g, The publisher was
a John Sweeting, who had duly registered the book on the 9th of
February 1655-6, shortly after which date it had appeared with this
full title, _Choice Drollery, Songs and Sonnets: being a Collection
of Divers Eminent Pieces of Poetry of several Eminent Authors, never
before printed_. I have not seen any copy of the other book
bearing the precise title _Sportive Wit, or the Muses'
Merriment_; but there are surviving copies of what may be the same
with an alternative title, viz. _Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems,
never before printed, by Sir J.M., Jas. S., Sir W.D., J.D., and other
admirable wits_. It had been out in London since. Jan. 18, 1655-6,
had been registered on the 30th of that month, and is a respectably
printed little book of 160 pages, with the motto "_Ut nectar
ingenium_" under the title, and with, the imprint _London.
Printed for Nath. Brook, at the Angel in Cornhill_, 1656. It
contains moreover a Dedication "To the truly noble Edward Pepes,
Esq.," and an Epistle "To the Courteous Reader," both signed with the
initials J.P. Either, therefore, this is the same book as the
_Sportive Wit or the Muses' Merriment_ which, figures in the
Orders of the Council, or John Phillips had edited simultaneously for
Nathaniel Brooke (who had been the publisher of his _Satyr against
Hypocrites_ in the preceding August) two books of the same general
character. Even on the latter supposition, _Wit and Drollery,_
in the absence of _Sportive Wit,_ may serve as a representative
of that production of the same editor and the same publisher. The
substance of Phillips's Epistle to the Reader in _Wit and
Drollery_ is as follows:--

"Reader,--To give thee a broadside of plain dealing, this
_Wit_ I present thee with is such as can only be in fashion,
invented purposely to keep off the violent assaults of melancholy,
assisted by the additional engines and weapons of sack and good
company... What hath not been extant of Sir J. M., of Ja. S., of
Sir W. D., of J. D., and other miraculous muses of the times, are
here at thy service; and, as Webster, at the end of his play called
_The White Devil,_ subscribes that the action of Perkins
crowned the whole play, so, when thou viewest the title, and
readest the sign of 'Ben Jonson's Head, in the backside of the
Exchange, and the Angel in Cornhill,' where they are sold, enquire
who could better furnish thee with such sparkling copies of wit."

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