Desire can make, or sorrows breed,” &c.
[5] For special reasons, the Editor felt it nearly impossible to avoid the omission of a few letters in one of the most objectionable of these pieces, the twelfth in order, of Choyce Drollery. He mentions this at once, because he holds to his confirmed opinion that in Reprints of scarce and valuable historical memorials no tampering with the original is permissible. (But see [Appendix, Part IV.] and pp. [230], [288].) He incurs blame from judicious antiquaries
by even this small and acknowledged violation of exactitude. Probably, he might have given pleasure to the general public if he had omitted much more, not thirty letters only, but entire poems or songs; as the books deserved in punishment. But he leaves others to produce expurgated editions, suitable for unlearned triflers. Any reader can here erase from the Reprint what offends his individual taste (as we know that Ann, Countess of Strafford, cut out the poem of “Woman” from our copy of Dryden’s Miscellany Poems, Pt. 6, 1709). No Editor has any business to thus mutilate every printed copy.
[6] Haut goust.
[7] Prefixed to “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” is given a Table of Contents (on page 112), enlarged from the one in the original “Antidote against Melancholy, made up in Pills,” 1661, by references to such pages of “Merry Drollery, Compleat,” 1670, 1691, as bear songs or poems in common with the “Antidote.”
[8] George Thomason. It was in 1640 that this bookseller commenced systematically to preserve a copy of every pamphlet, broadside, and printed book connected with the political disturbances. Until after the Restoration in 1660, he continued his valuable collection, so far as possible without omission, but not without danger and interruption. In his will he speaks of it as “not to be paralleled,” and it was intact at Oxford when he died in 1666. Charles II. had too many feminine claimants on his money and time to allow him to purchase the invaluable series of printed documents, as it had been desired that he should do. The sum of £4,000 was refused for this collection of 30,000 pamphlets, bound in 2,000 volumes; but, after several changes of ownership, they were ultimately purchased by King George the Third, for only three or four hundred pounds, and were presented by him to the nation. They are in the British Museum, known as the King’s Pamphlets, and the Antidote against Melancholy is among the small quartos. See Isaac D’Israeli’s Amenities of Literature, for an interesting account of the difficulties and perils attending their collection: article Pamphlets, pp. 685-691, edition 1868.
[9] J. P. Collier, in his invaluable “Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language,” 1865, acknowledges, in reference to “An Antidote against Melancholy,” that “We are without information by whom this collection of Poems, Ballads, Songs, and Catches was made; but Thomas Durfey, about sixty years afterwards, imitated the title, when he called his six volumes ‘Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy,’ 8vo., 1719-20.” (Bibliog. & Crit. Account, vol. i. p. 26.) Again, “If N. D., whose initials are at the end of the rhyming address ‘to the Reader,’ were the person who made the selection, we are without any other clue to his name. There is no ground for imputing it to Thomas Jordan, excepting that he was accustomed to deal in productions of this class; but the songs and ballads he printed were usually of his own composition, and not the works of anterior versifyers.” (Ibid., i. 27.)
[10] It was a week of supreme rejoicing and frollic, being five days before the Coronation of Charles II. in Westminster Abbey, April 23rd. On the 19th were the ceremonies of the Knights of the Bath, at the Painted Chamber, and in the Chapel at Whitehall. On the 22nd, Charles went from the Tower to Whitehall, through well-built triumphal arches, and amid enthusiasm.
[11] These are the Blacksmith, the Brewer, Suckling’s Parley between two West Countrymen concerning a Wedding, St. George and the Dragon, the Gelding of the Devil, the Old and Young Courtier, the Welchman’s Praise of Wales, Ben Jonson’s Cook Lorrel, “Fetch me Ben Jonson’s scull,” a Combat of Cocks, “Am I mad, O noble Festus?” “Old Poets Hypocrin admire,” and “’Tis Wine that inspires.” The Catches are “Drink, drink, all you that think;” “If any so wise is,” “What are we met?” and “The thirsty earth drinks up the rain.”
[12] Ball at Court.—“31st. [December, 1662.] Mr. Povy and I to White Hall; he taking me thither on purpose to carry me into the ball this night before the King. He brought me first to the Duke [of York]’s chamber, where I saw him and the Duchesse at supper; and thence into the room where the ball was to be; crammed with fine ladies, the greatest of the Court. By and by, comes the King and Queene, the Duke and Duchesse, and all the great ones; and after seating themselves, the King takes out the Duchesse of York; and the Duke, the Duchesse of Buckingham; the Duke of Monmouth, my Lady Castlemaine; and so other lords other ladies: and they danced the Brantle [? Braule]. After that the King led a lady a single Coranto; and then the rest of the lords, one after another, other ladies: very noble it was, and great pleasure to see. Then to country dances; the King leading the first, which he called for, which was, says he, ‘Cuckolds all awry [a-row],’ the old dance of England. Of the ladies that danced, the Duke of Monmouth’s mistress, and my Lady Castlemaine, and a daughter of Sir Harry de Vicke’s, were the best. The manner was, when the King dances, all the ladies in the room, and the Queene herself, stand up: and indeed he dances rarely, and much better than the Duke of York. Having staid here as long as I thought fit, to my infinite content, it being the greatest pleasure I could wish now to see at Court, I went home, leaving them dancing.”—(Diary of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty, &c.)