f Pope--
Passage in Coleridge--Lowbell--Burn at Croydon 390

MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, &c. 394
Books and Odd Volumes wanted 394
Notices to Correspondents 394
Advertisements 395

* * * * *

NOTES.

"THE SHEPHERD OF BANBURY'S WEATHER-RULES."

_The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to judge of the Changes of the
Weather_, first printed in 1670, was long a favourite book with the
country gentleman, the farmer, and the peasant. They were accustomed to
regard it with the consideration and confidence which were due to the
authority of so experienced a master of the art of prognostication, and
dismissing every sceptical thought, received his maxims with the same
implicit faith as led them to believe that if their cat chanced to wash
her face, rainy weather would be the certain and inevitable result.
Moreover, this valuable little manual instructed them how to keep their
horses, sheep, and oxen sound, and prescribed cures for them when
distempered. No wonder, then, if it has passed through many editions.
Yet it has been invariably stated that _The Banbury Shepherd_ in fact
had no existence; was purely an imaginary creation; and that the work
which passes under his name, "John Claridge," was written by Dr. John
Campbell, the Scottish historian, who died in 1775. The statements made
in connexion with this book are curious enough; and it is with a view of
placing the matter in a clear and correct light that I now trouble you
with a Note, which will, I hope, tend to restore to this poor
weather-wise old shepherd his long-lost rank and station among the rural
authors of England.

I believe that the source of the error is to be traced to the second
edition of the _Biographia Britannica_, in a memoir of Dr. Campbell by
Kippis, in which, when enumerating the works of the learned Doctor,
Kippis says, "He was also the author of _The Shepherd of Banbury's
Rules_,--a favourite pamphlet with the common people." We next find the
book down to Campbell as the "author" in Watt's _Bibliotheca
Britannica_, which is copied both by Chalmers and Lowndes. And so the
error has been perpetuated, even up to the time of the publication of a
meritorious _History of Banbury_, by the late Mr. Alfred Beesley, in
1841. This writer t