Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets: Being a Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, of Several Eminent Authors.
History
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
5.—“Duke Humphrey’s hungry dinner” refers to the tomb popularly supposed
to be of “the good Duke” Humphrey of Gloucester (murdered 1447), but
probably of Sir John Beauchamp (Guy of Warwick’s son), in Paul’s Walk,
where loungers whiled away the dinner-hour if lacking money for an
Ordinary, and “dined with Duke Humphrey.” See Dekker’s _Gulls Horn Book_,
1609, cap. iv. And Robt. Hayman writes:—
_Though a little coin thy purseless pockets line,_
_Yet with great company thou’rt taken up;_
_For often with Duke ~Humfray~ thou dost dine,_
_And often with Sir ~Thomas Gresham~ sup._
(R. H.’s _Quodlibets_, 1628.)
“An old Aunt”—this term used by Autolycus, had temporary significance
apart from kinship, implying loose behaviour; even as “nunkle” or uncle,
hails a mirthful companion. In Roxb. Coll., i. 384, by L[aur.] P[rice],
printed 1641-83, is a description of three Aunts, “seldom cleanly,” but
they were genuine relations, though “the best of all the three” seems
well fitted by the _Letany_ description: which _may_ refer to her.
Page 46 [Supp. p. 7]. _If you will give ear._
A version of this, slightly differing, is given with the music in _Pills
to p. Mell._, iv. 191. It has the final couplet; which we borrow and add
in square brackets.
Page 61 [Supp. 9]. _Full forty times over._
Earlier by six years, but without the Answer, this had appeared in _Wit
and Drollery_, 1656, p. 58; 1661, p. 60. It is also, as “written at
Oxford,” in second part of _Oxford Drollery_, 1671, p. 97.
Page 62 [Supp. 11]. _He is a fond Lover_, &c.
This, and the preceding, being superior to the other reserved songs might
have been retained in the text but for the need to fill a separate sheet.
This Answer is in _Love and Mirth_ (i.e. _Sportive Wit_) 1650, p. 51.
Page 64 [Supp. 12]. _If any one do want a House._
Virtually the same (from the second verse onward) as “A Tenement to Let,”
beginning “I have a Tenement,” &c., in _Pills to p. Mel._, 1720, vi. 355;
and _The Merry Musician_ (n. d. but about 1716), i. 43. Music in both.
Page 81 [Supp. 13]. _Fair Lady, for your New, &c._
Resembling this is “_Ladies, here I do present you, With a dainty dish of
fruit_,” in _Wit and Drollery_, 1656, p. 103.
Page 103 [244]. _Among the Purifidian Sect._
In Harl. MS. No. 6057, fol. 47. There it is entitled “The Puritans of New
England.”
Page 106 [248]. _Come hither, my own sweet Duck._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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