“ There lies no Prohibition to a pot of good ale.
They talk much of State, both early and late,
But if Gascoign and Spain their Wine should but faile,
No remedy then, with us Englishmen,
But the State it must stand by a pot of good ale.
And they that sit by it are good men and quiet,
No dangerous Plotters in the Common-weale
Of Treason and Murder: For they never go further
Than to call for, and pay for a pot of good ale. ”

“ Yet while we yield unquestioningly the higher rank as Poet to John Milton, we hold the generous nature of his rival, Cowley, in more loving regard. He was not of the massive build in mind, or stern unflinching resolution needed for such times as those wherein his lot was cast. When the weakest goes to the wall, amid universal disturbance and selfish warring for supremacy, his was not the strong arm to beat back encroachment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Recluse philosophers of science or of literature, men like Sir Thomas Browne, pursue their labour unremittingly, and keep apart from politics; but even for this abstinence harsh measure is dealt to them by contemporaries and posterity whom they labour to enrich. It is well, no doubt, that we should be convinced as to which side the truth is on, and fight for that unto the death. Woe to the recreant who shrinks from hazarding everything in life, and life itself, defending what he holds to be the Right. ”

“ In the absence of such crimes or flagrant sins of his companions, as his own frozen nature made him incapable of committing, there are remembered against him his interminable harangues, his hair-splitting, his self-sufficiency; and all that early deliberate treachery in ransacking his father’s papers, which he employed to cause the death of Strafford. To all posterity recorded, came the ejaculation of Cromwell: “Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane—the Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!” ”

“ A nation that could feel thus, would not long delay to pluck the mask from sanctimonious hypocrites, and drag “The Gang” from out their saddle.
Here, too, are the love-songs of a race of Poets who had known the glories of Whitehall before its desecration. Here are the courtly praises of such beauties as the Lady Elizabeth Dormer, 1st Countess of Carnarvon, who, while she held her infant in her arms, in 1642, was no less fascinating than she had been in her virgin bloom. ”

“ We believe that the tinge of sepulchral dullness [303] in Mine Host enhances the vividness of the incidents, like the taciturnity of Don Guzman’s stony statue in Shadwell’s “Libertine.”
Thus the hundred-paged volume of Choyce Drollery, 1656,—“Delicates served up by frugall Messes, as aiming at thy satisfaction not saciety,”—comes to an end, with Beaumont and Fletcher. On them remembrance loves to rest, as the fitting representatives of that class of courtly gentlemen, poets, wits, and scholars, who were, to a great extent, even then, fading away from English society. ”

“ Even the culpable weakness and ingratitude of Charles, in abandoning Strafford, Laud, and other champions to their unscrupulous destroyers, had not made true-hearted Cavaliers falter in their faith to him. As the best of moralists declares:—
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.”
These loyal sentiments being embodied in print within our Choyce Drollery, suitable to sustain the fealty of the defeated Cavaliers to the successor of the “Royal Martyr,” it was evident that the Restoration must be merely a question of time. ”

“ The preponderance of Songs in praise of Sack and loose revelry is not without significance. A few pieces of coarse humour, double entendre, and breaches of decorum attest the fact that already among the Cavaliers were spread immorality and licentiousness. The fault of an impaired discipline had home evil fruit, beyond defeat in the field and exile from positions of power. Mockery and impurity had been welcomed as allies, during the warfare against bigotry, hypocrisy, and selfish ambition. We find, it is true, few of the sweeter graces of poetry in Choice Drollery and in Merry Drollery ”

“ Sing, Hony soit qui mal y pense. A Ballad call’d Blew Cap for me.
Come hither thou merriest of all the Nine, [p. 29.]
Come, sit you down by me, and let us be jolly;
And with a full Cup of Apollo’s wine,
Wee’l dare our Enemy mad Melancholly;
And when we have done, wee’l between us devise
A pleasant new Dity by Art to comprise:
And of this new Dity the matter shall be,
If ever I have a man, blew cap for me.
There dwells a blith Lass in Falkland Town
And she hath Suitors I know not how many,
And her resolution she had set down
That she’l have a Blew Cap, if ever she have any. ”

“ Some of them recal the strains of dramatists, whose only actresses had been Ladies of high birth, condescending to adorn the Masques in palaces, winning applause from royal hands and voices. These, moreover, were “Songs and Sonnets” which the best musicians had laboured skilfully to clothe anew with melody: Poems already breathing their own music, as they do still, when lutes and virginals are broken, and the composer’s score has long been turned into gun-wadding. ”

“ Some partizans may find a paltry pleasure in dealing stealthy stabs, or buffoons’ sarcasms, against the foes they could not fairly conquer. Some hold a silent dignified reserve, and give no sign of what they hope or fear. But for another, and large class, there will be solace in the dreams of earlier days, such as the Poets loved to sing about a Golden Pastoral Age. Those who best learnt to tell its beauty were men unto whom Fortune seldom offered gifts, as though it were she envied them for having better treasure in their birthright of imagination. ”

“ We make a rule always to go to the fountain-head for our draughts, howsoever long and steep may be the ascent. Flowers and rare fossils reward us as we clamber up, and in good time other students learn to trust us, as being pains-taking and conscientiously exact. The first duty of one who aspires to be honoured as the Editor of early literature is to faithfully reproduce his text, unmutilated and undisguised. ”

