This was written by Sir Simeon Steward, or Stewart. The numbers 1 and 2 of our text are twice incorrect in original, viz. the 10th and 14th verses, each assigned to 1 (Red-head), whereas they certainly belong to 2 (White-head). From third verse the figure “1” has unfortunately dropt in printing. By aid of Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, p. 36, we are enabled to correct a few other errors, some being gross corruptions of sense; although, as a general rule, regarding poems that had appeared in print, the private MS. versions abound with blunders of the transcriber, additional to those of the original printer. It is, in the MS., entitled “A Dialogue between Pyrrotrichus and Leucothrix,” the latter taking verses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and the final verse, 14 (marked Leuc). His earliest verse reads, in the MS., “And higher, Rufus, who would pass; were some; 3rd. v. ’Tis this that; 6th. The Roman King who; be lopt; Ruddy pates; 8th v. Red like unto; colour; 9th. Nay if; doth beare no; side looks as fair; other doth my; bear my [?]; 10th. Therefore, methinks; Besides, of all the; 12th. N.B.—Yet what thy head must buy with yeares, Crosses; That hath nature giv’n; 13th, be two friendly peeres; let us joyn; make one beauteous; 14th, [Leucothrix.] We joyn’d our heads; beat them to heart [i.e. to boot]; Was just but; of our head.” In the Reresby Memoirs, we believe, is mention of an ancestress, who, about 1619, married this (?) “Sir Simeon Steward.”
[Page 15.] A Stranger coming to the town.
In Wm. Hickes his Oxford Drollery, 1671, in Part 3rd, (“Poems made at Oxford, long since”), p. 157, this Epigram appears, with variations. The second verse reads: But being there a little while, || He met with one so right || That upon the French Disease || It was his chance to light. The final couplet is:—The French-man’s Arms are the sign without, || But the French-man’s harms are within.
Throughout the first half of the Seventeenth century the abundance of Epigrams produced is enormous; whole volumes of them, divided into Books, like J. Heywood’s, being issued by poets of whom nothing else is known, except the name, unless Anthony à Wood has fortunately preserved some record. These have not been systematically examined, as they deserve to be. Amid much rubbish good things lie hid. Perhaps the Editor may have more to say on them hereafter. Meanwhile, take this, by Robert Hayman, as alike a specimen and a summary:—
To the Reader:
Sermons and Epigrams have a like end,
To improve, to reprove, and to amend:
Some passe without this vse, ’cause they are witty;
And so doe many Sermons, more’s the pitty.
(Quodlibets, 1628, Book iv., p. 59.)