Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/269

 additional pieces are ‘Vitus, sive Christiana fortitudo,’ and ‘Leo Armenus, sive Impietas punita.’ These tragedies were frequently acted in Italy and Spain. The style is elegant and dignified, but the subjects are unattractive.

Oliver ascribes to him an ‘Answer to Dr. Pierce's Sermon preached before his Majesty 1 Feb. 1663. By J. S.,’ London, 1663, 12mo. Others ascribe the authorship to John Sergeant [q. v.]

[De Backer's Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jésus (1876), iii. 793; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 317, 472; Foley's Records, i. 272 n., vi. 278, vii. 463; Oliver's Collections S. J., p. 191; Paquot's Hist. Littéraire des Pays-Bas (1765), p. 189; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 525.]  SIMEONIS, SYMON (fl. 1322), traveller and Franciscan, is known only from his ‘Itinerary’ of his travels, preserved in a manuscript at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Cod. 407 of the end of the fourteenth century;, Cat. Libr. MSS. cccc. 384, 1777), and published by James Nasmith (‘Itineraria Symonis Simeonis et Willelmi de Worcestre,’ Cambridge, 1778). Symon states that he quitted Ireland after celebrating the provincial chapter of his order on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.) 1322, at ‘Clen.,’ no doubt Clane in the county Kildare, where a Franciscan convent had been founded in 1258 (Annals of the Four Masters, s. a.). He travelled in company with Hugo Illuminator (?Limner), also a friar minor, to Wales, and thence to London. From London the two friends proceeded to France, journeying through Beauvais and Paris to Troyes. Prevented by the war then going on in Lombardy from entering Italy by way of Lausanne, they took ship on the Saône and Rhône, and thus reached Arles, whence they went on by land through Nice, Piacenza, Mantua, Verona, and Padua to Venice. Here they again embarked, and made a coasting voyage down the Hadriatic and the Mediterranean, calling at many of the seaports on the mainland and islands, and eventually arrived at Alexandria on 14 Oct. 1323, after a quick voyage of five days from Candia. Of all he saw after leaving England Symon gives notices of various interest, though generally brief; but Tanner (Bibl. Brit. p. 702) somewhat exaggerates in assigning the same character to his remarks on England, which contain, with few exceptions, little more than a list of the places he passed through.

Symon and Hugh went up the Nile to Cairo, where they made a long stay. His experiences here furnish Symon with materials for a detailed account of the country and of the manners and religion of its inhabitants, an account which displays unusual intelligence and observation. From Egypt the travellers were preparing to pass on into the Holy Land, when Hugh fell sick and died. His companion proceeded on his journey, and reached Jerusalem. But with his description of the exterior of the city the manuscript breaks off, and its survival is the only evidence of the completion of his pilgrimage and of his presumable return to the west.

Symon Simeonis is called by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, who was ignorant that the ‘Itinerary’ had appeared in print, Symon Fitz Semeon (the e being an evident mistake in Nasmith's ‘Catalogus,’ which is not repeated in his edition of the work); but if Symon be of Anglo-Irish descent, his name would more likely be FitzSimon, and it is in any case hazardous to guess at a name which might equally well begin with an Irish prefix.

[Itinerarium Symonis Simeonis.]  SIMMONS, BARTHOLOMEW (1804–1850), Irish poet, was born at Kilworth, co. Cork, in 1804, and entered the excise branch of the civil service in 1830. He first appeared as a poet in ‘Bolster's Magazine,’ 1826–8, and soon after began to contribute to ‘Blackwood's Magazine.’ There he printed his poem, ‘Napoleon's Last Look,’ which has found a place in several anthologies. Christopher North made eulogistic reference to his poetic gift in the ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ.’ Simmons contributed to several other periodicals, sometimes under the signature of ‘Harold.’ He died unmarried on 21 July 1850 at his lodgings in Acton Street, Gray's Inn Road, London. His poems were collected and published in London in 1843.

[Gent. Mag. 1850, ii. 558; Madden's Life of Lady Blessington; Noctes Ambrosianæ, ed. Mackenzie; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland; Journal of Cork Hist. and Archæolog. Soc. iii. 279–83.]  SIMMONS, SAMUEL (1777?–1819), actor, born in London about 1777, is first heard of at Covent Garden on 21 Sept. 1785, when, as ‘Master’ Simmons, he played the Duke of York in Cibber's ‘Richard III,’ and showed promise. On 21 Nov. following he was Tom Thumb. He is said to have also played the boy in H. Carey's ‘Contrivances,’ the page in the ‘Orphan’ and other juvenile characters. He soon disappears from ken to return as a man to the same house on 5 Nov. 1796 as the original Momus, a part rejected by Fawcett, in O'Keeffe's ‘Olympus in an Uproar.’ On the 19th he was the first Dicky, a keeper in the king's bench, in Holman's