Author: John Payne Collier

Publisher:

Published: 1870

Total Pages: 103

ISBN-13:

Touted as one of the most popular secular songbooks in the English language, An Antidote Against Melancholy contains ballads and songs that were familiar to Shakespeare. This is an 1870 reprint of the earliest extant printed edition which dates to 1661. Chosen for reprint because of its "rarity ... excellence ... [and] high antiquity," it contains 23 ballads and songs plus 40 more "merry catches." Shakespeare used a few of these in his plays; a few others seem to have been inspired by Shakespeare: "Drink off thy sack; twas onely that / Made Bacchus and Jack Falstaff fatt." Indeed, the number of songs devoted to red noses and the drinking of sack, together with the drawer in one catch who keeps crying "Anon, anon, anon, sir," inevitably bring to mind Shakespeare's Henry IV. In the introductory poem, "To The Reader," N.D. says the book will put "thee in a merry mood" and claims "This does more then Choccolet" (extraordinary claim indeed ...) Humorous, bawdy, and celebratory, these songs are still worthy of singing with a raised pint in hand down at your local pub: "Come, come away to the tavern, I say, / For now at home 'tis washing day: / Leave your prittle prattle, and fill us a pottle; / You are not so wise as Aristotle."