These leaves present you with some few drops of that Ocean of Wit, which flowed from those two brests of this Nation, the Universities; and doth now (the sluces being puld up) overflow the whole Land: or rather like those Springs of Paradice, doth water and enrich the whole world; whilst the Fountains themselues are dryed up, and that Twin-Paradise become desart. For then were these Verses Composed, when Oxford and Camebridge were Universities, and a Colledge [A 2, reverso] more learned then a Town-Hall, when the Buttery and Kitchin could speak Latine, though not Preach; and the very irrational Turnspits had so much knowing modesty, as not to dare to come into a Chappel, or to mount any Pulpits but their own. Then were these Poems writ, when peace and plenty were the best Patriots and Mæcenasses to great Wits; when we could sit and make Verses under our own Figtrees, and be inspired from the juice of our own Vines: then, when it was held no sin for the same man to be both a Poet, and a Prophet; and to draw predictions no lesse from his Verse then his Text. Thus you shall meet here St. Pauls Rapture in a Poem, and the fancy as high and as clear as the third Heaven, into which [A. 3] that Apostle was caught up: and this not onely in the ravishing expressions and extasies of amorous Composures and Love Songs; but in the more grave Dorick strains of sollid Divinity: Anthems that might have become Davids Harpe, and Asaphs Quire, to be sung, as they were made, with the Spirit of that chief Musitian. Againe, In this small Glasse you may behold your owne face, fit your own humors, however wound up and tuned; whether to the sad note, and melancholy look of a disconsolate Elegy, or those more sprightly jovial Aires of an Epithalamium, or Epinichion. Further, would you see a Mistresse of any age, or face, in her created, or uncreated complexion: this mirrour presents you with more shapes then a Conjurers [verso] Glasse, or a Limner’s Pencil. It will also teach you how to court that Mistresse, when her very washings and pargettings cannot flatter her; how to raise a beauty out of wrinkles fourscore years old, and to fall in love even with deformity and uglinesse. From your Mistresse it brings you to your God; and (as it were some new Master of the Ceremonies) instructs you how to woe, and court him likewise; but with approaches and distances, with gestures and expressions suitable to a Diety [Deity]; addresses clothed with such a sacred filial horror and reverence, as may invite and embolden the most despairing condition of the saddest gloomy Sinner; and withall dash out of countenance the greatest confidence of the most glorious Saint: and not with that blasphemous familiarity [A. 4] of our new enlightened and inspired men, who are as bold with the Majesty and glory of that Light that is unapproachable, as with their own ignes fatui; and account of the third Person in the blessed Trinity for no more then their Fellow-Ghost; thinking him as much bound to them for their vertiginous blasts and whi[r]le-winds, as they to him for his own most holy Spirit. Your Authors then of these few sheets are Priests, as well as Poets; who can teach you to pray in verse, and (if there were not already too much phantasticknes in that Trade) to Preach likewise: while they turn Scripture-chapters into Odes, and both the Testaments into one book of Psalmes: making Parnassus as sacred as Mount Olivet, and the nine Muses no lesse religious then a Cloyster of Nuns. [verso.] But yet for all this I would not have thee, Courteous Reader, pass thy censure upon those two Fountains of Religion and Learning, the Universities, from these few small drops of wit, as hardly as some have done upon the late Assemblies three-half-penny Catechisme: as if all their publick and private Libraries, all their morning and evening watchings, all those pangs and throwes of their Studies, were now at length delivered but of a Verse, and brought to bed onely of five feet, and a Conceit. For although the judicious modesty of these men dares not look the world in the face with any of Theorau Johns Revelations, or those glaring New-lights that have muffled the Times and Nation with a greater confusion and darknes, then ever benighted [A. 5] the world since the first Chaos: yet would they please but to instruct this ignorant Age with those exact elaborate Pieces, which might reform Philosophy without a Civil War, and new modell even Divinity its selfe without the ruine of either Church, or State; probably that most prudent and learned Order of the Church of Rome, the Jesuite, should not boast more sollid, though more numerous Volum[e]s in this kind. And of this truth that Order was very sensible, when it felt the rational Divinity of one single Chillingworth to be an unanswerable twelve-years-task for all their English Colledges in Chrisendome. And therefore that Society did like its selfe, when it sent us over a War instead of an Answer, and proved us Hereticks by the Sword: which [verso] in the first place was to Rout the Universities, and to teach our two Fountains of Learning better manners, then for ever heareafter to bubble and swell against the Apostolick Sea. And yet I