Nevertheless, the copper-plate illustration is so good, and connects so well with the Bacchanalian and sportive character of the “_Antidote against Melancholy_,” and other _Drolleries_, that the present Editor not unwillingly takes up the graver to reproduce this frontispiece for the adornment of the volume and the service of subscribers. Our own Reprint and our engraving are made from the _perfect_ specimen contained in the Thomason Collection, and dated 1661 (with “Aprill 18” in MS.; see p. 161). We make a rule always to go to the fountain-head for our draughts, howsoever long and steep may be the ascent. Flowers and rare fossils reward us as we clamber up, and in good time other students learn to trust us, as being pains-taking and conscientiously exact. The first duty of one who aspires to be honoured as the Editor of early literature is to faithfully reproduce his text, unmutilated and undisguised. To amend it, and elucidate it, so far as lies in his power, can be done befittingly in his notes and comments, while he gives his readers a representation of the original, so nearly in _fac-simile_ as is compatible with additional beauty of typography. Throughout our labours we have held this principle steadily in view; and, whatever nobler work we may hereafter attempt, the same determination must guide us. There may be debate as to our wisdom in reproducing some questionable _facetiæ_, but there shall be none regarding our fidelity to the original text. § 2. INGREDIENTS OF AN “ANTIDOTE.” A pleasant book it appeared to Cavaliers and all who were not quite strait-laced. It is almost unobjectionable, except for a few ugly words, and bears comparison honourably with “_Merry Drollery_” or “_Wit and Drollery_,” both of the same date, 1661. Unlike the former, it is almost uninfected with political rancour or impurity. It is a jovial book, that roysters and revellers loved to sing their Catches from; nay, if some laughing nymphs did not drop their eyes over its pages we are no conjurors. A vulgar phrase or two did not frighten them. Lucy Hutchinson herself, the Colonel’s Puritan wife, fires many a volley of coarse epithets without blushing; and, indeed, the Saintly Crew occasionally indulged in foul language as freely as the Malignants, though it was condoned as being theologic zeal and controversial phraseology. In “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” we forgive the verbosity, for the sake of one verse on the noted Ballad-writer (see note in Appendix):— “For _ballads_ ELDERTON never had peer; How went his wit in them, with how merry a gale, And with all the sails up, had he been at the Cup, And washed his beard with a _pot of good ale_.”