The two books contain some 100 songs chosen from the definitive collections of The English Lutenists begun by Edmund Fellowes, revised by Thurston Dart and added to by later scholars.

They include many favourites and many lesser-known songs by popular composers such as Dowland, Campion and Pilkington (no known ancestor of the compiler) as well as some unjustly forgotten such as Corkine, Attey and Ferrabosco. Nearly all are for middle-range voice, with lute parts transcribed in staff notation.

The books have an appropriate preface and a commentary on the words, which often throw a penetrating light on Elizabethan and Jacobean life.

CONTENTS

JOHN DOWLAND
Awake sweet love
Clear or cloudy
Come again: sweet love
Come away, come sweet love
Daphne was not so chaste
Far from triumphing Court
Farewell unkind farewell
Fie on this feigning
Fine knacks for ladies
Flow my tears
Flow not so fast ye fountains
I saw my lady weep
If my complaints could passions move
In darkness let me dwell
Lady if you so spite me
Now, o now I needs must part
Shall I sue?
Sleep, wayward thoughts
Sorrow, sorrow, stay
Sweet stay awhile
Time stands still
To ask for all thy love
Toss not my soul
Weep you no more, sad fountains
What if I never speed?
When Phoebus first did Daphne love

ROBERT JONES
Fie, what a coil is here!
Go to bed, sweet muse
My father fain would have me take a man
My love hath her true love betrayed
What if I seek for love of thee?

THOMAS MORLEY
Absence, hear thou my protestation
I saw my lady weeping
It was a lover and his lass
O grief! e'en on the bud

RICHARD MARTIN
Change thy mind since she doth change

FRANCIS PILKINGTON
Diaphenia
Down a down, thus Phyllis sung
Now let her change
Rest sweet nymphs

GEORGE MASON
Dido was the Carthage Queen

PHILIP ROSSETER
If I hope I pine
If she forsake me
Kind in unkindness
Shall I come if I swim?
Sweet, come again
Though far from joy
What then is love but mourning
When Laura smiles