6. Joannes Semeca did not flourish A.D. 1250, but died in 1243. Suicer wrongly refers to "Dist. IV. cap. iv.," and Harding, more inaccurately, to "Dist. IV. can. iv." (Bp. Jewel's Works,
ed. Jelf, i. 419.) Cap. xxviii. is the one intended, and there is no corruption whatsoever.
7. Joseph Bingham was only closely following Barrow. The first edition of De la Bigne's Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. i., also has the evidently senseless reading, "ista quidam ego," instead of "nego," about which see Comber's Roman Forgeries, ii. 187. For MSS. of the Epistles of Pope Symmachus, your correspondent may consult the Carmelite Lud. Jacob à S. Carolo's Bibliotheca Pontifica, p. 216.; or, much more successfully, De Montfaucon's Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manuscriptorum, Paris, 1739.
R. G.
Should Mr. Richard Bingham not yet have verified the reference to Erasmus, I beg to furnish him with the means of doing so but I am tolerably certain that I recollect having met with another place in which this admirable writer more fully censures those preachers of his Church who, at the commencement of their sermons, called upon the Virgin Mary for assistance, in a manner somewhat similar to that in which heathen poets used to invoke the Muses. The following passage, however, may be quite sufficient for your correspondent's purpose:
"Sed si est fons gratiæ, quid opus est illi dicere Ora pro nobis? Non est probabile eam consuetudinem à gravibus viris inductam, sed ab inepto quopiam, qui, quòd didicerat apud Poëtas propositioni succedere invocationem, pro Musa supposuit Mariam."—Des. Erasmi Roterod. Apologia adversus Rhapsodias calumniosarum querimoniarum Alberti Pii, quondam Carporum Principis, p. 168. Basil. in off. Froben. 1531.
R. G.
ANCIENT TENURE OF LANDS.
(Vol. ix., p. 173.)