_Boiling to Death._--Some of your correspondents have communicated instances where burning to death was inflicted as a punishment; and MR. GATTY suggests that it would prove an interesting subject for inquiry, at what period such barbarous inflictions ceased. In Howe's _Chronicle_ I find the two following notices: "The 5th of Aprill (1532) one Richard Rose, a cooke, was boiled in Smithfielde, for poisoning of divers persons, to the number of sixteen or more, at ye Bishop of Rochester's place, amongst the which Benet Curwine, gentleman, was one, and hee intended to have poisoned the bishop himselfe, but hee eate no potage that day, whereby hee escaped. Marie the poore people that eate of them, many of them died."--Howe's _Chronicle_, p. 559. "The 17th March (1542) Margaret Dany, a maid, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of three households that shee had dwelled in."--Howe's _Chronicle_, p. 583. Query, was this punishment peculiar to cooks guilty of poisoning? And when did the latest instance occur? L.H.K. _Meaning of "Mocker."_--To-day I went into the cottage of an old man, in the village of which I am curate, and finding him about to cut up some wood, and he being very infirm, I undertook the task for him, and chopped up a fagot for his fire. During the progress of my work, the old fellow made the following observation:-- "Old Nannie Hawkins have got a big stick o' wood, and she says as I shall have him for eight pence. If I could get him, I'd soon _mocker_ him." Upon my asking him the meaning of the word _mocker_, he informed me it meant to _divide_ or _cleave in pieces;_ but, not being "a scholar" as he termed it, he could not tell me how to spell it, so I know not whether the orthography I have adopted is correct or not. Can any of your readers give me a clue to the derivation of this word? I certainly never heard it before. I ought perhaps to state, that this is a country parish in Herefordshire. W.M. Pembridge, Dec. 16. _"Away, let nought to love displeasing"._--Is it known who was the author of the song to be found in Percy's _Reliques_, and many other collections, beginning-- "Away, let nought to love displeasing." The first collection, so far as I know, in which it appears is entitled _Miscellaneous Poems by several Hands_, published by D. Lewis, London, 1726; and in this work it is called a translation from the ancient British. Does this mean a translation of an ancient poem, or a translation of a poem written in some extant dialect of the language anciently spoken in Britain? Either would appear to me incredible.