University of Virginia Library

The following amusing quotation from John Taylor's “a full and compleat Answer, &c.,” 1642 (Spenser Society reprint, p. 4) would seem to indicate that the allusion in the text is to the Roundheads:—

“Morgan Llewellin (that grave Greek Author) saith in the ninth Chapter of his Litigious Aphorismes, That Bias the Philosopher was borne in our Haven Towne of Ionia, called Priene: This Bias had a Round Running head, and hee devised (from the mold of his head) the first Round Bowles, in memorie whereof they are called Bias Bowles to this day; but the world is too full of rubs now, and most heads run like Bowles, contrary to the Bias, that an honest man can hardly win a good game all his life time.”