Before concluding, I cannot help noticing, in connexion with this subject, the Old English term "the apple of the eye." I am unable to trace it beyond the Anglo-Saxon. The Teutonic _sehandes ougen_, _pupilla oculi_, is totally distinct; _seha_ being merely _medius punctus oculi_, whence _sehan_, _videre_. In the Semitic languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, the origin of the term is the same, and gives no clue to the meaning of the Saxon term. Thus, in the Hebrew [Hebrew: 'IYSHWON], dim. of [Hebrew: 'IYSH], _homunculus_, the small image of a person seen in the eye. In Arabic it is the _man_ or _daughter of the eye_. In Greek we have [Greek: kore, korasion, korasidon]; and in Latin, _pupa, pupula, pupilla_. Has any light been thrown on the Anglo-Saxon term? Can it be that _iris_, not the pupil, is taken to represent an apple? The pupil itself would then be the eye of the apple of the eye. H. C. K. ---- Rectory, Hereford. * * * * * GOSSIPING HISTORY--DE QUINCEY'S ACCOUNT OF HATFIELD. In proof of the severity with which the laws against forgery were enforced, I have been referred to the case of Hatfield, hanged in 1803 for forging franks. It is given very fully in Mr. De Quincey's "Literary Recollections of Coleridge" in the first volume of the Boston edition of his _Works_. The story has some romance in it, and excited great interest fifty years ago. Hatfield had lived by swindling; and, though he underwent an imprisonment for debt, had, upon the whole, a long career of success. The last scene of his depredations was the Lakes, where he married a barmaid, who was called "The Beauty of Buttermere." Shortly after the marriage he was arrested, tried, and executed. Mr. De Quincey afterwards lived in the neighbourhood, dined at the public-house kept by Mary's father, and was waited upon by her. He had the fullest opportunities of getting correct information: and his version of the story is so truthlike, that I should have accepted it without hesitation but for the hanging for forging a frank. As that offence never was capital, and was made a felony punishable with transportation for seven years by 42 Geo. III. c. 63., I was impelled to compare the statement founded on gossip with more formal accounts; and I send the result in illustration of the small reliance which is to be placed on tradition in such matters. The arrival of Hatfield in a carriage is graphically described. He called himself the Hon. Augustus Hope, brother of the Earl of Hopetoun. Some doubts were felt at first, but--