68 On Wiltshire Weather Proverbs and Weather Fallacies. 



unreasoning tenacity with which the Wiltshire labourer will cling to 

 any old saying handed down to him from his fathers : I was opposing 

 the above proverb, which an old man quoted to me at the beginning 

 of the year 1854, and expressing my disbelief in it, though not at 

 all to his conviction : and in the summer I recalled to his recollection 

 the same proverb, remarking that we had had unusually few deaths 

 in the parish that year, to which he replied, " Wait a bit, Sir, the 

 year isn^t come to an end yet : but before the end of the year, after 

 the battles of Alma and Inkermann had taken place, he came to m*e 

 with triumph in his face, and said, " I told you, Sir, the proverb 

 would come true ; the green Christmas last year has made a fat 

 churchyard, for see how many poor fellows have been killed in the 

 Crimea.'''' After this nothing more was to be said ; with the rationale 

 of the proverb he had nothing to do : it had come true, and that 

 was all that concerned him ; and he is is now a firmer believer than 

 ever in that ancient tradition. 



And now let me say a word about almanacks which pretend to 

 foretell the weather. It is perfectly marvellous how gullible is 

 John Bull, eager to swallow any prognostics, be they never so un- 

 reliable ; if only their authors are bold enough to be decisive in their 

 predictions : and when in the year 1838, by a fortuitous coincidence, 

 "an adroit Hibernian" (as he has been happily styled), named 

 Patrick Murphy, accurately foretold the coldest day of the season 

 (which from the law of chances must occur occasionally within a 

 great number of conjectures), the rage for weather almanacks rose 

 to its height ; the wildest predictions were hazarded ; and though 

 their failures were generally manifested, nothing would convince the 

 determined believer ; and I myself knew of a case where an agricul- 

 turalist on a small scale, with more credulity than wisdom, wrote to 

 the Editor of the almanack to which he pinned his faith, and en- 

 treated him to name the most fortunate day for wheat-sowing ! In 

 justice to Wiltshire let me hasten to add that this man was a native 

 and inhabitant of Somersetshire. I suppose too it is allowable to 

 presume there is a larger amount of Boeotian dulness to be found in 

 the more western counties, as the famous Lord Thurlow once re- 

 marked, after holding an assize at Bodmin, in Cornwall, " That the 



