that her case was better, and life merrier." So Viola, in Fletcher's play, "The Coxcombe," 1647: "Would to God, my father Had lived like one of these, and bred me up To milk, and do as they do! Methinks 'tis A life that I would chuse, if I were now To tell my time again, above a prince's."