Holograph collection of seven primarily lighthearted 16th- and 17th-century verses, many with a Cambridge provenance. The volume contains a sonnet by Sir Henry Wootton written for Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, as well as Wootton's Character of a Happy Life; after an introduction on ballads, the collection includes several examples, including The Miller of the Dee and Billy Tailor. Other entries include The Powte's Complainte Uppon the Draininge of the Fennes in Cambridgeshire; Winifreda, "from the ancient British language"; and My Mind To Me A Kingdom Is, "an excellent philosophical song--a favorite in the 16th century." Each poem is accompanied by introductory notes, and pasted at the beginning of each poem is an engraved illuminated letter. At the end of the manuscript, after numerous blank leaves, is a Latin poem titled German students' song, dated 1833.
