§ 2. Ingredients of an “Antidote.”

A pleasant book it appeared to Cavaliers and all who were not quite strait-laced. It is almost unobjectionable, except for a few ugly words, and bears comparison honourably with “Merry Drollery” or “Wit and Drollery,” both of the same date, 1661. Unlike the former, it is almost uninfected with political rancour or impurity. It is a jovial book, that roysters and revellers loved to sing their Catches from; nay, if some laughing nymphs did not drop their eyes over its pages we are no conjurors. A vulgar phrase or two did not frighten them. Lucy Hutchinson herself, the Colonel’s Puritan wife, fires many a volley of coarse epithets without blushing; and, indeed, the Saintly Crew occasionally indulged in foul language as freely as the Malignants, though it was condoned as being theologic zeal and controversial phraseology.

In “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” we forgive the verbosity, for the sake of one verse on the noted Ballad-writer (see note in Appendix):—

“For ballads Elderton never had peer;

How went his wit in them, with how merry a gale,

And with all the sails up, had he been at the Cup,

And washed his beard with a pot of good ale.”

We find the character of the songs to be eminently festive: almost every one could be chanted over a cup of burnt Sack, and there was not entire forgetfulness of eating: witness “The Cold Chyne,” on page 55 (our [p. 148]). The Love-making is seldom visible. Such glimpses as we gain of Puritans (Bishop Corbet’s Hot-headed Zealot, Cleveland’s “Rotundos rot,”) are only suggestive of playful ridicule. The Sectaries, being no longer dangerous, are here laughed at, not calumniated. The odd jumble of nations brought together in those disturbed times is seen in the crowd of lovers around the “blith Lass of Falkland town” ([p. 133]) who is constant in her love of a Scottish blue bonnet:—“If ever I have a man, blew-Cap for me!” But, sitting at ease once more, not hunted into bye-ways or exile, and with enough of ready cash to wipe off tavern scores, or pay for braver garments than were lately flapping in the wind, the Cavaliers recall the exploits of their patron-saint, “St. George for England,” the gay wedding of Lord Broghill, as described by Sir John Suckling in 1641, the still noisier marriage of Arthur o’ Bradley, or that imaginary banquet afforded to the Devil, by Ben Jonson’s Cook Lorrell, in the Peak of Derbyshire. Early contrasts, drawn by their own grandsires, between the Old Courtier of Queen Elizabeth and the New Courtier of King James, are welcomed to remembrance. They forgive “Old Noll,” while ridiculing his image as “The Brewer,” and they repeat the earlier Ulysses song of the “Blacksmith,” by Dr. James Smith, if only for its chorus, “Which no body can deny.” The grave solemnity wherewith Dr. Wilde’s “Combat of Cocks” was told; the light-hearted buffoonery of “Sir Eglamore’s Fight with the Dragon;” the spluttering grimaces of Ben Jonson’s “Welchman’s praise of Wales;” and the sustained humour as well as enthusiasm of Dr. Henry Edwards’s “On the Vertue of Sack” (“Fetch me Ben Jonson’s scull,” &c.), are all crowned by the musical outburst of “The Green Gown:”—

“Pan leave piping, the Gods have done feasting,

There’s never a goddess a hunting to-day,” &c.

(see Appendix to Westminster Drollery, p. liv.) Our readers may thus additionally enjoy a full-flavoured bumper of the “Antidote against Melancholy.”

J. W. E.

August, 1875.

To the Reader.

There’s no Purge ’gainst Melancholly,

But with Bacchus to be jolly:

All else are but Dreggs of Folly.

Paracelsus wanted skill

When he sought to cure that Ill:

No Pectorals like the Poets quill.

Here are Pills of every sort,

For the Country, City, Court,

Compounded and made up of sport.

If ’gainst Sleep and Fumes impure,

Thou, thy Senses would’st secure;

Take this, Coffee’s not half so sure.

Want’st thou Stomack to thy Meat,

And would’st fain restore the heat,

This does it more than Choccolet.

Cures the Spleen[,] Revives the blood[,]

Puts thee in a Merry Mood:

Who can deny such Physick good?

Nothing like to Harmeles Mirth,

’Tis a Cordiall On earth

That gives Society a Birth.

Then be wise, and buy, not borrow,

Keep an Ounce still for to Morrow,

Better than a pound of Sorrow.

N. D.

Ballads, Songs, and Catches in this Book.

Original:Our
page.vols,page
1.The Exaltation of a Pot of Good Ale,1iii.[113]
2.The Song of Cook-Lawrel, by Ben Johnson9ii.214
3.The Ballad of The Black-smith,11225
4.The Ballad of Old Courtier and the New14iii.[125]
5.The Ballad of the Wedding of Arthur of Bradley,16ii.312
6.The Ballad of the Green Gown,20i.Ap. 54
7.The Ballad of the Gelding of the Devil,21ii.200
8.The Ballad of Sir Eglamore,25257
9.The Ballad of St. George for England,26iii.[129]
10.The Ballad of Blew Cap for me,29[133]
11.The Ballad of the Several Caps,31[135]
12.The Ballad of the Noses,33ii.143
13.The Song of the Hot-headed Zealot,35234
14.The Song of the Schismatick Rotundos,37iii.[139]
15.A Glee in praise of Wine [Let souldiers],39ii.218
16.Sir John Sucklin’s Ballad of the Ld. L. Wedding.40101
17.The Combat of Cocks,44242
18.The Welchman’s prayse of Wales,47iii.[141]
19.The Cavaleer’s Complaint [and Answer],49ii.52
20.Three several Songs in praise of Sack
[: Old Poets Hipocrin, &c.52iii.[143]
Hang the Presbyter’s Gill,53[144]
’Tis Wine that inspires,54[145]
[A Glee to the Vicar,W.D. Int.
[On a Cold Chyne of Beef,55iii.[146]
[A Song of Cupid Scorned,56[147]
21.On the Vertue of Sack, by Dr. Hen. Edwards57ii.293
22.The Medly of Nations, to several tunes,59127
23.The Ballad of the Brewer,62221
24.A Collection of 40 [34] more Merry Catches and Songs.65-76iii.[149]
[Of these 34, ten are given in Merry Drollery, Complete, on pages 296, 304, 308, 232, 337, 300, 280, 318, 348, and 341. The others are added in this volumeiii.[52]