What say you to it, my Court Poet?”
Wolfram.—“Good melody! When I am sick o’ mornings,
With a horn-spoon tinkling my porridge pot,
’Tis a brave ballad.”
(T. L. Beddoes: Death’s Jest Book, Acts iv. & v.)
§ 1. Reprint of an Antidote.
Having found that sixty-five of our previous pages, in the second volume of the Drolleries Reprint, were filled with songs and poems that also appear in the Antidote against Melancholy, 1661; and that all the remaining songs and poems of the Antidote (several being only obtainable therein) exceed not the compass of three additional sheets, or forty-eight pages, the Editor determined to include this valuable book. Thus in our three volumes are given four entire works, to exemplify this particular class of literature, the Cavalier Drolleries of the Restoration.[7]
To that portion of our present Appendix which is devoted to Notes to the Antidote against Melancholy, 1661, we refer the reader for the admirable brief Introduction written by John Payne Collier, Esq.; to whose handsome Reprint of the work we owe our first acquaintance with its pages. His knowledge of our old literature extends over nearly a century; his opportunities for inspecting private and public libraries have been peculiarly great; and he has always been most generous in communicating his knowledge to other students, showing throughout a freedom from jealousy and exclusiveness reminding us of the genial Sir Walter Scott. He states:—“We have never seen a copy of an ‘Antidote against Melancholy’ that was not either imperfect, or in some places illegible from dirt and rough usage, excepting the one we have employed: our single exemplar is as fresh as on the day it was issued from the press. There is an excellent and highly finished engraving on the title-page, of gentlemen and boors carousing; but as the repetition of it for our purpose would cost more than double every other expense attending our reprint, we have necessarily omitted it. The same plate was afterwards used for one of Brathwayte’s pieces; and we have seen a much worn impression of it on a Drollery near the end of the seventeenth century. It does not at all add to our knowledge of the subject of our reprint. J. P. C.”
Nevertheless, the copper-plate illustration is so good, and connects so well with the Bacchanalian and sportive character of the “Antidote against Melancholy,” and other Drolleries, that the present Editor not unwillingly takes up the graver to reproduce this [frontispiece] for the adornment of the volume and the service of subscribers. Our own Reprint and our engraving are made from the perfect specimen contained in the Thomason Collection, and dated 1661 (with “Aprill 18” in MS.; [see p. 161]). We make a rule always to go to the fountain-head for our draughts, howsoever long and steep may be the ascent. Flowers and rare fossils reward us as we clamber up, and in good time other students learn to trust us, as being pains-taking and conscientiously exact. The first duty of one who aspires to be honoured as the Editor of early literature is to faithfully reproduce his text, unmutilated and undisguised. To amend it, and elucidate it, so far as lies in his power, can be done befittingly in his notes and comments, while he gives his readers a representation of the original, so nearly in fac-simile as is compatible with additional beauty of typography. Throughout our labours we have held this principle steadily in view; and, whatever nobler work we may hereafter attempt, the same determination must guide us. There may be debate as to our wisdom in reproducing some questionable facetiæ, but there shall be none regarding our fidelity to the original text.