Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry A Collection of Curious Poetical Compositions of the XVIth, XVIIth, and XVIIIth Centuries

A modest but richly varied anthology gathers together thirty‑odd poetic fragments rescued from forgotten manuscripts, auction‑room prizes and the margins of old volumes. The pieces range from wistful love verses and mournful dirges to sharp political satires, each echoing the cadence of its original era while retaining a surprising immediacy. Readers will meet familiar names—such as the playwright‑politician Anthony Munday—and encounter anonymous scribbles that reveal the everyday concerns and fleeting passions of seventeenth‑century life.

The collection is organized as a pot‑pourri, allowing moods to shift from the tender “My Bonny Lass” to the rib‑tickling “Satire against the Scots,” and from solemn meditations on virtue to brisk, witty epistles between dukes and kings. Because the poems have been carefully edited from rare printed originals and private manuscripts, they retain the quirks of early modern spelling and rhythm, offering a genuine taste of the period’s literary texture. It is an invitation to linger over brief, often playful moments that together sketch a vivid portrait of a bygone poetic world.