e 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.

As I feel much interested in the poetry of English songs, can you or any
of your correspondents inform me if there exists any _good_ collection;
that is, a collection, of such only as are excellent of their respective
kinds? That the English language possesses materials for forming such a
collection, and an extensive one too, I have no doubt, though I have
never met with one. And, if there be none that answers the description