POEMS, LEGENDARY AND HISTORICAL. BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., LATE FELLOW, AND THE REV. GEORGE W. COX, S.C.L., SCHOLAR, OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. PREFACE. THE present collection of poems, with perhaps a solitary exception, consists, according to its title, entirely of pieces relating to past events, and a large majority of them are cast in what is, whether rightly or wrongly, familiarly known as the ballad style. The employment of a form, which has been lately made the subject of much criticism, may demand some prefatory remarks. It can hardly now be matter of doubt, that the present age may fairly claim to itself a superiority over all that have preceded it, in at least one branch of study, that, namely, of history in all its forms,-from the highest philosophical speculations to the minutest antiquarian research. Nor can it well be a mere accidental |