It is not probable that the Longfellows are numerous in any part of England: indeed, as we {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, Fellowes, 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 written 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_, "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: