And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!’”
(Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1.)
We have already, in a brief Introduction, ([pp. 105-110]), explained our reason for adding all that was necessary to complete this work; a large portion having been anticipated in Merry Drollery of the same year, 1661. In the Postscript (pp. [161-165]), we endeavoured to trace the authorship of the entire collection; leaving to these following notes, and those attached to M. Drollery, Compleat, the search for separate poems or songs. Also, on pp. [166-175], we traced the history of “Arthur o’ Bradley,” delaying the important song of his Wedding (from an original of the date 1656), unto [Part IV. of our Appendix].
To no other living writer are we lovers of old literature more deeply indebted than to the veteran John Payne Collier, who is now far advanced in his eighty-seventh year, and whose intellect and industry remain vigorously employed at this great age: one proof of the fact being his new edition of Shakespeare (each play in a separate quarto, issued to private subscribers), begun in January, 1875, and already the Comedies are finished, in the third volume. Among his numerous choice reprints of rare originals, his series of the more than “Seven Early Poetical Miscellanies” was a work of greatest value. To these, with his new “Shakespeare,” the interesting “Old Man’s Diary,” his “Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language,” his “Annals of the Stage,” “The Poetical Decameron,” his charming “Book of Roxburghe Ballads,” 1847, his “Broadside Black-Letter-Ballads,” 1868, and other labours, no less than to his warmth of heart and friendly encouragement by letters, the present Editor owes many happy hours, and for them makes grateful acknowledgment.
About the year 1870, J. P. Collier issued to private subscribers his very limited and elegant Reprint, in quarto, of “An Antidote against Melancholy,” 1661. This is already nearly as unattainable as the original.
J. P. Collier gave no notes to his Reprint of the “Antidote,” but, in the brief Introduction thereunto, he mentioned that:—“This poetical tract has been selected for our reprint on account of its rarity, the excellence of the greater part of its contents, the high antiquity of some of them, and from the fact that many of the ballads and humorous pieces of versification are either not met with elsewhere, or have been strangely corrupted in repetition through the press. Two or three of them are used by Shakespeare, and the word ‘incarnadine’ [[see our p. 148]] is only found in ‘Macbeth’ (A. ii., sc. 2), in Carew’s poems, and in this tract: here we have it as the name of a red wine; and nobody hitherto has noticed it in that sense.
“When Ritson published his ‘Robin Hood’ in 1795, he relied chiefly upon the text of the famous ballad of ‘Arthur o’ Bradley,’ as he discovered it in the miscellany before us [See our Merry Drollery, Compleat, pp. 312, 399; also, in present volume, [p. 166], and [Additional Note]]; but, learned in such matters as he undoubtedly was, he was not aware of the very early period at which ‘Arthur o’ Bradley’ was so popular as to be quoted in one of our Old Moralities, which may have been in existence in the reigns of Henry VI. or Henry VII., which was acted while Henry VIII. or Edward VI. were on the throne, and which is contained in a manuscript bearing the date of 1579.
“The few known copies of ‘An Antidote against Melancholy’ are dated 1661, the year after the Restoration, when lawless licence was allowed both to the press and in social intercourse; and, if we permitted ourselves to mutilate our originals, we might not have reproduced such coarseness; but still no words will be found which, even a century afterwards, were not sometimes used in private conversation, and which did not even make their appearance at full length in print. Mere words may be said to be comparatively harmless; but when, as in the time of Charles II, they were employed as incentives to vice and laxity of manners, they become dangerous. The repetition of them in our day, in a small number of reprints, can hardly be offensive to decorum, and unquestionably cannot be injurious to public morals. We always address ourselves to the students of our language and habits of life.”