e common hangman
in Palace Yard, Westminster. (Bohun's _Autobiography_, ed. S. W. Rix, vol.
xxiv. pp. 106, 109. 113.; Wilson's _Life of De Foe_, vol. i. p. 179 _n_.)

The same parliament consigned to the flames Bishop Burnet's _Pastoral
Letter_, which had been published 1689. (Wilson's _Life of De Foe_, vol. i.
p. 179.)

On the 31st of July, 1693, the second volume of Anthony a Wood's _Athenae
Oxonienses_ was burned in the Theatre Yard at Oxford by the Apparitor of
the University, in pursuance of the sentence of the University Court in a
prosecution for a libel on the memory of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon.
(_Life of Mr. Anthony a Wood_, ed. 1772, p. 377.)

On the 25th of February, 1702-3, the House of Commons ordered De Foe's
_Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ to be burned by the hands of the common
hangman on the morrow in New Palace Yard. (Wilson's _Life of De Foe_, vol.
ii. p. 62.)

In or about 1709, John Humphrey, an aged non-conformist minister, having
published a pamphlet against the Test, and circulated it amongst the
members of parliament, was cited before a committee, and his work was
ordered to be burned by the common hangman. (Wilson's _Life of De Foe_,
vol. iii. p. 52.)

The _North Briton_, No. 45., was on the 3rd of December, 1763, burned by
the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, by order of the House of {227}
Commons. The following account is from Malcolm's _Anecdotes of London_,
4to., 1808, p. 282.:

"The 3rd of December was appointed for this silly ceremony, which took
place before the Royal Exchange, amidst the hisses and execrations of
the mob, not directed at the obnoxious paper, but at Alderman Harley,
the sheriffs, and constables, the latter of whom were compelled to
fight furiously through the whole business. The instant the hangman
held the work to a lighted link it was beat to the ground, and the
populace, seizing the faggots prepared to complete its destruction,
fell upon the peace-officers and fairly threshed them from the field;
nor did the alderman escape without a contusion on the head, inflicted
by a bullet thrown through the glass of his coach; and several other
persons had reason to repent the attempt to burn that publicly which
the _sovereign people_ determined to approve, who afterwards exhibited
a large _jack-boot_ at Temple Bar, and burnt it in triumph, unmolested,
as a species of retaliation."

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