presentment (prez ent ment)

[ preservation To be his book-patron, with the appendant form of a ceremonious presentment , wil ever appeare among the judicious to be but an insulse and frigid affectation. Milton , Apology for Smectymnuus. She was an honored guest at the presentment of a burlesque masque. Bancroft , Hist. U. S., I. 116. 2. Anything presented or exhibited; appearance; likene ; representation. The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. Shak., Hamlet, iii. 4. 55. Thus I hurl My dazzling spells into the spungy air, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, And give it false presentments . Milton , Comus, 1. 156. Oxford dropped the canon law decree altogether; Cambridge, by adopting a more general form, retained a shadowy presentment of the double honour. Stubbs , Medieval and Modern Hist., p. 329. 3. In law: (a) A statement by a grand jury of an offense from their own knowledge or observation, without any bill of indictment laid before them: as, the presentment of a nuisance, a libel, or the like, on which the prosecuting officer must afterward frame an indictment, before the party presented can be put to answer it. In a more general sense, presentment comprehends inquisitions of office and indictments. As before, so after the Union, tithe-proctors with their remorsele exactions, and grand juries with road-jobbing presentments , came to shear the already shorn, and reduce their victims from misery to despair. E. Dowden , Shelley, I. 237. In each of these baronies se ions - called presentment se ions - are held, where all presentments are introduced, to be submitted afterwards at the a izes to the grand jury. Fortnightly Rev. , N. S., XL. 106. (b) The formal information to the lord, by the tenants of a manor, of anything done out of court. (c) The presenting of a bill of exchange to the drawee for acceptance, or of a bill to the acceptor, or of a note to the maker, for payment. - 4. Eccles., a formal complaint made by the authorities of a parish to the bishop or archdeacon at his visitation. The Church-wardens should meet twice a yeere, to haue all the presentments made perfect against the A ises. Quoted in Capt . John Smith's Works, II. 157. Presentment of Englishry. See Englishry . presentne (prez'ent-nes), n. [ Goring had a much better understanding,... a much keener courage, and presentne of mind in danger. Clarendon, Great Rebellion, viii.