RE-ENGRAVED

LONDON: MCMXXII

_PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE NAVARRE SOCIETY LIMITED_


_Printed in Great Britain_

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INTRODUCTION


The Restoration brought back to England something more than a king and
the theatre. It renewed in English life the robust vitality of humour
which had been repressed under the Commonwealth--though, in spite of
repression, there were, even among the Puritan divines, men like the
author of _Joanereidos_, whose self-expression ran the whole gamut
from freedom to licentiousness.

It is a curious thing, that fundamental English humour. It can be
vividly concentrated into a single word, as when, for instance, the
chronicler of _The Ten Pleasures of Marriage_ revives the opprobrious
term for a tailor--"pricklouse": the whole history of the English
woollen industry and of the stuffy Tudor and Stuart domestic
architecture is in the nickname. Or a single phrase can light up an