, 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_, "Burnt by the hangman" is
appended to a copy of Wm. Thomas' _Historie of Italie_, 1549; but I do not
find this stated elsewhere. 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 executed
in Mary's reign) suffered for some alleged act of overt treason, and not
for publishing seditious 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 proclamation (March
30, 1640) against seditious pamphlets sent from Scotland, this tract was
prohibited on account of its containing many most notorious falsehoods,
scandals, &c.; it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. (Rymer's
_Foed._, as quoted by Chalmers.)

There is now before me a modern impression of an old cut in two
compartments: the upper representing the demolition of the "Crosse in
Cheapeside 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, an