Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge Melancholy Thomas

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The origins of Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, the most famous song book of its day,

may be traced back to a single volume of 'witty ballads, jovial songs, and merry catches' by an

earlier generation of lyricists, published without music in 1661 under the title An Antidote against

Melancholy: made up in Pills. For the third edition, still without music but livened up by more

recent songs, the title was changed to Wit and Mirth: An Antidote against Melancholy (1682), and

in 1699, still in one volume, it was published by Henry Playford with music. Over the course of the

next two decades it was expanded and republished again and again, eventually to become this sixvolume 'standard edition' of contemporary popular comic and bawdy ballads, with an increasing

emphasis on the work of the stammering dramatist and lyricist Thomas D'Urfey, whose songs were

sung by all the town. Among the composers were Dr. John Blow and Henry Purcell.]

Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723) was an English dramatist and songwriter. He wrote the plays The

Fond Husband in 1676, Madame Fickle in 1677 and The Virtuous Wife in 1680. He also wrote the

song collection Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy between 1719 and 1720.]

Not all songs have music scores. Reference is made to tunes not in this book, but probably well

known in London in 1719-20.

Those songs that do have a music score also have a Sibelius Scorch file, a midi file and a pdf file.

Scorch is a free program available from Sibelius for reading music scores online.

For those who do not have Scorch, instructions for obtaining and installing it are at the bottom of

the Sibelius Scorch file pages.