"COLLY WESTON."
(To rite Enema or run SPEOTATOR."] Sm,—In a letter in the Spectator of November 3rd there is a quotation from Dr. Bridge's Cheshire Proverbs, in which ho sag- geets that if the phrase about "Colly Weston" or " Weson" is connected with the Northamptonshire village it may have been derived from "some hietorioel fact or incident." Now there is a curious incident recorded in connexion with that place, and the saying may have arisen from some gossip about it. In 1507, at a Visitation of Magdalen College, Oxford, the Vice-President, John Stokesley, afterwards Bishop of London, who supported the absentee President; Richard Mayew, Bishop of Hereford, was deleted by their opponents "de baptisatione murilegi et con- juratione illicita pro thesauro invoniendo " at Colly Weston. It was asserted that he had been brought before the " Council of the King's Mother" there (P the Manor Court of the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond; but she was not, as Dr. Meeray calls her in one paragraph, "the Queen-Mother ") on these matters; and consequently he was ordered by the Visitor to find oompurgators to clear himself of the charges of baptizing a eat, of practising witchcraft to find treasure, of receiving stolen goods, and of adultery. Next day, as no one appeared against him, he denied these charges on oath and was admitted to purgation. A full account of this very interesting Visitation may be found in W. D. Marray's Register of Magdalen College, New Series, Vol. I., pp. 35-61. Fantastic versions of this incident, carried into distant counties by the exporters of Cully Weston slates, may have produced a general impression that the natives were rather abnormal. But in my opinion it is more likely that the phrase has nothing to do with the village. There are several queer words beginning with "colly " to be fOund in the Dialect Dic- tionary; and there is probably some connexion with "cully " in the sense of simpleton. The suggested connexion with " galley- west " is also promising.—I am, Sir, Isc.,
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