INTRODUCTION 



I. Editions and Reprints 



"Wine, Beere, and Ale, Together by the Eares. A Dialogue, 

 Written first in Dutch by Gallobelgicus, and faithfully translated out 

 of the originall Copie, by Mercurius Brittanicus, for the benefite of his 

 Nation. Horat. Siccis omnia nam dura Deus proposuit. London, 

 Printed by A. M. for John Grove, and are to bee sold at his Shop, at 

 Furnivals Inne Gate in Holborne. 1629." Such, in full, is the title 

 page of the first edition of the dialogue reprinted in the following 

 pages. The volume is extremely rare; indeed, I know of but a single 

 copy, a small octavo in the British Museum, formerly in the possession 

 of the Duke of Roxburghe.* It has never, to my knowledge, been 

 reprinted. 



A second edition, "much enlarged," appeared in 1630 with the 

 title "Wine, Beere, Ale, and Tobacco Contending for Superiority," 

 and it is upon this that the present text is based. The revision con- 

 sisted in the addition of the sprightly role of Tobacco and in two con- 

 siderable excisions from the earlier text. Of this second edition 

 copies are to be found in the British Museum, in the Bodleian, and in 

 private hands. It was reprinted substantially without change for the 

 same bookseller in 1658, adorned with a wood cut representing a 

 tavern scene. 



A reprint of the second edition was published in 1854 by J. O. 

 Halliwell in his Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 

 without collation of the first or third editions or other critical appara- 

 tus.^ HalliweU's volume was of limited circulation and is now very 

 rare. The dialogue may, therefore, fairly be called inaccessible to the 

 modern reader.' 



^ The Roxburghe arms are stamped on the fly leaf, and the book is listed in the sale catalogue of 

 the library of John, third duke, arranged by G. and W. Nichol, London, 1812. The passages in the 

 text of the first edition which were omitted in the edition of 16.^0, are carefully indicated in this copy 

 in ink, presumably for the direction of the printer in setting the second edition. It is clear from the 

 typographical similarities of the two that the compositor had the printed text before him. 



^ Halliwell makes no mention of the first edition. He remarks that he has heard of the existence 

 of an earlier reprint but has been unable to find any trace of it. Possibly the edition of 1658 was the 

 one referred to. 



' Wine, Beere, and Ale is entered as a ballad, in a list with others, to Francis Coules, Jan. 24, 1630 . 

 Stationers' Register, ed. Arber, IV, 236. This can hardly refer to the second edition of our dialogue, 

 which bore a different title. The entry may record the transfer of publishers' rights in the first edition 

 or, what is more likely, the publication or transfer of a ballad using the same material- 



