Segar’s account is reproduced by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 41, and both in the editions of Peele (q.v.) by Dyce and Bullen. A manuscript copy with variants from the Q. is at St. John’s College, Oxford (F. S. Boas in M. L. R. xi. 300). Polyhymnia mainly consists of a blank verse description and eulogy of the twenty-six tilters, in couples according to the order of the first running of six courses each, viz. Sir Henry Lee and the Earl of Cumberland, Lord Strange and Thomas Gerrard, Lord Compton and Henry Nowell, Lord Burke and Sir Edward Denny, the Earl of Essex and Fulk Greville, Sir Charles Blount and Thomas Vavasor, Robert Carey and William Gresham, Sir William Knowles and Anthony Cooke, Sir Thomas Knowles and Sir Philip Butler, Robert Knowles and Ralph Bowes, Thomas Sidney and Robert Alexander, John Nedham and Richard Acton, Charles Danvers and Everard Digby. The colours and in some cases the ‘device’ or ‘show’ are indicated. Lee is described as
Knight of the crown, in rich embroidery,
And costly fair caparison charged with crowns,
O’ershadowed with a withered running vine,
As who would say, ‘My spring of youth is past’,
In corselet gilt of curious workmanship.
Strange entered ‘in costly ship’, with the eagle for his device; Essex
In stately chariot full of deep device,
Where gloomy Time sat whipping on the team,
Just back to back with this great champion.