W A N 



London. A variety of concurring teftimonies render it pro- 

 bable that this place was once a Roman itation ; though the 

 numerous alterations which it his undergone almoR preclude 

 the poflibility of tracing thofe remains which would decide 

 the queftion. The vallum, faid to be part of a Roman ila- 

 tion, was plainly to be feen when Mr. Wife vihted it about 

 the year 1738, " inclofing a fpace called the H^h garden. 

 A hollow way into the town from Farringdon, Grove-ilreet, 

 a morafs, and a brook, form the fides of an oblong fquare, 

 containing about fix acres of ground. On this fpot' con- 

 tinues Mr.Wife, " ftood the Saxon palace where Alfred was 

 born " North of the brook is an inclofure where Roman 

 coins have been found ; and the remains of a building called 

 king Alfred's cellar, which was paved with brick, and ap- 

 pears to have been a bath. Wantage was probably of con- 

 fequence in the Saxon times, as it was undoubtedly a royal 

 villa, and appears, together with the furrounding country, 

 to have been the patrimony of the Weft Saxon kings : by 

 the will of Alfred, it was bequeathed to his coulm Alfnth. 

 It is a market-town by prefcription, having obtained that 

 privilege about the beginning of the 13th century, through 

 the intereft of Fulk Fitzwarine, on whom it was bellowed 

 by Roger Bigod, earl marlhal of England, as a reward for 

 miUtary ferviccs. The market-day is Saturday ; and here 

 are four annual fairs. The civil government is vefted in a 

 chief conllable. In the population return of the year 181 1, 

 the town is ftated to contain 510 houfes, occupied by 2386 

 perfons. The chief employment of the inhabitants is the 

 manufaaure of coarfe cloth and facking. The parilh 

 church is a fpacious cruciform ftruiiture, built either wholly, 

 or in part, by the Fitzwarine family, whofe arms and ef- 

 figies are to be feen in various parts of the edifice ; which 

 alfo contains fomc old pompous monuments, and a large an- 

 cient font conftrufted of porphyry-ftone. An ad of par- 

 liament paffed in the year 1598, for vefting the town lands 

 of Wantage given in the reigns of Henry VI. and Henry VII. 

 for charitable ufes, in twelve of the " better fort of inha- 

 bitants" to be deemed a body corporate. By this aft the 

 revenues of the faid lands are appropriated to the relief of 

 the poor, the repairs of the highways, and the fupport of 

 a grammar-fchool. An Englilh fchool has, from an early 

 period, been added to the other charitable objects provided 

 for out of the profits of thefe lands. The governors allow 

 30/. per annum to the mailer of the grammar-fchool, who 

 muft be a graduate in one of the univerfities ; and 15/. per 

 annum to the matter of the Englilh fchool. In 1680 an 

 alms-houfe for twelve poor perfons was founded and en- 

 dowed by Mr. Robert Styles. Dr. Jofeph Butler, a learned 

 divine, and bifhop of Durham in the laft century, was born 

 in this town : but its chief celebrity is its having been the 

 birth-place of king Alfred, peculiarly ftiled the Great. See 

 Alfred.— Lyfons' Magna Britannia, vol. i. Berklhire, 1806. 

 Beauties of England and Wales, vol. i. Berkfhire. By J. 

 Britton and E.W. Brayley, 1801. 



Wantage, a town of New Jerfey, in the county of Suf- 

 fex, containing 2969 inhabitants ; 15 miles N. of Newtown. 



WANTI. See Glove. 



WANTING, in Geography, a town on the E. coaft of 

 Lower Siam. N. lat. 7° 39'. E. long. 100" 55'. 



WANTSUM, a name given to the river Stour, which 

 divides the ifle of Thanet from the reft of the county of 

 Kent, and runs into the Downs, below Sandwich. 



WANTY, in Rural Economy, the name ufually given to 

 a broad girth of leather, by which the load is bound upon 

 the back of the horfe. It is very ufeful in hilly diftrifts for 

 Xecuring various kinds of loads. 



