Corporation accounts of Banbury, we find a charge of “Cakes for the Judges at the Oxford Assizes, 2l. 3s. 6d.” The present form of the Banbury cake resembles that of the early bun before it was made circular. The zeal has died away, but not so the cakes; for in “Beesley’s History of Banbury, 1841,” we find that Mr. Samuel Beesley sold, in 1840, no fewer than 139,500 twopenny cakes; and in 1841, the sale increased by at least a fourth. In August, 1841, 5000 cakes were sold weekly; large quantities being shipped to America, India, and even Australia.
The cakes are now more widely sold than formerly, when the roadside inns were the chief depôts. We remember the old galleried Three Cranes inn at Edgware, noted for its fresh supplies of cakes; as were also the Green Man and Still, and other taverns of Oxford Road, now Oxford Street.
Banbury Cheese, which Shakspeare mentions, is no longer made, but it was formerly so well known as to be referred to as a comparison. Bishop Williams, in 1664, describes the clipped and pared lands and glebes of the Church “as thin as Banbury cheese.” Bardolf, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” compares Slender to Banbury cheese, which seems to have been remarkably thin, and all rind, as noticed by Heywood, in his Collection of Epigrams:—
I never saw Banbury cheese thick enough,
But I have often seen Essex cheese quick enough.
The same thought occurs in “Jack Drum’s Entertainment,” 1601:—
Put off your cloathes, and you are like a Banbury cheese—nothing but paring.
In the Birch and Sloane MSS., No. 1201, is a curious receipt for making Banbury cheese, from a MS. cookery book of the sixteenth century. A rich kind of cheese, about one inch in thickness, is still made in the neighbourhood of Banbury.
We have already traced the destruction of the Cross at Banbury to the leaven of fanaticism. The nursery rhyme,
Ride a cock-horse
To Banbury-cross,
is by some referred to this act; and to signify being overproud and imperious. Taylor, the water poet, has
A knave that for his wealth doth worship get,
Is like the divell that’s a-cock-horse set.
The Banburians have lately rebuilt the Cross to commemorate the marriage of the Princess Royal with the Crown Prince of Prussia. They also exhibit, periodically, a pageant, in which a fine lady on a white horse, preceded by Robin Hood and Little John, Friar Tuck, a company of archers, bands of music, flags and banners, passes through the principal street to the Cross, where the lady (Maid Marian) scatters Banbury cakes among the people. How far this pageant may be associated with local tradition time and the curious have hitherto failed to explain.
ANSWER TO CHARADE IN No. CXCII.[1]
They sit apart, and shun the dance,
They heed not how the moments fly,—
She trembles ’neath his eager glance,
He bends to catch her low reply:
And clever chaperones nod and smile,
And jealous maidens think they see
That in a very little while
A match will surely be.
But August comes—and left behind
Awhile are operas, balls, and plays;
And “out of sight is out of mind,”
An ancient proverb truly says.
Alas for man’s inconstancy,
And trusting woman’s tenderness,
That love once breathed so ardently
Should thus so soon grow less!
Then, by degrees, as passion cools,
So sordid worldly maxims rise;
And love is deemed a sport for fools,
And gold the only worthy prize;
And vow and promise go for nought
When weighed against the precious ore;
And charms no longer claim a thought,
So matchless deemed before.
FRENCH CASTLES.
No. II.
CHINON, PLESSIS LES TOURS, SAUMUR.
