May 6. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



425 



know that of the general population the average 

 annual mortality is 2-2 per cent, the sixty-one 

 deaths in fifteen years, or four deaths yearly, might 

 be supposed to result from about two hundred 

 persons of the name ; but inferences of this nature, 

 except when large masses are dealt with, are often 

 very fallacious. 



May not the derivation of the name be from 

 long fallow, of the same family as Fallows, Fel- 

 lowes, Fallowfield, and Langmead, which are not 

 uncommon ? James T. Hammack. 



19. St. Mark's Crescent, Regent's Park. 



C. H. quotes some lines said to have been writ- 

 ten on a window-shutter of the " Golden Lion," 

 Brecon, when a Mr. Longfellow was proprietor, 

 fifty or sixty years ago : 



" Tom Longfellow's name is most justly his due; 

 Long his neck, long his bill, which is very long too ; 

 Long the time ere your horse to the stable is led," &c. 



These lines remind me of the following passage 

 of the poet Longfellow's in his Hyperion, which, 

 not to speak of a possible plagiarism, has at least 

 a strange family resemblance : 



" If you go to Zurich, beware how you stop at 

 'The Raven.' I wrote in the travellers' book — 



< Beware of the Raven of Zurich ; 

 'Tis a bird of omen ill, 

 With a noisy and an unclean breast, 

 And a very, very long bill.' 



" If you go to • The Golden Falken ' you will find it 

 there. I am the author of those lines. — Longfellow." 



G. Dymond. 



BOOKS BURNT BY THE HANGMAN. 



(Vol. ix., pp. 78. 226.) 



As the subject is interesting, you will probably 

 permit me to cite a few more examples : — In 

 Geo. Chalmers' Catalogue, 11 Burnt by the hangman" 

 is appended to a copy of Wm. Thomas' Historie of 

 Italie, 1549 ; but I do not find this stated else- 

 where. The opinions emitted in this work are of 

 a free nature certainly, in respect to the governed 

 and governing powers ; but whatever was the fate 

 of his book, I rather think Thomas (who was exe- 

 cuted in Mary's reign) suffered for some alleged 

 act of overt treason, and not for publishing sedi- 

 tious books. An Information from the States of 

 the Kingdome of Scotland to the Kingdome of 

 England, showing how they have bin dealt with by 

 His Majesty's Commissioners, 1640: in a pro- 

 clamation (March 30, 1640) against seditious 

 pamphlets sent from Scotland, this tract was pro- 

 hibited on account of its containing many most 

 notorious falsehoods, scandals, &c. ; it was ordered 

 to be burnt by the common hangman. (Bymer's 

 Feed., as quoted by Chalmers.) 



There is now before me a modern impression of 

 an old cut in two compartments : the upper repre- 

 senting the demolition of the " Crosse in Cheape- 

 side on the 2nd May, 1643;" and the lower a 

 goodly gathering of the public around a bonfire, 

 viewing, with apparent satisfaction, the committal 

 of a book to the flames by the common executioner, 

 with this inscription : 



" 10th May, the Boocke of Spartes vpon the Lord's 

 Day, was burnt by the hangman in the place where 

 the Crosse stoode, and at (the) Exchange." 



That great lover of sights, Master Pepys, notices 

 one of these exhibitions : 



"1661, 28th May, with Mr. Shipley," says our 

 gossip, " to the Exchange about business ; and there, 

 by Mr. Rawlinson's favour, got into a balcone over 

 against the Exchange, and there saw the hangman 

 burn, by vote of Parliament, two old acts : the one for 

 constituting us a Commonwealth, and the other I have 

 forgot ; which still do make me think of the greatness 

 of this late turne, and what people will do to-morrow 

 against what they all, thro' profit or fear, did promise 

 and practise this day." 



A note to this passage in the Diary (vol. i. p. 236., 

 3rd edit.) supplies the defective memory of Pepys, 

 by informing us that the last was an " Act for sub- 

 scribing the Engagement;" and adds, on the same 

 day there had been burnt by the hangman, at 

 Westminster Hall, the " Act for erecting a High. 

 Court of Justice for trying and judging Charles 

 Stuart." They seem to have been just then 

 cleansing out the Augean stable of the Common- 

 wealth: for it is added, "two more acts" were 

 similarly burnt next day. 



In A Letter to a Clergyman, relating to his Sermon, 

 on the SOth Jan., by a Lover of Truth, 1746, the 

 lay author (one Coade, I believe), inveighing 

 against high churchmen, reminds the preacher 

 that he — 



" Was pleased to dress up the principles of the Pres- 

 byterians in a frightful shape ; but let me tell you, Sir, 

 in my turn, that the principles of your party have been 

 burnt, not by a rude and lawless rabble, but by the 

 common hangman, in broad day-light, before the Royal 

 Exchange in London, and by authority of Parliament. 

 Perhaps," he continues, " you never heard of this con- 

 temptuous treatment of the Oxford principles, and 

 therefore I will give it you from the Parliamentary 

 Records: — 'Anno Domini 1710. The House of 

 Lords, taking into consideration the judgment and 

 decree of the University of Oxford, passed in their 

 Convocation July 21, 1683, — it was resolved by the 

 Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, 

 that the said judgment and decree contains in it several 

 positions contrary to the Constitution of this kingdom, 

 and destructive to the Protestant Succession as by law 

 established. And it was thereupon ordered, by the 

 Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, 

 that the said judgment and decree shall be burnt by 

 the hands of the common hangman before the Royal 



