THOS WM. KING, YORK HERALD.

College of Arms, Feb. 17. 1851.

_Baron Munchausen's Frozen Horn._--

"Till the Holy Ghost came to thaw their memories, that the words of
Christ, like the voice in Plutarch that had become frozen, might at
length become audible."--Hammond's _Sermons_, xvii.

These were first published in 1648.

E. H.

_Contracted Names of Places._--Kirton for Crediton, Devon; Wilscombe for
Wiveliscombe, Somersetshire; Brighton for Brighthelmstone, Sussex; Pomfret
for Pontefract, Yorkshire; Gloster for Gloucester.

J. W. H.

* * * * *

Queries.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES.

(_Continued from_ Vol. iii., p. 139.)

(43.) Is there any valid reason for not dating the publication of some of
Gerson's treatises at Cologne earlier than the year 1470? and if good cause
cannot be shown for withholding from them so high a rank in the scale of
typographic being, must we not instantly reject every effort to extenuate
Marchand's obtuseness in asserting with reference to Ulric Zell, "On ne
voit des editions de ce Zell qu'en 1494?" (_Hist. de l'Imp._, p. 56.) {183}
Schelhorn's opinion as to the birthright of these tracts is sufficient to
awaken an interest concerning them, for he conceived that they should be
classed among the earliest works executed with cut moveable characters.
(_Diat. ad Card. Quirini lib._, p. 25. Cf. Seemiller, i. 105.) So far as I
can judge, an adequate measure of seniority has not been generally assigned
to these Zellian specimens of printing, if it be granted "Coloniam
Agrippinam post Moguntinenses primum recepisse artem." (Meerman, ii. 106.)
This writer's representation, in his ninth plate, of the type used in 1467,
supplies us with ground for a complete conviction that these undated
Gersonian manuals are at least as old as the _Augustinus de singularitate
clericorum_. But why are they not older? Is there any document which has a
stronger conjectural claim? Van de Velde's _Catalogue_, tome i. Gand, 1831,
contains notices of some of them; and one volume before me has the first
initial letter principally in blue and gold, the rest in red, and all
elaborated with a pen. The most unevenly printed, and therefore, I suppose,
the primitial gem, is the _Tractatus de mendicitate spirituali_, in which
not only rubiform capitals, but whole words, have been inserted by a
chirographer. It is, says Van de Velde, (the former possessor,) on the
fly-leaf,