‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ As regards the honours or enjoyments of this world, he died an utterly unrequited man. Even of that bubble, posthumous fame, an attempt was made to rob him. Warburton, in his Vallum Romanum, transfers Horsley ‘in bulk’ to his pages—he even copies, without alteration, the opinions which Horsley expresses in the first person. The honest Hutton often quotes the ‘judicious Warburton,’ little knowing whose the feathers are which he so justly admires. The precise spot where his remains rest is unknown. He whose lot it was to interpret, after the lapse of many centuries, the throbbings of natural affection over departed relatives in the heathen breast, had no one to erect over him, though a Christian minister, a memorial that should outlive a single century. Even the parish clerk, in his attachment to the altar and the throne, denies him, in the sepulchral register, the title which courtesy, at least, would have accorded him. Requiescat in pace!
The Rev. Anthony Hedley, was also a native of Northumberland; he was a man of literary tastes, and considerable antiquarian acquirements. He entered public life as curate of Hexham, where his preaching was that of a Boanerges. He subsequently held some temporary appointments at Whelpington, Newcastle, and Whitfield. Having, however, actively espoused the cause of that political body, who, until lord Grey became premier, had no patronage to bestow, it was his lot to sigh in vain for a summons to active occupation in the work which he loved. When the party whom he had long and conscientiously served, came into office, neglect was his portion. One of the original members of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he did much to promote the study of primæval archæology in the fruitful region traversed by the Wall. Biased by his taste for antiquities, he was led to select, as his abode for life’s evening, the beautiful valley of the Chineley Burn. The rural hall arose at his bidding, nearly every stone of which was chiseled by Roman hands. The milliary which told to Hadrian’s soldiers that another mile had been traversed, stood by his barn. The station of Vindolana was in his grounds—many beautiful altars and other important reliques had he dug out of it—he could tell where the prætorium stood, where the standards were deposited, where every soldier slept. Scarcely were all the arrangements for his comfortable residence at Chesterholm made, when death seized him as its victim. Imprudently superintending, whilst somewhat indisposed, the exhumation of an urn in the station, his mortal part was a few days afterwards deposited in the church-yard at Beltingham. He died in 1835, and his beautiful abode has since remained desolate.
Westmoreland has the honour of giving birth to the Rev. John Hodgson, but Northumberland enjoyed the advantage of his youthful and maturer labours. Successively curate of Sedgefield, Lanchester, and Heworth, and afterwards vicar of Kirkwhelpington, he was shortly before his death promoted to the living of Hartburn. He was the chief founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the chief contributor to its transactions. His tastes led him to contemplate, and an honourable desire to make provision for the education and settlement of his family, induced him to begin, a history of Northumberland. Seldom have laudable designs been so signally defeated. He lived but to complete a part of his task; his health failed, and his mind gave way under his excessive labours. His fortunes were not bettered by them; ‘I have lived,’ said he, 'to see that works of this kind are not suited to the times I live in, perhaps to any time. It is not profitable to me—it is not suited to my profession—I ought to do my duty in my profession—to take up night and day to do it well. Well? no; but as well as good intentions, holy zeal, every thought and faculty of my mind fully exerted, could do it.' Hodgson paid great attention to the Wall, and its antiquities. The last published portion of his history contains a vast mass of learned information upon the subject. It is perhaps enough for the present author to say, that had not Horsley and Hodgson cleared the way before him, he would never have adventured to write a book upon the Barrier of the Lower Isthmus. Though he cannot be a Horsley or a Hodgson, he hopes he will never prove a Warburton.
[55]. Brand conceives that Segedunum may be derived from the Saxon secg, a sedge or flag, and dun, which is an Anglo-Saxon, as well as a Celtic word; this would give, as its meaning—the hill of sedge. If we can suppose that any of the Germanic hordes had obtained so complete a settlement here, as to give them the power of forming a local vocabulary in accordance with their own language prior to the Roman occupation of this post, the Saxon origin of the term is by no means improbable. In no part of England was an early settlement more likely to take place than on the eastern coast of Northumberland, but, after all, we must probably assign a later date to the first arrival of our Gothic forefathers. If a Saxon derivation be at all admissible, another might be suggested: sige is the Anglo-Saxon for victory, and tun is town—the town of victory—an appropriate name for a station occupied either by Roman or Saxon forces.
[56]. This statement I make on the authority of the late Mr. Buddle, who said, as I remember, that in his youth he had seen the stones extending far into the river.
[57]. This place derived its earlier name from being the property, and perhaps the suburban residence of John Cosyn, a worthy alderman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the seventeenth century. About 1740, sir Robert Carre, a London knight, and draper, but also, it is thought, a burgess of the northern metropolis, bought Cosyn’s house at Wallsend, and thenceforward designated it Carre-ville. The present mansion is, with some little impropriety, called Carville-hall.
When I began my inquiries at Wallsend, I had much difficulty in ascertaining which was Cousin’s-house. One man told me he had lived all his life in Wallsend—sixty years—and had never heard of it. Our books still continue to copy from Horsley, and to give us the out-of-date information that the Wall began at Cousin’s-house.
[58]. In districts where the Wall has been levelled with the earth, a foot-path or bridle-road frequently indicates its course. When land was of less value than it is now, the farmers, who appropriated the stones of the Wall to their own use, were not at the trouble to remove its foundation. The stony track, however, afforded a firm road, and when the increased value of the ground rendered it worth while to bring the whole into cultivation, a right of way had, in many instances, been established.
[59]. Hodgson, II. iii. 169.
[60]. Horsley’s traditionary account was probably derived from the same source as Leland’s; and therefore may indicate, not the station wall, but the great Wall itself. If, as the excavations made since Horsley’s day seem to prove, the Wall crossed obliquely from the south to the north side of Collingwood-street, it must have passed over the site of St. Nicholas’-church—not to the north of it.