[All grants from the crown pass under letters patent, which are enrolled on the patent rolls. Those for the time of Hen. VIII. and Edw. VI. are in the Rolls Chapel, Chancery Lane, and can be readily searched if the name of grantee and date is known. In the Augmentation Office, a branch of the Carlton Ride Record Office, are the "particulars" for those grants, which give considerable information. See 8th Report of the Deputy-keeper of the Public Records.]
"Smectymnus."
—Who were the five divines who united their powers in writing against episcopacy under the above title, which is said to be composed of the initial letters of their names?
O. P. Q.
[They were Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow: their followers were called Smectymnuans. See Butler's Hudibras, with Grey's notes, Part I, canto iii. line 1166.]
Replies.
LIBER CONFORMITATUM.
(Vol. iii., p. 321.)
Bartholomæo degli Albizzi, or Bartholomew of Pisa, who wrote the famous BOOK OF CONFORMITIES, was born at Rivano in Tuscany, and died in 1401. Mr. Rose's admirable Biographical Dict. (12 vols. 8vo. 1850) contains the following passage relative to this work, under the name Albizzi:—
"The LIBER CONFORMITATUM was first printed at Venice, folio, without date or printer's name; 2nd edition, folio, black letter, Milan, 1510; 3rd, Milan, 1513. In 1590, Father Bucchi (a Franciscan) published another edition at Bologna, but with considerable curtailment; and as it did not sell, it was republished in 1620 with the first two leaves changed, in order to disguise it.
"The approbation of the Chapter of the Order is found in this edition, bearing date Aug. 2, 1399. Tiraboschi (i. 181.), who is very angry with MARCHAND for occupying SIXTEEN COLUMNS OF THE DICT. HIST. WITH AN ENUMERATION OF THE EDITIONS OF THIS WORK AND ANSWERS TO IT, should have remembered that after such an approbation, it is no longer the mere work of an individual.