Chapter Wabâr to Wallaces Larder of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Waldstetten (The countess of), a relative of the baron. He is one of the characters in Donnerhugel’s narrative.—Sir W. Scott: Anne of Geierstein (time, Edward IV.).

Wales. Geoffrey says, after the famine and pestilence which drove Cad-wallader into Armorica (Bretagne), the people were no longer called Britons, but Gualenses, a word derived either from Gualo their leader, or Guales their queen, or from their barbarism.—British History, xii. 19 (1142).

Milner says the Welsh are those driven west by the Teutonic invaders and called Wilisc-men (“strangers or foreigners”); Corn-wall was called “West Wales,” and subsequently the Corn (Latin, cornu) or horn held by the Walls.—Geography.

(The Saxon wealh, plu. Wealhas or wealas, “foreigners,” meaning “not of Saxon origin,” and also “slaves or subjugated men,” is the correct origin of the word.)

Wales (South). At one time the whole eastern division of South Wales was called Gwent, but in its present restricted sense the word Gwent is applied to the county of Monmouth only.

Walk, Knave, Walk, colonel Hewson. So called from a tract written by Edmund Gayton, to satirize the party, and entitled Walk, Knaves, Walk.—S. Butler: Hudibras (1663-78).

Walker (Dr.), one of the three great quacks of the eighteenth century, the others being Dr. Rock and Dr. Timothy Franks. Goldsmith, in his Citizen of the World, has a letter (lxviii.) wholly upon these three worthies (1759).

Walker (Helen), the prototype of Jeanie Deans. Sir W. Scott caused a tombstone to be erected over her grave in Irongray churchyard, Kirkcudbright [Kekoobry.].

Walker (Hookey), John Walker, outdoor clerk to Longman, Clementi, and Co., Cheapside. He was noted for his hooked nose, and disliked for his official duties, which were to see that the men came and left at the proper hour, and that they worked during the hours of work. Of course, the men conspired to throw discredit on his reports; and hence when any one draws the “long-bow,” the hearer exclaims, “Hookey Walker!” as much as to say, “I don’t believe it.”

Walking Gentleman (A). Thomas Colley Grattan published his Highways and Byways under this signature (1825).

Walking Library (A), Ambulans Bibliotheca. John Hales is so called by Wotton (1584–1656).

Walking Stewart, John Stewart, an English traveller, who walked through Hindûstan, Persia, Nubia, Abyssinia, the Arabian Desert, Europe, and the North American states; “crazy beyond the reach of hellebore, yet sublime and divinely benignant…He had seen more of the earth’s surface, and had communicated more with the children of the earth than any man before or since.”—De Quincey (1856).

Walking-Stick (Henry VIII.’s), the great Danish club shown in the armoury of the Tower.

Walkingshaw (Miss), mistress of the chevalier Charles Edward the Young Pretender.—Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet (time, George III.).

Wallace (Sir William), a poetical chronicle, in ten-syllable couplets, by “Blind Harry” (about 1400).

Wallaces Larder, the dungeon of Ardrossan, in Ayrshire, where Wallace had the dead bodies thrown when the garrison was surprised by him in the reign of Edward I.

The “Douglas Larder” (q.v.) is a similar phrase, meaning that horrible compound of dead bodies, barrels of flour, meal, wheat, malt, wine, ale, and beer, all mixed together in Douglas Castle by the order of lord James Douglas, when, in 1306, the garrison was surprised by him.