Mr. Ebsworth will undertake "The Civil War
and Protectorate Ballads." Much of the work on these volumes
is done, and they only await an increase in the subscription
list. It is to be hoped that when the good work done by the
Ballad Society is better known, the editor will not be kept
back in his useful course by the want of funds for printing.
Mr. Ebsworth's thorough work is too well known to need
praise here, but it may be noted that his volumes contain a
remarkable amount of illustration of the manners of the time
not to be obtained elsewhere. The value of this is the more
apparent by the system of arrangement in marked periods
which the editor has adopted.

_The Chaucer Society_ was founded in 1868 by Mr. Furnivall,
"to do honour to Chaucer, and to let the lovers and students
of him see how far the best unprinted Manuscripts of his
Works differed from the printed texts." For the Canterbury
Tales, Mr. Furnivall has printed the six best unprinted MSS.
in two forms--(1) in large oblong parts, giving the parallel
texts; (2) in octavo, each text separately. The six
manuscripts chosen are--The Ellesmere; The Lansdowne (Brit.
Mus.); The Hengwrt; The Corpus, Oxford; The Cambridge
(University Library); The Petworth. Dr. Furnivall has now
added Harleian 7334 to complete the series. The Society's
publications are issued in two series, of which the first
contains the different Texts of Chaucer's Works, and the
second such originals of and essays on these as can be
procured, with other illustrative treatises and
Supplementary Tales.

_The Spenser Society_ was founded at Manchester in 1867 for
the publication of well-printed editions of old English
authors in limited numbers. The chief publication issued to
subscribers was a reprint, in three volumes folio, of the
works of John Taylor, the Water-poet, from the original
folio. The other publications are in small quarto, and among
them are the works of John Taylor not included in the folio,
the works of Wither, etc.

_The Roxburghe Library_ was a subscription series, commenced
by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt in 1868, with the same objects as a
publishing society. It was discontinued in 1870. The
following is a list of the publications:--"Romance of Paris
and Vienne"; "William Browne's Co