"COLLY WESTON."
(To ran Enron or lee " SPECTATOR.") Sun,—In this county of Northampton ono of the best-known taro- verbial expressions is "It's all along o' Colly Weston." There is a village of Cully Weston on the north-eastern side of the county, rear Stamford, but whether this saying is connected with the village is by no means certain. Miss A. E. Baker, a daughter of time county historian, in her Glossary of Northamptonshire (Lords and Phrases, published 1851, refers to the saying, but does not profess to trace it to the village. It is commonly used when anything goes wrong or awkwardly. Recently, however, I learnt that there is a Cheshire variant which runs as follows: "Awry as Colly Weston," and in Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (Second Edition, 1852), Vol. I., is the following: " Cully Weston. A term used when anything goes wrong. Cheshire." In Lincolnshire, too, the term "Colly Weasen" is used, meaning contrary (Brogden's Provincial Words Current in Lincolnshire, 1866). Harrison, the Elizabethan author of Chronicles of England, published in 1577 and 1587, is mentioned in Halliwell, Vol. II., as authority for the expression, " Man- dilion warns to Collie Weston ward," i.e., awry; so there seems to be a fair consensus of opinion as to the meaning of the term, if not as to its origin, though Mr. Christopher A. Markham in his little work, The Proverbs of Northamptonshire, ingenintsly con- nects the proverb with the Colly Weston slates, for which the local village has been famous since as far back at least as Ian, when Camden refers to this roof stone in his Britain. (Tho Mandilion was a kind of loose garment without sleeves; a jacket; a jerkin.) Can any reader of the Spectator say whether "Colly Weston" has currency in any other counties, or throw any farther light upon the matter am, Sir, Ac.,
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