Top pop from seventeenth-century England. Broadside ballads were single-sheet songs that sold for a penny a piece. This website concentrates on over 100 resoundingly successful examples that you can investigate through recordings, images and a wealth of other materials. Whether you are interested in music, art, love, gender, tragedy, politics, family life, crime, history, humour or death, you will find something to engage you here. See also User’s Guide.

Emotions - Joy  

Showing 1 to 20 of 23

6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
11 THE/ Rare Vertue of an Orange;/ Or, Popery purged and expelled out of the Nation [Pepys 2.259]
12 The True LOYALIST/; OR,/ The Obedient SUBJECT,/ A Loyal SONG [Pepys 2.223]
13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
17 The Merchants Daughter of Bristow [Euing 210]
19 A Pleasant Ballad of Tobias, wherein is shewed/ what wonderful things chanced to him in his Youth [Euing 270]
20 A sweet Sonnet, wherein the Lover exclaimeth against/ Fortune for the loss of his Ladies favour [Pepys 1.512-13]
23 The Countrey FARMER:/ OR, THE/ Buxome VIRGIN [Roxburghe 2.77]
26 The Whig Rampant:/OR, EXALTATION [Euing 389]
30 The Delights of the Bottle;/ OR,/ The Town-Gallants Declaration for Women and Wine [Euing 71]
38 A worthy example of a vertuous wife, who fed her father with her own milk [Roxburghe 3.48-49]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
51 The Loyal English Man's WISH/ For the Preservation of/ The King and Queen [Pepys 5.63]
56 A CARROUSE/ TO THE/ Emperour, the Royal Pole,/ And the much-wrong'd DUKE of LORRAIN [Roxburghe 4.2]
57 The Shepherd and the King, and of Gillian the Shepherds Wife, with her churlish Answer [Euing 332]
64 A PATTERN of true LOVE to you I will recite,/ Between a Beautiful Lady and a Courtious Knight [Roxburghe 2.579]
75 An Excellent New SONG,/ OF THE/ Two Happy LOVERS [Pepys 5.184]
79 Win at first, lose at last; or, a New Game at Cards [Bodleian Wood 401 (149v-150r)]
82 The two Constant Lovers. Or,/ A patterne of true Love exprest in this loving Dialogue betweene Samuell and Sara [Euing 360]
98 The Nightingales Song; Or The Souldiers rare Musick,/ and Maids Recreation [Pepys 4.41]

Top Fives

Click any item to filter the ballad list.
Use the search function to find additional material.

Authors

Publishers

Topics

Instruments

Performers

Tunes

Woodcuts

Holding Libraries