know not whether the depth of their Politicks might not have advised to have kept those Fountains within their own banks, and there to have dammd them and choakd them up with the mud of the Times, rather then to have let those Protestant Streams run, which perchance may effect that now by the spreading Riverets, which they could never have done through the inclosed Spring: as it had been a deeper State-piece and Reach in that Sanedrim, the great Councell of the Jewish Nation, to have confined the Apostles to Jerusalem, and there to have muzzeld them [A 6] with Oaths, and Orders; rather then by a fruitful Persecution to scatter a few Gospel Seeds, that would spring up the Religion of the whole world: which had it been Coopd within the walls of that City, might (for all they knew) in few years have expired and given up the ghost upon the same Golgotha with its Master. And as then every Pair of Fishermen made a Church and caught the sixt part of the world in their Nets; so now every Pair of Ce[o]lledge-fellows make as many several Universityes; which are truly so call’d, in that they are Catholick, and spread over the face of the whole earth; which stand amazed, to see not onely Religion, but Learning also to come from beyond the Alpes; and that a poor despised Canton and nook of the world should contain as much of each [verso] as all the other Parts besides. But then, as when our single Jesus was made an universall Saviour, and his particular Gospel the Catholick Religion; though that Jesus and this Gospel did both take their rise from the holy City; yet now no City is more unholy and infidel then that; insomuch that there is at this day scarce any thing to be heard of a Christ at Jerusalem, more then that such a one was sometimes there, nor any thing to be seen of his Gospel, more then a Sepulcher: just so it is here with us; where though both Religion and Learning do owe their growth, as well as birth, to those Nurseryes of both, the Universityes; yet, since the Siens of those Nurseryes have been transplanted, there’s little remaines in them now (if they are not belyed) either of the old [A 7] Religion and Divinity, more then its empty Chair & Pulpit, or of the antient Learning & Arts, except bare Schools, and their gilded Superscriptions: so far have we beggard our selves to enrich the whole world. And thus, Ingenuous Sir, have I given you the State and Condition of this Poetick Miscellany, as also of the Authors; it being no more then some few slips of the best Florists made up into a slender Garland, to crown them in their Pilgrimage, and refresh thee in thine: if yet their very Pilgrimage be not its selfe a Crown equall to that of Confessors, and their Academicall Dissolution a Resurrection to the greatest temporall glory: when they shall be approved of by men and Angels for a chosen Generation, a Royal Priesthood, a peculiar People. In the interim let this [verso] comfort be held out to you, our secluded University members, by him that is none; (and therefore what hath been here spoken must not be interpreted as out of passion to my self, but meer zeal to my Mother) that according to the generally received Principles and Axioms of Policy, and the soundest Judgment of the most prudential Statesmen upon those Principles, the date of your sad Ostracisme is expiring, and at an end; but yet such an end, as some of you will not embrace when it shall be offered; but will chuse rather to continue Peripateticks through the whole world, then to return, and be so in your own Colledges. For as that great Councell of Trent had a Form and Conclusion altogether contrary to the expectation and desires of them that procured it; so our great Councels of England [A 8] (our late Parliament) will have such a result, and Catastrophe, as shall no ways answer the Fasts and Prayers, the Humiliations, and Thanksgivings of their Plotters and Contrivers: such a result I say, that will strike a palsie through Mr. Pims ashes, make his cold Marble sweat; and put all those several Partyes, and Actors, that have as yet appeard upon our tragical bloudy Stage, to an amazed stand and gaze: when they shall confess themselves (but too late) to be those improvident axes and hammers in the hand of a subtle Workman; whereby he was enabled to beat down, and square out our Church and State into a Conformity with his own. And then it will appeare that the great Worke, and the holy Cause, and the naked Arme, so much talked of for [verso] these fifteen years, were but the work, and the cause, and the arme of that Hand, which hath all this while reached us over the Alpes; dividing, and composing, winding us up, and letting us down, untill our very discords have set and tuned us to such notes, both in our Ecclesiastical, and Civill Government; as may soonest conduce to that most necessary Catholick Unison and Harmony, which is an essential part of Christs Church here upon Earth, and the very Church its selfe in Heaven. And thus far, Ingenuous Reader, suffer him to be a Poet in his Prediction, though not in his Verse; who desires to be known so far to thee, as that he is a friend to persecuted Truth and Peace; and thy most affectionate Christian Servant,

