highly commendable, and why not in a Shepherd? We do not cast our own Parts in the Drama of Life; no, this is performed by the great Author of Nature. He who adjusted every Thing on Earth with such Beauty and Harmony, he who taught the Heavenly Bodies to move; the same distributed their several Offices to Men. May we not therefore suppose that every Man's Part is well cast, and that our Abilities are exactly proportioned to our Stations? If so, he who does all he can, does all that ought to be expected from him, and merits from impartial Judges the most general and just Applause. To be convinced of this, we need not only reflect on the narrow and selfish Conduct of some, who either by Study or by Chance, have acquired certain valuable Secrets, which with the utmost Industry they conceal in order to be the more admired, or that they may render them beneficial to themselves. How contrary the Conduct of our Shepherd! His Pains were all his own, but the Fruit of them he thus generously offers to the Public. Good Sense and the dictates of Nature taught him this Maxim, That what might benefit many, should not be concealed by one from Views of Profit or of Pride.

IN my Remarks upon the Shepherd's Rules, I have sometimes endeavoured to support them by Authorities, which I must confess would have been of little Use if the Author had been a Person of Learning; but when it is considered that these Observations were purely the Effect of his own Attention and Experience, it certainly strengthens them, and adds greatly to their Credit that they have been esteemed evident Signs of the same Effects, by the greatest Masters in this Kind of Science. The Art of prognosticating the Weather may be considered as a Kind of decyphering, and in that Art it is always allowed a point of great Consequence, when several Masters therein agree as to the meaning of a Character, and it is from thence very justly presumed that this Character is rightly decyphered.

I have also endeavoured to explain most of his Observations, according to the Rules of the new Philosophy, which, as it is grounded upon. Experiments, so it generally speaking enables us to give a fair and rational Account of almost all the Phænomena taken notice of by the Shepherd of Banbury.

I likewise have added some other Rules in Relation to the Weather, taken from the common sayings of our Country People, and from old English Books of Husbandry, but I have distinguished all these from the Observations themselves, so that the Reader will have no Trouble to discern the Text from the Commentary, or to know what belongs to the Shepherd of Banbury, and what to the Editor of his Observations. This I think may serve by the Way of Introduction, let us now proceed to the Rules themselves.

THE

Country Calendar,

OR THE

Shepherd of BANBURY's

OBSERVATIONS.

I.

SUN. If the Sun rise red and firey. } Wind and Rain.

THE Reason of this Appearance is, because the Sun shines through a large Mass of Vapours, which occasions that red Colour that has been always esteemed a Sign of Rain, especially if the Face of the Sun appear bigger than it ought, for then in a few Hours the Clouds will grow black, and be condensed into Rain, sudden and sharp, if in the Summer, but settled and moderate if in Winter.

THE old English Rule published in our first Almanacks agrees exactly with our Author's Observation.

IF the Reader would see this elegantly described, the Master of Poets hath it thus.[a]

II.

If cloudy, and it soon decrease. } Certain fair Weather.

I Conceive the Reason of this to be, that the Vapours being then specifically lighter than the Air, are still rising upwards, in which they are assisted by the Heat of the Sun Beams, agreeable to the Notion of Dr. Derham, who observes, that after much cloudy Weather, it is always fair before it rains, because the watery Vapours are not condensed till they reach the cold upper Region, agreeable to the common English saying,

IT is also an Observation, of Pliny's in his natural History.[b]

SI ab ortu solis repellentur Nubes, & ad occasum abibunt, Serenitatem denunciabunt,

That is,

IF at Sun rising the Clouds are driven away, and retire as it were to the West, this denotes fair Weather.

THERE is an old Adage to this Purpose, which, because it is very prettily expressed, deserves our notice, viz.

In French thus.

The Italians say the same.

III.

CLOUDS Small and round, like a Dappley-grey, with a North-Wind.

Fair Weather for 2 or 3 Days.

THIS is differently expressed by other Authors. My Lord Bacon tells us, that if Clouds appear white, and drive to the N. W. it is a Sign of several Days fair Weather.

OUR old English Almanacks have a Maxim to this Purpose.

AND Pliny to the same Purpose.[c]

SI Sol oriens cingetur Orbe, & postea totus defluxerit æqualiter, Serenitatem dabit.

That is,

IF the rising Sun be incompassed with an Iris, or Circle of white Clouds, and they equally fly away, this is a Sign of fair Weather.

THERE is another English Proverb worth remembering.

IV.

Large like Rocks.——Great Showers.

IN the old Almanacks we have this Sign of the Weather thus expressed.