8. And for all other merchandise of 5s. value 0½ But ecclesiastical persons, of both sexes, were to be exempt from this toll. About this time there was a considerable market or staple held at Westminster; and in 1353 the same king, by an order in council, laid a tax of 3d. on every sack (serplarium) of wool, and for every three hundred of woolfels; 6d. on every last of leather; 4d. on every fodder of lead; 4d. on every tun of wine; and ½d. on every twenty shillings value of all other goods carried either by land or water to the staple of Westminster, in order for repairing the highway leading from the gate of London called Temple Bar to the gate of the abbey at Westminster.--See _Foedera_, vol. v. p. 774. From this record we learn that the gate called Temple Bar, as a western boundary of the city of London, is of great antiquity as a gate. I hope some of your readers skilled in architecture may answer the other Queries of your correspondent. BROCTUNA. Bury, Lancashire. {224} * * * * * Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. Messrs. Longman have just published, in two thick and closely printed volumes, _A New Gazetteer or Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands and Narrow Seas, &c._, by James A. Sharp. When we tell our readers that in these two volumes are recorded the name, position, history, &c. of every city, town, village, hamlet, &c. which appears in the censuses of 1821, 1831, 1841; or in the works of Carlisle, Pott, Gorton, Lewis, Fullarton, Chambers, Hall, and other general writers; and, indeed, that among the sixty thousand articles of which these volumes consist, will be found particulars not only of all the natural objects of the country--as rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, passes, waterfalls, bays, ports, headlands, islands, shoals--but also of every locality or object of historical interest or antiquarian character: as Roman stations and camps, Roman and British ways, Saxon towns, Druid stones, cromlechs, round towers, Danish Raths, Picts' houses, castles, abbeys, &c., not to mention railway, police, and coast-guard stations, hunting "fixtures," &c., they will at once perceive what a vast amount of useful, indeed of most valuable, information, the persevering industry of Mr. Sharp has enabled him to bring together. That a work consisting of so large a mass of facts and figures should contain some errors, is more than probable; but having tested it by referring to localities with which we are personally acquainted, we are enabled to say that it has stood that test in a manner to make us feel assured that it is a book to be fully relied upon, and one, therefore, which we have no doubt will eventually take its place in every well-appointed library.