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. The dull, harsh, and uncongenial time intensified their visions: even as Hogarth’s “Distressed Poet”—amid the squalour of his garret, with his gentle uncomplaining wife dunned for a milk-score—revels in description of Potosi’s mines, and, while he writes in poverty, can feign himself possessor of uncounted riches. Such power of self-forgetfulness was grasped by the “Time-Poets,” of whom our little book keeps memorable record. So be it, Cavaliers of 1656. Though Oliver’s troopers and a hated Parliament are still in the ascendant, let your thoughts find repose awhile, your hopes regain bright colouring, remembering the plaints of one despairing shepherd, from whom his _Chloris_ fled; or of that other, “sober and demure,” whose mistress had herself to blame, through freedoms being borne too far. We, also, love to seek a refuge from the exorbitant demands of myriad-handed interference with Church and State; so we come back to you, as you sit awhile in peace under the aged trees, remote from revellers and spies, “Farre in the Forest of Arden”—O take us thither!—reading of happy lovers in the pages of _Choyce Drollery_. Since their latest words are of our favourite Fletcher, let our invocation also be from him, in his own melodious verse:— “How sweet these solitary places are! how wantonly The wind blows through the leaves, and courts and plays with ’em! Will you sit down, and sleep? The heat invites you. Hark, how yon purling stream dances and murmurs; The birds sing softly too. Pray take your rest, Sir.” J. W. E. _September 2nd, 1875._ Choyce Drollery: Songs & Sonnets. _Choyce_ DROLLERY: SONGS & SONNETS. _BEING_ A Collection of divers excellent pieces of Poetry, _OF_ Severall eminent Authors. _Never before printed._ [Illustration] _LONDON_, Printed by _J. G._ for _Robert Pollard_, at the _Ben. Johnson’s_ head behind the Exchange, and _John Sweeting_, at the _Angel_ in Popes-Head Alley. 1656.