Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets: Being a Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, of Several Eminent Authors.
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Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets: Being a Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, of Several Eminent Authors.
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700; English wit and humor; Songs, English -- Texts
We need merely refer to other Epigrams On Tobacco, as “Time’s great
consumer, cause of idlenesse,” and “Nature’s Idea,” &c., in _Wit’s
Recreations_, 1640-5, because they are accessible in the recent Reprint
(would that it, _Wit Restored_ and _Musarum Deliciæ_ had been carefully
edited, as they deserved and needed to be; but even the literal reprint
of different issues jumbled together pell-mell is of temporary service):
see vol. ii., pp. 45, 38; and 96, 97, 139, 161, 227, 271. Also p.
430, for the “Tryumph of Tobacco over Sack and Ale,” attributed to F.
Beaumont, (if so, then before 1616) telling
_Of the Gods and their symposia;_
_But Tobacco alone,_
_Had they known it, had gone_
_For their Nectar and Ambrosia;_
and vol. i. p. 195, on “A Scholler that sold his Cussion” to buy tobacco.
It is but an imperfect version on ii. 96, headed “A Tobacconist” (eight
lines), of what we gave from _Le Prince d’Amour_: it begins “All dainty
meats I doe defie, || Which feed men fat as swine.” Answered by No. 317,
“On the Tobacconist,” p. 97. By the way: “Verrinus” in _M. D., C._, pp.
10, 364, consult _History of Signboards_, p. 354—“_Puyk van Verinas en
Virginia Tabac_;” Englished, “Tip-Top Varinas,” &c.
Page 27 [237]. _Come Drawer, some Wine._
Probably written by THOMAS WEAVER, and about 1646-8. It is in his
collection entitled _Love and Drollery_, 1654, p. 13. Also in the 1662
_Rump_, i. 235; and the _Loyal Garland_, 1686 (Percy Soc. Reprint, xxix.
31). Compare a similar Song (probably founded on this one) by Sir Robt.
Howard, in his Comedy, “The Committee,” Act iv., “Come, Drawer, some
Wine, Let it sparkle and shine,”—or, the true beginning, “Now the Veil
is thrown off,” &c. The Committee of Sequestration of Estates belonging
to the Cavaliers sat at Goldsmith’s Hall, while Charles was imprisoned
at Carisbrook, in 1647. A ballad of that year, entitled “Prattle your
pleasure under the Rose,” has this verse:—
_Under the rose be it spoken, there’s a damn’d ~Committee~,_
_Sits in hell (~Goldsmith’s Hall~) in the midst of the City,_
_Only to sequester the poor Cavaliers,—_
_The Devil take their souls, and the hangmen their ears._
(As Hamlet says, “You pray not well!”—but such provocation transfers the
blame to those who caused the anger.)
Again, in another Ballad, “I thank you twice,” dated 21st August, same
year, 1647:—
_The gentry are sequestered all;_
_Our wives we find at ~Goldsmith’s Hall~,_
_For there they meet with the devil and all,_
_Still, God a-mercy, Parliament!_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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