Wit and mirth

About “Wit and mirth”

Wit and Mirth: Or Pills to Purge Melancholy is a large collection of songs by Thomas d'Urfey, published between 1698 and 1720. It began as a single book compiled by Henry Playford, who took over from his father, John Playford, as the leading music publisher of the time. The collection expanded over the years and was published in multiple editions, eventually becoming a six-volume work with over 1,000 songs and poems. In 1719, d'Urfey reorganized the work and published it as Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive, with the first two volumes containing his own lyrics set to music by composers like Dr. John Blow and Henry Purcell. The edition sold out quickly, and in the second printing, d'Urfey returned to the original Pills title. He added a sixth volume in 1720. The title may have been inspired by a 1599 pamphlet titled A Pil to Purge Melancholie. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)