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VILLAGE SKETCHES; 
No. XI. 
Tue Suaw. 
Sepr. 9th.—A bright, sunshiny afternoon. What a comfort it is te 
get. out again—to see once more that rarity of rarities, a fine day! We 
English people are accused of talking over much of the weather ; but the 
weather, this summer, has forced people to talk of it. Summer! did I 
‘say? Oh! season most unworthy of that sweet, sunny name! Season 
of coldness and cloudiness, of gloom and rain! A worse November !— 
‘for in November the days are short; and, shut up in a warm room, 
lighted by that household sun, a lamp, one feels through the long even- 
ings comfortably independent of the out-of-door tempests. But though 
‘we may have, and did have, fires all through the dog-days, there is no 
‘shutting out daylight ; and sixteen hours of rain, pattering against the 
windows and dripping from the eves—sixteen hours of rqin, not merely 
audible but visible, for seven days in the week—would be enough to 
exhaust the patience of Job, or of Grizzel; especially if Job were a 
farmer, and Grizzel a country gentlewoman. Never was known such a 
season! Hay swimming, cattle drowning, fruit rotting, corn spoiling! 
and that haughty river, the Loddon, who never can take Puff’s advice, 
and “ keep between its banks,” running about the country, fields, roads, 
ardens, and houses, like mad! The weather would be talked of. 
deed, it was not easy to talk of any thing else. A friend of mine 
having occasion to write me a letter, thought it worth abusing in rhyme, 
and bepommelled it through three pages of Bath-Guide verse ; of which 
I subjoin a specimen :— 
« Aquarius surely reigns over the world, 
And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirled ; 
Or he’s taken a cullender up by mistake, 
And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake ; 
Though it is not in Lethe—for who can forget 
The annoyance of getting most thoroughly wet? 
It must be in the river called Styx, I declare, 
For the moment it drizzles it makes the men swear. 
‘ It did rain to-morrow,’ is growing good grammar ; 
Vauxhall and camp-stools have been brought to the hammer ; 
A pony-gondola is all I can keep, 
And I use my umbrella and pattens in sleep ; 
Row out of my window, whene’er ’tis my whim 
To visit a friend, and just ask, ‘ Can you swim?’ ” 
‘So far my friend.* In short, whether in prose or in verse, every body 
railed at the weather. But this is over now. The sun has come to dry 
* This friend of mine is a person of great quickness and talent, who, if she were not a 
beauty and a woman of fortune—that is to say, if prompted by either of those two powerful 
stimuli, want of money or want of admiration—and took due pains, would inevitably 
become a clever writer. As it is, her notes and jeux d’esprit, struck off a trait de plume, 
we great point and neatness. Take the following billet, which formed the label to a 
basket, containing the ponderous present alluded to, last Michaelmas Day :— 
“ To Miss M. 
£ When this you see 
Remember me,’ 
Was long a phrase in use ; 
And so I send 
To you, dear friend, 
My proxy. ‘ What?’ A goose!” 
3D 2 
