There are (as many of your readers will be aware from Ritson's small
volume, _Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry_, 8vo. 1791) two old editions of
_Adam Bell, &c._, one printed by William Copland, without date, and the
other by James Roberts in 1605. The edition by Copland must have preceded
that by Roberts by forty or fifty years, and may have come out between 1550
and 1560; the only known copy of it is among the Garrick Plays (at least it
was so when I saw it) in the British Museum. The re-impression by Roberts
is not very uncommon, and I think that more than one copy of it is at
Oxford.

When Copland printed the poem, he did not enter it at Stationers' Hall;
comparatively few of his publications, generally of a free, romantic, or
ludicrous character, were licensed, and he was three times fined for not
first obtaining the leave of the Company. Nevertheless, we do find an entry
of a "book" called "Adam Bell," &c., among the memoranda belonging to the
year 1557-8, but it was made at the instance, not of Copland, but of John
Kynge, in this form:

"To John Kynge, to prynte this boke called Adam Bell, &c., and for his
lycense he geveth to the howse"--

What sum he gave is not stated. Again, we meet with another notice of it in
the same registers, under the date of 1581-2, when John Charlwood was
interested in the undertaking. I mention these two entries principally
because neither Ritson nor Percy were acquainted with them; but they may be
seen among the extracts published by the Shakspeare Society in 1848 and
1849. {446}

No impressions by Kynge or Charlwood having come down to us, we have no
means of knowing whether they availed themselves of the permission granted
at Stationers' Hall; and, unless I am deceived, the fragment which
occasions this Note is not from the presses of either of them, and is of an
earlier date than the time of Copland; the type is much better, and less
battered, than that of Copland; at the same time it has a more antique
look, and in several respects, which I am about to point out, it furnishes
a better text than that given by Ritson from Copland's edition, or by Percy
with the aid of his folio manuscript. I am sorry to say that it only
consists of a single sheet; but this is nearly half the production, and it
comprises the whole of the second, and two pages of the third "fit." The
first line and the last of the portion in my hands, testify to the greater
antiquity and purity of the tex