Peter Gunning of Clare Hall. It is not an
improbable conjecture that some of these distinguished men assisted in the
composition of the _Querela_.

A.B.R.

Easton.

_"Then" for "than."_--At the end of Selden's _Titles of Honour_ (edit.
1631), after the list of "Faults escapled in print," occur the words, "may
with no less difficulty be amended _then_ observed?" Was the word _then_
commonly used in the sense of _than_; or is it a misprint?

P.H.F.

[Dr Latham, in _English Language_, p. 377. (3d ed.), observes. "As to
the word _than_, the conjunction of comparison, it is a variety of
_then_; the notions of _order_, _sequence_, and _comparison_, being
allied. _This is good; then_ (or _next in order_) _that is good_, is an
expression sufficiently similar to _this is better than that_ to have
given rise to it."]

_Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception_ (Vol. ii., p. 407.).--"The Papal
decision" referred to may probably be found in the Popes Letters of 2nd
Feb. 1849, and of 20th May, 1850. The former professes to seek for
information on this question from the priests and bishops of the whole
Catholic world, but at the same time it enunciates clearly the Pope's
opinion in favour of the doctrine.

J.H.M.

Bath.

In the _Catholic Annual Register for the Year ended 30th June, 1850_,
published by Dolman, will be found the recent Allocution of his Holiness
Pius IX., a Pastoral of the Cardinal Wiseman, and one from the bishops of
America on this subject; from which your correspondent L. will be fully
able to discover the present state of the doctrine of the Catholic Church
on this mystery.

FESTE.

_Letters of Horning_ (Vol. ii., p. 393.).--Letters of Horning, in the law
of Scotland, are writs issuing under the signet of the sovereign (used in
the Supreme Court, or Court of Session, for signifying the sovereign's
assent to writs issuing from that court) obtained by creditors, commanding
messengers at arms

"To charge the debtor to pay or perform his obligation within a day
certain." ... "If payment be not made within the days mentioned in the
horning, the messsenger, after proclaiming three oyesses at the
marketcross of the head borough of the debtor's domicil, and reading
the letters there, blows three blasts with a horn, by which the debtor
is understood to be proclaimed rebel to the king for contempt of his
authority."

Sec. 26. "Denunciation, if registere