Excerpt from Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs and Other Pieces, of Our Earlier Poets, Together With Some Few of Later Date, and a Copious Glossary Accordingly such specimens of ancient poetry have been selected, as either Show the gradation of our language, exhibit the progress of popular opi nions, display the peculiar manners and customs of former ages, or throw light on our earlier classical poets. They are here distributed into volumes, each of which contains an independent series of poems, arranged chiefly according to the order of time, and showing the gradual improvements of the English language and poetry from the earliest ages down to the present. Each volume, or series, is divided into three books, to afford so many pauses, or resting places to the reader, and to assist him in distinguish ing betwen the productions of the earlier, the middle, and the latter times. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.