106 



WASTE LANDS. 



pastime ? I myself will join thee in thy lament- 

 ations on the near approach of this great and 

 unexpected event ; for many a walk do I take 

 on Heath Common, to hear the wild notes of 

 birds which are strangers to my own domain ; 

 and it is on Heath Common that I always 

 expect to hear the first song of the cuckoo, 

 sweet harbinger of returning spring. 



" Were I a Senator, — which God forbid, 

 whilst Peel's Oath stares me in the face! — I 

 would stand up and fight thy battle to the 

 last. 



"Wakefield, — once Merry Wakefield ! — fare 

 thee well ! I would not have a hand in the 

 projected enclosure of Heath Common, even 

 though poor Charley Stuart himself could come 

 back, and were to give his royal sanction to 

 it."* 



* Wakefield had acquired the association with its name of 

 " Merry " at an early period, and it may be that the exhibition 

 of these very pageantries may have had much to do with the 

 origin of the expression which is put by Fuller amongst the 

 provincial expressions of Yorkshire, " Merry Wakefield." 

 (See preface, p. xvi., to the Towneley Mysteries, published in 

 London by J. B. Nichols and Son, Parliament Street, and 

 William Pickering, Chancery Lane. 



* 



