Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 1]
Stratton near Norwich
May 22. 1788
Sir
As i feel by the lazyness & procrastination of fourteen years, that i shall not have my Calendar ready for you so soon as i wished and expected, i had rather appear impertinent, than (by silence) seemingly ungrateful : therefore i presume to offer you my thanks for the honour of your obliging letter of the 30.th of April. I wish Sir the Calendar may not greatly disappoint you when it comes to your hands: to prevent which in part, i will venture to give you the out-line. For although it consists of near 30 articles in the last 30 years, yet not one column is complete. I want one Swallow in 52 years: & i have but few articles in the first ten years. I begin with the Snowdrop as the earliest flower; & the Hawthorn, as the earliest leafing tree; & i have marked 47 years of it: & i am glad that i have named the County to each article, when out of Norfolk; for a friend i can depend upon (Mr Herbert the Author of the Typographical Antiquities) found in 1782 at Cheshunt, a Hawthorn leaf ten days before i had one in Norfolk: & i observed myself in 1759 a Hornbeam in leaf in Hertfordshire, sixteen days before i had one in Norfolk. I am also pleased that i marked the flowering of the Hawthorn, because that is so unequal to the leaf. I find 49 years of the flower. In 1785 the