Despite our repugnance to mutilate a text (see Introduction to Westminster Drollery, p. 6; ditto to Merry Drollery Compleat, pp. 38, 39, 40; and that to our present volume, [foot-note in section third]), a few letters have been necessarily suppressed in this piece of coarse humour. Verse fourth, on p. 33, refers to Ben Jonson’s loss of valuable manuscripts by fire, and his consequent “Execration upon Vulcan,” before June, 1629; an event deeply to be regretted: also to the whimsical account of the fire on London Bridge (see Merry Drollery, Compleat, pp. 87, 369, and [Additional Note] in present volume, tracing the poem to 1651, and the event to 1633).
An amusing poem was written, by Thomas Randolph, on the destruction of the Mitre Tavern at Cambridge, about 1630; it begins, “Lament, lament, you scholars all.” (See A Crew of kind London Gossips, 1663, p. 72).
[Page 38.] In Eighty Eight, ere I was born.
Also given later, in Merry Drollery, 1661, p. 77, and Ditto, Compleat, p. 82 and 369. Compare the Harleian MS. version, No. 791, fol. 59, given in our Appendix to Westminster Drollery, p. 38, with note. The romance of the Knight of the Sun is mentioned by Sir Tho. Overbury in his Characters, as fascinating a Chambermaid, and tempting her to turn lady-errant. “The book is better known under the title of The Mirror of Princely Deedes and Knighthood, wherein is shewed the worthinesse of The Knight of the Sunne, &c. It consists of nine parts, which appear to have been published at intervals between 1585, and 1601.” (Lucasta, &c., edit. 1864, p. 13.)
[Page 40.] And will this Wicked World, &c.
We never met this elsewhere: it was probably written either in 1605, or almost immediately afterwards. Among Robert Hayman’s Quodlibets, 1628, in Book Second, No. 49, is an Epigram (p. 27):—
Of the Gunpowder Holly-day, the 5th of November.
The Powder-Traytors, Guy Vaux, and his mates,
Who by a Hellish plot sought Saints estates,
Haue in our Kalendar vnto their shame,