I may mention, that though it has escaped W. H. F.'s observation, he will find, by referring to pp. 87. 116. 133., Headrick's edition, that Barry did not overlook the early Christianising of the Orkneys, and the extirpation of the Papé; although, seeing that the former is matter of history, and the latter was not a mere tradition in 1406, but derived from a more trustworthy source ("sicut _cronice_ nostre clare demonstrant"), he is scarcely distinct enough, or decided in his inferences. It would be interesting to know what were those "cronice" appealed to by the bishop. A. H. R. Caithness. THE CRIME OF POISONING PUNISHED BY BOILING. (Vol. v., p. 32.) MR. J. B. COLMAN has directed attention to the special act of attainder passed in 22 Hen. VIII. in order to punish Richard Roose for poisoning the family of the Bishop of Rochester; but I have reason to believe that he is wrong in his assertion that, prior to that statute, "there was no peculiarity in the mode of punishment" for the crime in question. In the _Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London_, which I am now engaged in editing for the Camden Society, I find an instance of the like punishment being inflicted for the same crime in the 13th Hen. VIII.: "And this yere was a man soddyne in a cautherne (_sc._ a cauldron) in Smythfelde, and lett up and downe dyvers tymes tyll he was dede, for because he wold a poyssynd dyvers persons." I would therefore beg to inquire whether MR. COLMAN has taken a correct view of the statute of 22 Hen. VIII. as prescribing a new punishment, _retrospective_ to the case of Richard Roose; and whether the act was not, so far as he was concerned, simply one of attainder, to deprive the culprit of the "advantage of his clargie," whereby he might otherwise have escaped the legal punishment already provided for the crime. Having declared Roose attainted of high treason, the statute proceeds to enact that all future poisoners shall also be debarred of the benefit of clergy, and immediately committed to death by boiling. Roose's own case is recorded in the _Grey Friars' Chronicle_ with the same horrible circumstances as those related in the former instance, of his life being gradually destroyed: "He was lockyd in a chayne and pullyd up and downe with a gybbyt at dyvers tymes tyll he was dede." A third instance occurs in 1542, when-- "The x day of March was a mayde boyllyd in Smythfelde for poysynyng of dyvers persons." This last is the same case which is cited by L. H. K. in your Vol. ii., p. 519. If my view of the statute of 22 Hen. VIII. be the right one, it still remains to be ascertained when this barbarous punishment was first adopted; and is it certain that it ceased with the reign of Hen. VIII.? JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS.