Of course, miscellanies by their very nature are likely to be organized according to principles of variety. What makes _The Merry-Thought_ different from those appealing to polite taste is the wide swings of emotion that prompt the writers of these poems and catch the compiler’s fancy. As we have seen, the verses themselves vary from the grossest comments on shit to the most passionate expressions of love. That the one is likely to appear on the walls of latrines and the other to be cut in glass by a diamond is part of what Johnson would have called the “Hieroglyphic” significance of this collection. In Johnson’s plays, there is the odd mixture of vulgarity and sublimity, the comic and the serious, the satirical and the nonsensical. If his dramas bear a resemblance to Jarry’s _Ubu Roi_, so _The Merry-Thought_ resembles the kind of anthology that Jarry might have put together to illustrate the absurd anarchy of the human spirit. Johnson, on the other hand, regarded this seeming anarchy of human thoughts and feelings optimistically as an emblem of human spirituality. _University of California,_ _Los Angeles_ BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Part 2 (“The SECOND EDITION”) and Part 3 of _The Merry-Thought_ are reproduced in photographic facsimile from the copies in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Shelf Mark: *PR1195/H8H9/1731). They are bound together with Part 1 (“the Third Edition; with very Large Additions and Alterations”), which was published as ARS 216 in 1982. A typical type page (pt. 2. p. 7) measures 154 x 87 mm. Part 4 is reproduced from the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Shelf Mark: Douce T. 168[5]). The MERRY-THOUGHT: or, the Glass-Window and Bog-House MISCELLANY. Taken from The Original Manuscripts written in _Diamond_ by Persons of the first Rank and Figure in _Great Britain_; relating to Love, Matrimony, Drunkenness, Sobriety, Ranting, Scandal, Politicks, Gaming, and many other Subjects, _Serious_ and _Comical_. Faithfully Transcribed from the Drinking-Glasses and Windows in the several noted _Taverns_, _Inns_, and other _Publick Places_ in this Nation. Amongst which are inserted several curious Pieces from both Universities. _Published by_ HURLO THRUMBO. _Gameyorum, Wildum, Gorum, Gameyorum a Gamy, Flumarum a Flumarum, A Rigdum Bollarum A Rigdum, for a little Gamey._ Bethleham-Wall, Moor-Fields. PART II. The SECOND EDITION. _LONDON_: Printed for J. ROBERTS in _Warwick-Lane_; and Sold by the Booksellers in Town and Country. [Price 6 _d._] _N. B._ The Editor returns his hearty Thanks to those Gentlemen who have favoured him with their Letters, and intreats that they will be so good as to continue to communicate whatever they shall meet with of this Kind to the Publisher. THE MERRY-THOUGHT. PART II.