add, in itself clearly shows that there had been an earlier issue. It announces that the book contains "sundrie new Sonets . . . Newly deuised to the newest tunes . . . With new additions of certain Songs to verie late deuised Notes, not commonly knowen, nor vsed heretofore."[1] But this is false from beginning to end. Like the typical dishonest stationer whose "character" George Wither was later so vividly to portray, Jones provided this new title-page to delude customers into buying old wares. Most of the ballads had been printed before 1566, and the tunes were so old and are now so hard to trace that even William Chappell could include only four or five of them in his Popular Music of the Olden Time.
Of Clement Robinson, whose name appears on the title-page of the Handfull, little is known, but it is perfectly obvious that he must have been at the height of his ballad-writing powers in 1566, when his name appeared in the Registers as the author of the Pleasant Sonnets. Hazlitt (Handbook, p. 515) thought that he was the C. R. whose initials are signed to a prose broadside on a "marueilous straunge Fishe,"[2] which was printed in 1569, and Collmann (Ballads and Broadsides, pp. 81–82) has plausibly suggested that he was the Robinson who in 1566 entered into a ballad-flyting with Thomas Churchyard; but, however that be, the very fact that Robinson's name adorned the title-page of the 1584 edition strengthens the presumption that the book was originally issued in 1566.
Arber[3] named nine ballads that "were not in this First Edition" of 1566. They may be enumerated here, with his reasons for their in exclusion:
1. No. 25, because it was registered in 1566-67. This is wrong.
2. Nos. 27 and 32, because an answer to the ballad from which they derived their tune was registered in 1567-68. But this is not a valid reason for dating these ballads after 1566.
3. Nos. 13 and 21, because "The Story of ij faythful Lovers &c" was licensed by Richard Jones in 1568–69. This is wrong,