“ The large proportion of pastoral songs and poems in Choyce Drollery is one other noticeable characteristic. Even as Utopian schemes, with dreams of an unrealized Republic where laws may be equally administered, and cultivation given to all highest arts or sciences, are found to be most popular in times of discontent and tyranny, when no encouragement [xxxiv] for hope appears in what the acting government is doing; even so, amid luxurious times, with artificial tastes predominant, there is always a tendency to dream of pastoral simplicity, and to sing or paint the joys of rural life. ”

“ They are still winding around us, some in a Nineteenth-Century garb (a little tattered, but it adds to the picturesqueness) , blithe Hop-pickers of West-Bridge Deanery. There are a few New Zealanders, we understand, waiting to join the throng, (including Macaulay’s own particular circumnavigating meditator, yet unborn) ; so that as long as the world wags no welcome may be lacking to the mirth and melody, jigging and joustling,
“For the honour of Arthur o’ Bradley,
O rare Arthur o’ Bradley,
O brave Arthur o’ Bradley,
Arthur o’ Bradley. O!” ”

“ The opening poem, by Davenant, is especially beautiful, where a Lover comforts himself with a thought of dying in his Lady’s presence, and being mourned thereafter by her, so that she shall deck his grave with tears, and, loving it, must come and join him there:—
“Yet we hereafter shall be found
By Destiny’s right placing,
Making, like Flowers, Love under ground,
Whose roots are still embracing.” ”

“ Our joy would have been greater, could we have restored authoritatively the lost sixteenth-line, by any genuine discovery among early manuscripts; or told something conclusive about the author of the poem, who has laid us under obligation for these vivid portraits of John Ford, Thomas Heywood, poor old Thomas Churchyard, and Ben’s courageous foeman, worthy of his steel, that Thomas Dekker who “followed after in a dream.”
In deep humility we must confess that nothing is yet learnt as to the authorship. ”

“ Not one dares to struggle. Afraid of violence, their swords hang idly at their side. As they pass out in turn, they meet the scathing of Oliver’s rebuke. His control of himself is gone. Their crimes are not forgotten. He denounces Challoner as a drunkard, Wentworth for his adultery, Alderman Allen for his embezzlement of public military money, and Bulstrode Whitelock of injustice. Harry Marten is asked whether a whore-master is fit to sit and govern. Vane is unable to resist a feeble protest, availing nothing—“This is not honest: Yea! it is against morality and honesty.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Neither keeps working, nor yet Holy day:
Set business aside, and let us be merry,
And drown our dull thoughts in Canary and Sherry. A CATCH.
12. Hang sorrow, and cast away care,
And let us drink up our Sack:
They say ’tis good to cherish the blood,
And for to strengthen the back:
Tis Wine that makes the thoughts aspire,
And fills the body with heat;
Besides ’tis good, if well understood [p. 69.]
To fit a man for the feat;
Then call, and drink up all,
The drawer is ready to fill:
Pox take care, what need we to spare,
My Father has made his will.
[p. 70.]
A CATCH.
16. ”

“ From the “Bookseller,” March, 1875.
“If we wish to read the history of public opinion we must read the songs of the times: and those who help us to do this confer a real favour. Mr. Thomas Wright has done enormous service in this way by his collections of political songs. Mr. Chappell has done better by giving us the music with them; but much remains to be done. On examining the volume before us, we are surprised to find so many really beautiful pieces, and so few of the coarse and vulgar. ”

“ To approach them at all might be deemed temerity, were it not that such men are the least to be feared by an honest worker. On the other hand, it were easy for ill-natured persons to insinuate accusations against any one who meddles with Re-prints of Facetiæ. Blots and stains are upon such old books, which he has made no attempt to disguise or palliate. Let them bear their own blame. There are dullards and bigots in the world, nevertheless, who decry all antiquarian and historical research. A defence is unnecessary: “Let them rave!” ”

“ Very few of these who reach the summit of ambition, as of those other who most lamentably failed, and became bankrupt of every hope, can feel much sadness when the messenger is seen who comes to lead them hence,—from a world wherein the jugglers’ tricks have all grown wearisome, and where the tawdry pomp or glare cannot disguise the sadness of Life’s masquerade. ”

“ The fashion of disparaging the present, by praising the customs and people of days that have passed away, is almost as old as the Deluge, if not older. Homer speaks of the degeneracy in his time, and aged Israel had long earlier lamented the few and evil days to which his own life extended, in comparison with those patriarchs who had gone before him. ”

“ Greedy eyes, active fingers, were after the Choyce Drollery. Any fortunate possessor, even in those early days, knew well that he grasped a treasure which few persons save himself could boast. Therefore it is not strange, two hundred and twenty years having rolled away since then, that the book has grown to be among the rarest of the Drolleries. Probably not six perfect copies remain in the world. The British Museum holds not one. We congratulate ourselves on restoring it now to students, for many parts of it possess historical value, besides poetic grace ”

“ The happy invention of a pot of good ale. [123]
The North they will praise it, and praise with passion,
Where every River gives name to a Dale:
There men are yet living that are of th’ old fashion,
No Nectar they know but a pot of good ale. ”

“ But, however defiantly they might bear themselves, however resolute to crush down every attempt at revolt against their own authority, the men in power could not disguise from one another that there were heavings of the earth on which they trod, coming from no reverberations of their footsteps, but telling of hollowness and insecurity below. ”