Ab: Wright.”

(From Parnassus Biceps: or, Severall Choice Pieces of Poetry, composed by the best Wits that were in both the Universities before their Dissolution. London: Printed for George Eversden at the Signe of the Maidenhead in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1656.)

1.—CHOYCE DROLLERY, 1656.

Note, on [The Address to the Reader], &c.

The subscribed initials, “R. P.” are those of Robert Pollard; whose name appears on the title-page (which we reproduce), preceding his address. Excepting that he was a bookseller, dwelling and trading at the “Ben Jonson’s Head, behind the Exchange,” in business-connection with John Sweeting, of the Angel, in Pope’s Head Alley, in 1656; and that he had previously issued a somewhat similar Collection of Poems to the Choyce Drollery (successful, but not yet identified), we know nothing more of Robert Pollard. The books of that date, and of that special class, are extremely rare, and the few existing copies are so difficult of access (for the most part in private possession, almost totally inaccessible except to those who know not how to use them), that information can only be acquired piecemeal and laboriously. Five years hence, if the Editor be still alive, he may be able to tell much more concerning the authors and the compilers of the Restoration Drolleries.

We are told that there is an extra leaf to Choyce Drollery, “only found in a few copies, containing ten lines of verse, beginning Fame’s windy trump, &c. This leaf occurs in one or two extant copies of England’s Parnassus, 1600. Many of the pieces found here are much older than the date of the book [viz., 1656]. It contains notices of many of our early poets, and, unlike some of its successors, is of intrinsic value. Only two or three copies have occurred.” (W. C. H.’s Handb. Pop. Lit. G. B., 1867, p. 168.) “Cromwell’s Government ordered this book to be burned.” (Ibid.) On this last item see our [Introduction], section first. J. P. Collier, who prepared the Catalogue of Richard Heber’s Collection, Bibliotheca Heberiana, Pt. iv., 1834 (a rich storehouse for bibliographical students, but not often gratefully acknowledged by them), thus writes of Choyce Drollery:—“This is one of the most intrinsically valuable of the Drolleries, if only for the sake of the very interesting poem in which characters are given of all the following Poets: Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Chapman, Daborne, Sylvester, Quarles, May, Sands, Digges, Daniel, Drayton, Withers, Brown, Shirley, Ford, Middleton, Heywood, Churchyard, Dekker, Brome, Chaucer, Spencer, Basse, and finally John Shank, the Actor, who is said to have been famous for a jig. Other pieces are much older, and are here reprinted from previous collections” [mostly lost]. P. 90.

It is also known to J. O. Halliwell-Phillips; (but, truly, what is not known to him?) See Shakespeare Society’s Papers, iii. 172, 1847.

In our copy of England’s Parnassus (unindexed, save subjects), 1600, we sought to find “Fame’s windy trump.” [We hear that the leaf was in E. P. at Tite’s sale, 1874.]

As we have never seen a copy of Choyce Drollery containing the passage of “ten lines,” described as beginning “Fame’s Windy Trump,” we cannot be quite certain of the following, from England’s Parnassus, 1600, being the one in question, but believe that it is so. Perhaps it ran, “Fame’s Windy Trump, whatever sound out-flies,” &c. There are twenty-seven lines in all. We distinguish the probable portion of “ten lines” by enclosing the other two parts in brackets:—