James II continued the friendship previously shown him when he was Duke of York. He had no wish to offend one who could turn a song against him and his religion. Queen Anne delighted in his wit and gave him fifty guineas when she admitted him to her at supper, because he lampooned the Princess Sophia, then next in succession to herself, by his ditty, “The Crown’s too weighty for shoulders of eighty.” She herself entertained great dislike towards the Electress Dowager of Hanover. D’Urfey was attached to the Tory interest; and in the latter part of the Queen’s reign frequently had the honour of diverting her with witty catches and humorous songs, suited to the spirit of the times, written by himself and sung in a droll and entertaining manner. The Earl of Dorset welcomed him at Knole Park, and had his portrait painted there. At Wincherdon, Buckingham’s house, Philip, Duke of Wharton, enjoyed in company D’Urfey singing his songs, which he did with vivacity, although in speech he stammered. D’Urfey said: “The town may da-da-da-mn me as a poet, but they sing my songs for all that.” He collected his songs into six volumes, published under the title of _Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy_, which went through several editions. In that for 1719 all the songs in the first two volumes are his own; other songs, many of them folk ballads, he tampered with, and added coarsenesses of his own not in the original. The book was published by Playford, and the melodies are not always correctly printed. Most of his airs were folk melodies; many of them, doubtless, heard by him when he was young in Devonshire, for there they are still employed to ballads he recast.