ish Museum Music Catalogues, but not in those of the Bodleian
Library. There is at Oxford, however, a copy of the later edition, and
on this the present editor bases the readings common both to 1656 and
1657. As a general thing these readings of the Gamble Stanley are
particularly satisfying, and besides having all the advantages in point
of time, may have profited by the author's careful revision. John
Gamble's music-book is devoted wholly to Stanley's poems. It has a
notably affectionate and, as it happens, a not-much-too-obsequious
Preface, in which Gamble well says that he felt it 'a bold Undertaking
to compose words which are so pure Harmonie in themselves, into any
other Musick'; yet that he longed to put it to the test, 'how neer a
whole life spent in the study of Musical Compositions could imitate the
flowing and naturall Graces which you have created by your Fancie.'
Gamble wrote out no accompaniments to his sweet and spirited settings,
nor did he leave Stanley's titles prefixed to the numbered songs, a good
proportion of which are translations, though not indicated as such.

As to the present arrangement, for simplicity's sake, it is nothing if
not frankly chronological. It is divided into six sections; the sixth
contains those poems which must have appeared to Stanley to be his best,
as they were included by him in every successive edition of his work.
Form and method, therefore, are both, after a fashion, novel, but not
without their good inherent justification, nor without fullest obedience
of spirit to the author's individual genius and its posthumous dues. The
spelling has been modernised, and particular pains have been taken with
the punctuation. This reprint is a deferent attempt to set forth Thomas
Stanley as a little latter-day classic, in his old rich singing-coat,
made strong and whole by means of coloured strands of his own weaving.

L. I. G.

OXFORD, _August 31, 1905_.

The Editor's best acknowledgements are due to Mr. W. BAILEY KEMPLING,
for his painstaking copy, from the 1651 edition of Stanley in the
British Museum, of a large number of the poems collated in this book.

LYRICS: THOMAS STANLEY

I. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1647.

THE DREAM.

That I might ever dream thus! that some power
To my eternal sleep would join this hour!
So, willingly deceiv'd, I might possess
I