We need not go to Joseph Addison to learn that “a reader seldom peruses a book till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author.” “Who wrote it?” is a question most of us are in the habit of asking, when any book or song gives us pleasure. Let us mention the writers of some songs and ballads in Merry Drollery, Complete.
Ten of the Songs are by Alexander Brome, whose gay spirit made him a favourite among the Cavaliers; his numerous Epistles in verse, preserved among his Poems, prove the intimacy of his friendship with many leading men,—Charles Cotton, Colonel Lovelace, Thomas Stanley, &c. Though given to writing Bacchanalian ditties, he does not seem to have been of dissolute habits, and his Muse is singularly decorous in morals, like himself preferring Wine to Women. A word here or there of plain language may exceed our present forms of speech; but he never wantonly indulges in foulness of thought or expression, and we love him well for his own sake, as also for the friendly labours he encountered to print and publish his namesake Richard Brome’s choice Comedies. Few of these might have come down to us, but for such editorial
care.
