* Of this and the following poem, by taking a quatrain here and there, no less than four different poems have been fabricated, and, which is singular enough, they are all of them found in one MS. (the Sloane MS.) which frequently affords us two or three variations of the same verse. In the first place (α) we have the poem beginning as it does here. Secondly. (β) we find it beginning with the — line, multiforrnis hominum, etc. Next (γ) we have another piece commencing with line —, Ut Judæis hostia, etc. And in thefourth form (δ), it begins with the first quatrain a little altered:—

“Stulti cum prudentibus tendunt ad coronam,

Juvenalis autumat suraere personam,

sed quia non noverint palladea latronam,

semper ego auditor tantum nunquam me reponam.”

In all these different forms, the verses retained are very much transposed.