Transcriber's Note

This book contains a lot of dialect, which has been retained.

page 2: 'fidlers' agrees with scan; retained, despite 'fiddle' in same poem. 17th century and older spelling was not necessarily standardised, even within the same sentence.

page 42: 'flee' is followed by 'Mr. Flea'. But 'flee' rhymes with 'Dee', and has been retained.

page 75, and Index: "driving 's": "The art of good driving 's a paradox quite," agrees with both scans, and has been retained.

CCCLI.: The second small print explanatory note did not contain quote marks, and they have not been added.

CCCLIII.: The missing opening and closing quote marks in the explanatory note are implied by the first quote marks ("Eleven going for twelve."), but have not been added.

CCCXCII.: 'did'nt' retained: "O then my poor baby did'nt cry!"

CCCCXXXII.: 'would'nt' retained: "The miller would'nt have her,"

Colons have been used extensively throughout the book, where, perhaps a semi-colon would be used today. The colons have been retained, as they seem to suggest a subtle nuance of meaning.

A few obvious punctuation errors have been repaired. Old-fashioned, but correct, punctuation (which agrees with the scans) has been retained.

There are, however, some apparently genuine typographical or printer's errors.

Errata

(Corrections are also indicated, in the text, by a dotted line underneath the correction.

Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.)

page iv: 'doggrel' corrected to 'doggerel': "the place of the ancient doggerel"

page 37: 'shin' corrected to 'chin': "No, no, by the hair of my chiny chin chin."

page 92: 'buble' corrected to 'bubble': "Jack sing saddle oh,
    Blowsey boys bubble oh,"

page 110: Músicks' corrected to Musicks (accent not on original book cover) (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/deuteromelia/deut_01small.html)

page 158: 'here' corrected to 'hear': "And hear what time of day;"

page 222: 'scarely' corrected to 'scarcely': "that our endeavours are scarcely likely to be attended with success."

page 317: 'sat' corrected to 'sate': "A pie sate on a pear-tree,    259"

page 321: 'came' corrected to 'come': "Girls and boys, come out to play,    305"

page 332: 'thay' corrected to 'they': "What do they call you?,     255"

Sundry "Index" entries have been relocated for consistency.