(From _Parnassus Biceps: or, Severall Choice Pieces of POETRY, composed by the best WITS that were in both the Universities before their DISSOLUTION_. London: Printed for _George Eversden_ at the Signe of the _Maidenhead_ in St. _Pauls_ Church-yard, 1656.)
Note, on _The Address to the Reader_, &c.
The subscribed initials, “R. P.” are those of Robert Pollard; whose name appears on the title-page (which we reproduce), preceding his address. Excepting that he was a bookseller, dwelling and trading at the “Ben Jonson’s Head, behind the Exchange,” in business-connection with John Sweeting, of the Angel, in Pope’s Head Alley, in 1656; and that he had previously issued a somewhat similar Collection of Poems to the _Choyce Drollery_ (successful, but not yet identified), we know nothing more of Robert Pollard. The books of that date, and of that special class, are extremely rare, and the few existing copies are so difficult of access (for the most part in private possession, almost totally inaccessible except to those who know not how to use them), that information can only be acquired piecemeal and laboriously. Five years hence, if the Editor be still alive, he may be able to tell much more concerning the authors and the compilers of the _Restoration Drolleries_.
We are told that there is an extra leaf to _Choyce Drollery_, “only found in a few copies, containing ten lines of verse, beginning _Fame’s windy trump_, &c. This leaf occurs in one or two extant copies of _England’s Parnassus_, 1600. Many of the pieces found here are much older than the date of the book [viz., 1656]. It contains notices of many of our early poets, and, unlike some of its successors, is of intrinsic value. Only two or three copies have occurred.” (_W. C. H.’s Handb. Pop. Lit. G. B._, 1867, p. 168.) “Cromwell’s Government ordered this book to be burned.” (_Ibid._) On this last item see our Introduction, section first. J. P. Collier, who prepared the Catalogue of Richard Heber’s Collection, _Bibliotheca Heberiana_, Pt. iv., 1834 (a rich storehouse for bibliographical students, but not often gratefully acknowledged by them), thus writes of _Choyce Drollery_:—“This is one of the most intrinsically valuable of the _Drolleries_, if only for the sake of the very interesting poem in which characters are given of all the following Poets: Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Chapman, Daborne, Sylvester, Quarles, May, Sands, Digges, Daniel, Drayton, Withers, Brown, Shirley, Ford, Middleton, Heywood, Churchyard, Dekker, Brome, Chaucer, Spencer, Basse, and finally John Shank, the Actor, who is said to have been famous for a jig. Other pieces are much older, and are here reprinted from previous collections” [mostly lost]. P. 90.