Of the more than two hundred pieces, contained in _Merry Drollery_, fully a third are elsewhere unattainable, and the rest are scarce. Among the numerous attractions we may mention the rare Song of “Love lies a bleeding” (p. 191), an earnest protest against the evils of the day; the revelations of intolerant military violence, such as The Power of the Sword (125), Mardyke (12), Pym’s Anarchy (70), The Scotch War (93), The New Medley of the Country-man, Citizen, and Soldier (182), The Rebel Red-Coat (190), and “Cromwell’s Coronation” (254), with the masterly description of Oliver’s Routing the Rump (62). Several Anti-Puritan Songs about New England are here, and provincial descriptions of London (95, 275, 323). Rollicking staves meet us, as from the Vagabond (204), The Tinker of Turvey (27), The Jovial Loyallist, with the Answer to it, in a nobler strain, by one who sees the ruinous vileness of debauchery (pp. 207, 209); and a multitude of Bacchanalian Catches. The two songs on the Blacksmith (225, 319), and both of those on The Brewer (221, 252), referring to Cromwell, are here; as well as the ferocious exultation over the Regicides in a dialogue betwixt Tower-hill and Tyburn (131). More than a few of the spirited Mad-songs were favourites. Nor are absent such ditties as tell of gallantry, though few are of refined affection and exalted heroism. The absurd impossibilities of a Medicine for the Quartan Ague (277, cf. 170), the sly humour of the delightful “How to woo a Zealous Lady” (77), the stately description of a Cock-fight (242), the Praise of Chocolate (48), the Power of Money (115), and the innocent merriment of rare Arthur o’ Bradley’s Wedding (312), are certain to please. Added, are some of the choicest poems by Suckling, Cartwright, Ben Jonson, Alexander Brome, Fletcher, D’Avenant, Dryden, Bishop Corbet, and others. “The Cavalier’s Complaint,” with the Answer to it, has true dramatic force. The character of a Mistress (60), shows one of the seductive Dalilahs who were ever ready to betray. The lampoons on D’Avenant’s “Gondibert” (100, 118) are memorials of unscrupulous ridicule from malicious wits. “News, that’s No News” (159), with the grave buffoonery of “The Bow Goose” (153), and the account of a Fire on London Bridge (87), in the manner of pious ballad-mongers (the original of our modern “Three Children Sliding on the Ice”), are enough to make Heraclitus laugh. Some of the dialogues, such as “Resolved not to Part” (113), “The Bull’s Feather” (i.e. the Horn, p. 264), and that between a Hare and the hounds that are chasing him (296), lend variety to the volume; which contains, moreover, some whimsical stories in verse, (one being “A Merry Song” of a Husbandman whose wife gets him off a bad bargain, p. 17: compare p. 200), told in a manner that would have delighted Mat Prior in later days.