APPENDIX.
Notes, Illustrations, Various Readings, and Emendations of Text.
(NOW FIRST ADDED.)
Arranged in Four Parts:—
1.—Choyce Drollery, 1656.
2.—Antidote against Melancholy, 1661.
3.—Westminster-Drollery, 1674.
4.—Merry Drollery, 1661; and Additional Notes to 1670-1691 editions: with Index.
Readers, who have accompanied the Editor both in text and comment throughout these three volumes of Reprints from the Drolleries of the Restoration, can scarcely have failed to see that he has desired to present the work for their study with such advantages as lay within his reach. Certainly, he never could have desired to assist in bringing these rare volumes into the hands of a fresh generation, if he believed not that their few faults were far outweighed by their merits; and that much may be learnt from both of these. Every antiquary is well aware that during the troubled days of the Civil War, and for the remaining years of the seventeenth century, books were printed with such an abundance of typographical errors that a pure text of any author cannot easily be recovered. In the case of all unlicensed publications, such as anonymous pamphlets, facetiæ, broad-sheet Ballads, and the more portable Drolleries, these imperfections were innumerable. Dropt lines and omitted verses, corrupt readings and perversions of meaning, sometimes amounting to a total destruction of intelligibility, might drive an Editor to despair.
In regard to the Drolleries-literature, especially, if we remember, as we ought to do, the difficulties and dangers attendant on the printing of these political squibs and pasquinades, we shall be less inclined to rail at the original collector, or “author,” and printers. If we ourselves, as Editor, do our best to examine such other printed books and manuscripts of the time, as may assist in restoring what for awhile was corrupted or lost from the text (keeping these corrections and additions clearly distinguished, within square brackets, or in Appendix Notes to each successive volume), we shall find ourselves more usefully employed than in flinging stones at the Cavaliers of the Restoration, because they left behind them many a doubtful reading or an empty flaggon.
We have given back, to all who desire to study these invaluable records of a memorable time, four complete unmutilated works (except twenty-seven necessarily dotted words): and we could gladly have furnished additional information regarding each and all of these, if further delay or increased bulk had not been equally inexpedient.