April 16. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



375 



«r 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 

 ^o'ever judge of the winters. 



" Now, I refer you unto the book itself, which will 

 sufficiently inform you of sundry other of my observ- 

 ations. 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 

 <lown, 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 neigh- 

 bourhood, 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 flourish- 

 ing town has long been celebrated, I beg to inform 

 your correspondents 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-wi/e. W. B. Rye. 



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 

 bave 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. Col- 

 lier'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 wisse them." 

 -*— Euphues and his England. 



" I will have honest valiant souls about me ; 

 I cannot miss thee." 



Beaumont and Fletcher, Tlie Mad Lover, Act II. 

 Sc. I. 



" The blackness of this season cannot miss me." 

 The second Maiden's Tragedy, Act V. Sc. I. 

 " 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. Tiieology, vol. iiu p. 383. 



" For these, for every day's dangers we cannot miss 

 the hand." — "A Sermon preached before the King's 

 Majesty at Burleigh, near Oldham, a.d. 1614," /</., 

 vol. iv. p. 86. 



" We cannot miss one of them ; they be necessary 

 all." — Id., vol. i, p. 73. 



It is hardly necessary to occupy further room 

 with more instances of so familiar a phrase, though 

 perhaps it may not be out of the way to remark, 

 that miss is used by Andrewes as a substantive ia 

 the same sense as the verb, namely, in vol. v. 

 p. 176. : the more usual form being misture, or, 

 earlier, mister. Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary^ 

 most unaccountably treats these two forms as dis- 

 tinct words ; and yet, more unaccountably, col- 

 lecting the import of misttire for the context, gives 

 it the signification of misfortune ! ! He quotes 

 Nash's Pierce Pennilesse ; the reader will find the 

 passage at p. 47. of the Shakspeare Society's re- 

 print. I subjoin another instance from vol. viii. 

 p. 288. of Cattley's edition of Foxe's Acts and 

 Monuments : 



" Therefore all men evidently declared at that time, 

 both how sore they took his death to heart ; and also 

 how. hardly they could away with the misture of such a 

 man." 



In Latin, desidero and desiderium best convey 

 the import of this word. 



To buckle, bend or bow. Here again, to their 

 great discredit be it spoken, the editors of Shak- 

 speare (Second Part of Hen. IV., Act I. Sc. 1.) are 

 at fault for an example. Mr. Halliwell gives one 

 in his Dictionary of the passive participle, which 

 see. In Shakspeare it occurs as a neuter verb ; 



" . . . . And teach this body. 



To bend, and these my aged knees to buckle, 

 In adoration and just worship to you." 



Ben Jonson, Staple of News, Act II. Sc. I^ ,, 



" For, certainly, like as great stature in a natural 

 body is some advantage in youth, but is but burden in 

 age : so it is with great territory, which, when a state 

 beginneth to decline, doth make it stoop and buckle so 

 much the faster." — Lord Bacon, " Of the True Great- 

 ness of Great Britain," vol. i. p. 504. (Bohn's edition 

 of the Works'). 



And again, as a transitive verb : 



" Sear trees, standing or felled, belong to the lessee, 

 and you have a special replication in the book of 

 44 E. III., that the wind did but rend them and buckle 

 them." — Case of Impeachment of Waste, vol. i. p. 620. 



On the hip, at advantage. A term of wrestling. 

 So said Dr. Johnson at first ; but, on second 



