Biblioth. Ashmol., Cantium, 1876.
[End of “The ‘Drolleries’ of the Restoration.”]
Drollery Reprints.
Uniform with “Choice Drollery.”
Published at 10s. 6d. to Subscribers, now raised to 21s; large paper, published at £1 1s, now raised to £2 2s.
A RE-PRINT
OF THE
Westminster Drollery,
1671, 1672.
To those who are already acquainted with the two parts of the Westminster Drollery, published in 1671 and 1672, it must have appeared strange that no attempt has hitherto been made to bring these delightful volumes within reach of the students of our early literature. The originals are of extreme rarity, a perfect copy seldom being attainable at any public sale, and then fetching a price that makes a book-hunter almost despair of its acquisition. So great a favourite was it in the Cavalier times, that most copies have been literally worn to pieces in the hands of its many admirers, as they chanted forth a merry stave from the pages. There is no collection of songs surpassing it in the language, and as representative of the lyrics of the first twelve years after the Restoration it is unequalled: by far the greater number are elsewhere unattainable.
The Westminster Drolleries are reprinted with the utmost fidelity, page for page, and line for line, not a word being altered, or a single letter departing from the original spelling.
DROLLERY RE-PRINTS.