[5] For special reasons, the Editor felt it nearly impossible to avoid the omission of a few letters in one of the most objectionable of these pieces, the twelfth in order, of _Choyce Drollery_. He mentions this at once, because he holds to his confirmed opinion that in Reprints of scarce and valuable historical memorials _no tampering with the original is permissible_. (But see Appendix, Part IV. and pp. 230, 288.) He incurs blame from judicious antiquaries by even this small and acknowledged violation of exactitude. Probably, he might have given pleasure to the general public if he had omitted much more, not thirty letters only, but entire poems or songs; as the books deserved in punishment. But he leaves others to produce expurgated editions, suitable for unlearned triflers. Any reader can here erase from the Reprint what offends his individual taste (as we know that Ann, Countess of Strafford, cut out the poem of “Woman” from our copy of Dryden’s _Miscellany Poems_, Pt. 6, 1709). _No Editor has any business to thus mutilate every printed copy._ [6] _H_aut _goust._ [7] Prefixed to “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” is given a Table of Contents (on page 112), enlarged from the one in the original “_Antidote against Melancholy, made up in Pills_,” 1661, by references to such pages of “_Merry Drollery, Compleat_,” 1670, 1691, as bear songs or poems in common with the “_Antidote_.” [8] _George Thomason._ It was in 1640 that this bookseller commenced systematically to preserve a copy of every pamphlet, broadside, and printed book connected with the political disturbances. Until after the Restoration in 1660, he continued his valuable collection, so far as possible without omission, but not without danger and interruption. In his will he speaks of it as “not to be paralleled,” and it was intact at Oxford when he died in 1666. Charles II. had too many feminine claimants on his money and time to allow him to purchase the invaluable series of printed documents, as it had been desired that he should do. The sum of £4,000 was refused for this collection of 30,000 pamphlets, bound in 2,000 volumes; but, after several changes of ownership, they were ultimately purchased by King George the Third, for only three or four hundred pounds, and were presented by him to the nation. They are in the British Museum, known as the King’s Pamphlets, and the _Antidote against Melancholy_ is among the small quartos. See Isaac D’Israeli’s _Amenities of Literature_, for an interesting account of the difficulties and perils attending their collection: article _Pamphlets_, pp. 685-691, edition 1868.