WA'^NTZENAU, iu Geography, a town of France, in 



WAP 



the department of the Lower Rhine ; 6 miles N. of Straf- 

 burg. 



WANTZLAU, a town of the Middle Mark of Bran- 

 denburg ; 9 miles S.S.W. of Brandenburg. 



WANZCY, in Botany, a tree very common throughout 

 all Abyffinia. Every houfe in Gondar has two or three- 

 planted round it, fo that, when firft viewed frem the heights, 

 it appears like a wood, efpeciaUy through the whole feafon 

 of the rains, but very exaftly on the ift of September, for 

 three years together, in a night's time, it was covered with a 

 multitude of white flowers. Gondar, and all the towns about 

 it, then appeared as if covered with white linen, or with 

 new-fallen fnow. It grows to a confiderable magnitude, 

 being from eighteen to twenty feet high ; the trunk is gene- 

 rally about three feet and a half from the ground ; it then 

 divides into four or five thick branches, which have at leaft 

 60" inclination to the horizon, and not more. Thefe large 

 branches are generally bare, and half way up the bark is 

 rough and furrowed. They then put out a number of fmall 

 branches, circular at top, in figure like fome of our early 

 pear-trees. (See the defcription of it in the Appendix to 

 Bruce's Travels. ) This tree and the coffee-tree have divine 

 honours paid by each of the feven nations ; under this tree 

 their king is chofen ; here he holds his firft council ; his 

 fceptre is a bludgeon made of this tree, which, like a mace, 

 is carried before him wherever he goes ; it is produced in the 

 general meetings of the nation, and is called " Buco." 



WANZLEBEN, in Geography, a town) of Weftphaba, 

 in the duchy of Magdeburg ; 10 miles W.S.W. of Magde- 

 burg. 



Wapentake, or Weapentake, a dlvifion of cer- 

 tain northern countries, particularly thofe beyond the Trent, 

 anfwering to what in other places is called a hundred, or a 

 cantred. 



Authors differ as to the origin of the word. Brompton 

 brings it from the Saxon luaepen, and taecan, to deliver, by 

 reafon the tenants anciently delivered their arms to every new 

 lord as a token of their homage. 



Sir Thomas Smith gives a different account. Matters, 

 he obferves, were anciently taken of the armour and wea- 

 pons of the feveral inhabitants of every hundred ; and from 

 fuch as could not find fufEcient pledges for their good 

 abearing, their weapons were taken aiuay, and delivered to 

 others. 



Others give a different account of its rife ; to'z. that when 

 firft the kingdom was divided into wapentakes, he who was 

 the chief of the divifion, and whom we now call hlgh-conflable, 

 as foon as he entered upon his office, appeared in the field, 

 on a certain day, on horfeback, with a pike in his hand ; and 

 all the chief men of the hundred met him with their lances, 

 who, ahghting, touched his pike with their lances, as a fig- 

 nal they were firmly united to each other, by the touching 

 of their weapons. Whence the denomination -wapentakes, 

 from the Saxon -waepen, and tac, touching. 



WAPESSAGA, in Geography, a lake of Canada. N. 

 lat. 48" 10'. W. long. 71° 40'. 



WAPITW^AGO Islands, a clufter of ifiands near 

 the fouth coaft of Labrador. N. lat. 50° 4'. W. long. 

 60° 20'. 



WAPLES, a town of Pruffia, in the province of Ober- 

 laud ; 16 miles S.E. of Ofterrode. 



WAPNO, a town of Bohemia, in the circle of Konigin- 

 gratz ; 14 miles S.W. of Konigingratz. 



WAPP, in a Ship, that rope with which the Hirowds are 

 fet taught with wale-knots ; one end is made faft to the 

 (hrowds, and to the other are brought the laniards. 



WAPPE, a fpecies of cur. The name is derived from 

 II its 



