Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 | Page 3

that--
"Having been importun'd by sundry friends (some of them being worthy persons) to make publique for their further benefit what they have found by experience to be useful for themselves and others, I could not deny their requests; but was willing to satisfie them, as also my own self, to do others good as well as myself; lest I should hide my talent in a napkin, and my skill be rak'd up with me in the dust. Therefore I have left it to posterity, that they may have the fruit when the old tree is dead and rotten. And because I would not be tedious, I shall descend to some few particular instances of my skill and foreknowledge of the weather, and I shall have done.
"First, in the year 1665, at the 1st of January, I told several credible persons that the then frost would hold till March, that men could not plow, and so it came to pass directly.
"2. I also told them that present March, that it would be a very dry summer, which likewise came to pass.
"3. The same year, in November, I told them it would be a very open winter, which also came to pass, although at that time it was a great snow: but it lasted not a week.
"4. In the year 1666, I told them that year in March, that it would be a very dry spring; which also came to pass.
"5. In the year 1667, certaine shepheards ask'd my councel whether they might venture their sheep any more in the Low-fields? I told them they might safely venture them till August next; and they sped very well, without any loss.
"6. I told them, in the beginning of September the same year, that it would be a south-west wind for two or {375} three months together, and also great store of rain, so that wheat sowing would be very difficult in the Low-fields, by reason of wet; which we have found by sad experience. And further, I told them that they should have not above three or four perfect fair days together till the shortest day.
"7. In the year 1668, in March, although it was a very dry season then, I told my neighbours that it would be an extraordinary fruitful summer for hay and grass, and I knew it by reason there was so much rain in the latter end of February and beginning of March: for by that I ever judge of the summers, and I look that the winter will be dry and frosty for the most part, by reason that this November was mild: for by that I do ever judge of the winters.
"Now, I refer you unto the book itself, which will sufficiently inform you of sundry other of my observations. For in the ensuing discourse I have set you down the same rules which I go by myself. And if any one shall question the truth of what is here set down, let them come to me, and I will give them further satisfaction.
JOHN CLARIDGE, SEN.
"Hanwell, near Banbury."
It appears, from inquiries made in the neighbourhood, that the name of Claridge is still common at Hanwell, a small village near Banbury--that "land o'cakes,"--and that last century there was a John Claridge, a small farmer, resident there, who died in 1758, and who might have been a grandson of the "far-famed," but unjustly defamed, "shepherd of Banbury."
Apropos of the "cakes" for which this flourishing town has long been celebrated, I beg to inform your correspondent ERICA (Vol. vii., p. 106.) and J. R. M., M.A. (p. 310.) that there is a receipt "how to make a very good Banbury cake," printed as early as 1615, in Gervase Markham's English Hus-wife.
W. B. RYE.
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NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.
(Continued from p. 353.)
To miss, to dispense with. This usage of the verb being of such ordinary occurrence, I should have deemed it superfluous to illustrate, were it not that the editors of Shakspeare, according to custom, are at a loss for examples:
"We cannot miss him."
The Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2. (where see Mr. Collier's note, and also Mr. Halliwell's, Tallis's edition).
"All which things being much admirable, yet this is most, that they are so profitable; bringing vnto man both honey and wax, each so wholesome that we all desire it, both so necessary that we cannot misse them."--Euphues and his England.
"I will have honest valiant souls about me; I cannot miss thee."
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Mad Lover, Act II. Sc. 1.
"The blackness of this season cannot miss me."
The second Maiden's Tragedy, Act V. Sc. 1.
"All three are to be had, we cannot miss any of them."--Bishop Andrewes, "A Sermon prepared to be preached on Whit Sunday, A.D. 1622," Library of Ang.-Cath. Theology, vol. iii. p. 383.
"For these, for every