If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply,
I, John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county
of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and
had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which
I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life
and memory. And they who light upon this book
should bear in mind not only that I write for the
clearing of our parish from ill fame and calumny, but
also a thing which will, I trow, appear too often
in it, to wit—that I am nothing more than
a plain unlettered man, not read in foreign languages,
as a gentleman might be, nor gifted with long words
(even in mine own tongue), save what I may have won
from the Bible or Master William Shakespeare, whom,
in the face of common opinion, I do value highly.
In short, I am an ignoramus, but pretty well for a
yeoman.
My father being of good substance, at least as we
reckon in Exmoor, and seized in his own right, from
many generations, of one, and that the best and largest,
of the three farms into which our parish is divided
(or rather the cultured part thereof), he John Ridd,
the elder, churchwarden, and overseer, being a great
admirer of learning, and well able to write his name,
sent me his only son to be schooled at Tiverton, in
the county of Devon. For the chief boast of that
ancient town (next to its woollen staple) is a worthy
grammar-school, the largest in the west of England,
founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604 by
Master Peter Blundell, of that same place, clothier.
Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen
into the upper school, and could make bold with Eutropius
and Caesar—by aid of an English version—and
as much as six lines of Ovid. Some even said that
I might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form,
being of a persevering nature; albeit, by full consent
of all (except my mother), thick-headed. But
that would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition
beyond a farmer’s son; for there is but one form
above it, and that made of masterful scholars, entitled
rightly “monitors”. So it came to
pass, by the grace of God, that I was called away from
learning, whilst sitting at the desk of the junior
first in the upper school, and beginning the Greek
verb
[Illustration: greek1.jpg]
My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never
could have learned
[Illustration: greek2.jpg]
ten pages further on, being all he himself could manage,
with plenty of stripes to help him. I know that
he hath more head than I—though never will
he have such body; and am thankful to have stopped
betimes, with a meek and wholesome head-piece.
[Illustration: 002.jpg John Ridd’s School
Desk]
