Date. Mar.–Apr. 1660. The first edition of The Ready and Easy Way was published Mar. 3 1660.

The verse is an adaptation of Juvenal i 15-6: Et nos / consilium dedimus Sullae, privatus ut altum / dormiret [I too have given advice to Sulla to sleep soundly in a private station]. Juvenal uses Sulla as a type of ambition. Smart 92 thinks that M.’s Sylla is Cromwell. Publication. The second edition, of which there is only one extant copy, was probably published Apr. 1660 (French iv 309-10).