2020-01-03 THE NATURE OF THE WIND BY Roger Ascham

To see the wind with a man his eyes it is unpossible, the nature of it is so fine and subtile ; yet this experience of the wind had I once myself, and that was in the great snow that fell four years ago. I rode in the high way betwixt Topcliff-upon-Swale and Boroughbridge, the way being somewhat trodden before, by way-faring men; the fields on both sides were plain, and lay almost yard-deep with snow; the night afore had been a little frost, so that the snow was hard and crusted above; that morning the sun shone bright and clear, the wind was whistling aloft, and sharp, according to the time of the year ; the snow in the high way lay loose and trodden with horses' feet; so as the wind blew, it took the loose snow with it, and made it so slide upon the snow in the field, which was hard and crusted by reason of the frost over night, that thereby I might see very well the whole nature of the wind as it blew that day. And I had a great delight and pleasure to mark it, which maketh me now far better to remember it. Sometime the wind would be not past two yards broad, and so it would carry the snow as far as I could see. Another time the snow would blow over half the field at once. Sometime the snow would tumble softly; by and by it would fly wonderful fast. And this I perceived also, that the wind goeth by streams, and not whole together. For I should see one stream within a score on me; then the space of two score, no snow would stir ; but, after so much quantity of ground, another stream of snow, at the same very time, should be carried likewise, but not equally, for the one would stand still, when the other flew apace and so continue sometime swiftlier, sometime slowlier, sometime broader, sometime narrower, as far as I could see. Nor it flew not straight, but sometime it crooked this way, sometime that way, and sometime it ran round about in a compass. And sometime the snow would be lift clean from the ground up to the air, and by and by it would be all clapt to the ground, as though there had been no wind at all, straightway it would rise and fly again.

And that which was the most marvel of all, at one time two drifts of snow flew, the one out of the west into the east, the other out of the north into the east. And I saw two winds, by reason of the snow, the one cross over the other, as it had been two high ways. And, again, I should hear the wind blow in the air, when nothing was stirred at the ground. And when all was still where I rode, not very far from me the snow should be lifted wonderfully. This experience made me more marvel at the nature of the wind, than it made me cunning in the knowledge of the wind ; but yet thereby I learned perfectly that it is no marvel at all though men in wind lose their length in shooting, seeing so many ways the wind is so variable in blowing.

Roger Ascham, (born 1515?, Kirby Wiske, near York, Eng.—died Dec. 30, 1568, London), British humanist, scholar, and writer, famous for his prose style, his promotion of the vernacular, and his theories of education.

As a boy of 14, Ascham entered the University of Cambridge, where he earned his M.A. (1537) and one year later was elected a fellow of St. John’s and appointed reader in Greek. The new Renaissance enthusiasm for the classics, especially Greek, was at its height.

Ascham’s Toxophilus (“Lover of the Bow”), written in the form of a dialogue, was published in 1545 and was the first book on archery in English. In the preface Ascham showed the growing patriotic zeal of the humanists by stating that he was writing “Englishe matter in the Englishe tongue for Englishe men.” He became Princess Elizabeth’s tutor in Greek and Latin (1548–50), then served as secretary to Sir Richard Morison (1550–52), English ambassador to the Habsburg emperor Charles V, traveling widely on the European continent. Thereafter, he was appointed Latin secretary to Queen Mary, a post he held until her death in 1558. He continued in this position for Queen Elizabeth I until his death. He served her by composing her official letters to foreign rulers and by helping her pursue the study of Greek.