histoires are extremely laughable, though to our own thinking equally indelicate. The old legends still held sway, and I have given four—"Adam Bell," "Robin Hood," "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green," and "The Children in the Wood"—all of them remarkable for their illustrations. History has a wide range from "Fair Rosamond," to "The Royal Martyr," Charles I., whilst, naturally, such books as "Robinson Crusoe," "George Barnwell," and a host of criminal literature found ready purchasers.

I have not included Calendars, and I have purposely avoided Garlands, or Collections of ballads, which equally come under the category of Chap-books. I should have liked to have noticed more of them, but the exigencies of publishing have prevented it; still, those I have taken seem to me to be the best fitted for the purpose I had in view, which was to give a fairly representative list: and I hope I have succeeded in producing a book at once both amusing and instructive, besides having rescued these almost forgotten booklets from the limbo into which they were fast descending.

CONTENTS.