Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/213

 9* S. IX. MARCH 15, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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and it was used also in the order to the waguers before starting, " Hold up your wagues ! " The custom in parts of South Lancashire and the West Kiding was for thirty or forty men to help to move the rush- cart in its ceremonial progress. The assistants at the front were the waguers, and at the back were the thrutchers. Thrulch=ttiv\L$\, : and one is irresistibly reminded of the local description of the trombone as a thrutch-an- poo (thrust-and-pull) ; the waguers, however, were pushers, not pullers. At the order " Hold up your wagues ! " the stangs were raised above the heads of the waguers, and they danced forward, covering the road from side to side by an alternate divagation in their progress. So much was this indirect method of advancing a custom that it frequently degenerated into a marlock, and resulted on one occasion in the upsetting of a temporary fair-stall by the wayside, in consequence of the ropes or traces attached to the wagues becoming entangled in the structure of the stall. At the present day one may hear such an expression as "Hold up your wagues. You 're first, if you keep moving ! " Some- times the last four words are omitted. The expression has several shades of meaning. Perhaps it is most frequently employed as a non-committal remark in a friendly cross- examination that is found to be objection- able on account of its categorical character. The derivation is probably from the A.-S. wagian=to move. The waguers were the movers, and the wagues were the means by which the cart was moved. The only glossary in which I find wagues and waguers is Taylor's ' The Folk-Speech of South Lancashire.'

ARTHUR MAYALL.

BARLEY, A FORGOTTEN IRISH POET. May I again, as a sort of " Old Mortality," ask the Editor of 'N. & Q.' to find a corner for a dead-and-gone " brother of Bohemia " ? The following paragraph is from the Freeman's Journal of 26 ^November, 1901 :

" George Darley, whose name was mentioned in this column on Saturday last, the fifty-fifth anni- versary of his death, was considered by leading English litterateurs to be one of the best poets of his day, amongst the majority of whom he was a great social favourite. Yet to his own country people his name is an unknown one, nor is he remembered to any extent in England. The num- ber of Irish poets who have made big reputations in England during their lives, to be almost completely forgotten after death, is a remarkable feature to the student of Anglo-Irish literature. Darley was the son of an Alderman Darley, of this city, and was a Trinity College man, where he graduated B.A. in 1820. He went to London early in life, and contributed to the leading magazines, a number of his poems appearing in the Athenaum between 1835-40

over his initials. A selection from his numerous volumes was printed for private circulation in 1890 as a memorial volume, with the title 'Poems of the} late G. D.' Darley was also a very skilled mathematician and the author of some scientific works."

This may interest some of the Irish readers of ' N. & Q.' HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

39, Renfrew Road, S.E.

[We do not think Darley entirely forgotten, having read more than one of his works and pos- sessing some of them. Darley 's ' Nepenthe : a Poem in Two Cantos,' was republished by Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, and reviewed at length in the Athe- nawm, 18 Sept., 1897.]

THE SEAL OF THE GREAT STEWARD OF SCOTLAND. The Daily Telegraph of the 18th of February contained the following, which is of such historical interest that it is worthy of a note in * N. & Q.' :

"When the Prince of Wales became Great Steward of Scotland the officials at the General Register House in Edinburgh were instructed to return the seal which the King had used as the previous occupant of that office, as it was the private property of Edward VII. It was made in London in 1863, is of silver, weighing 14 lb., and cost over 100/. On one side His Majesty (then Prince of Wales) is represented on horseback, dressed in Highland costume, with a peep of Holyrood and Arthurs Seat beyond. On the counter-seal the arms of Scotland and Great Britain are repre- sented, with the Scottish lion on the right and the Prince of Wales's feathers on the left. The seal which the new Grand Steward has decided to use is the old one of George IV., showing the obsolete fleur-de-lis of France and the white horse of Han- over, both now dropped from the royal insignia."

A. N. Q.

CAMBRIDGE HEATH, SOUTH HACKNEY. MR. GEORGE SWINTON'S interesting note on Kimmerghame (ante, p. 156) reminds me of an extract 1 once made from the Hundred Rolls regarding Cambridge Heath, a name which is difficult to account for, as the place has no connexion with the university town which is its apparent eponymus. The following is the finding of the commissioners :

" Dicunt quod Egidius de Wodeham miles fecit quoddam fossatum super regalem viara que vocatur Kyngesteslane decem annis elapsis Ph's Linde manet in quadam domo que sita est super coam communiam] pasture que vocatur Campricthes- tieth apud Hakeneye." 'Rot. Hund.,' i. 413, 426.

I take Campricthesheth to be the heath of Cynebeorht or Cynebriht, a well-known Saxon name, which 1 judge from the autho- rities given by MR. SWINTON to bear a closer responsibility for Kimmerghame than Cyne- 3urh. The earliest form of Kimmerghame seems to be Cynebrihtham.

The thoroughfare called Kyngesteslane is doubtless the modern Mare Street, which, according to Robinson's 'History of Hackney,'