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.