278 OF METEOROLOGICAL CHAP. 10. 1. 



however, the number of Journals of the Weather 

 that are made, and which the curious can 

 always compare with the Calendar, may con- 

 fute many of these superstitious predictions, 

 and illustrate the real cause of others.* 



This festival occurs at a time of the year 

 when the earliest signs of spring are nearly 

 beginning, and I remember seeing a curious 

 and very philosophical treatise in German, on 

 the prognosticks deducible from the weather 

 at this time, in which the writer represents 

 Hope standing on the tiptoe of expectation to 

 open the Portals of the Year, and examine the 

 prognosticative tablets which decorated the 

 vestibulum of Janus, the windows of whose 

 temple were barred with icicles and the ground 

 carpeted with Snow.f 



* There is something very remarkable in the history of 

 what are commonly called coincidences, or such a coupling of 

 events, having no particular known affinity, as cannot be 

 referred to accident, by the kiiowr. doctrine of chances. 



t The following lines relate to the sort of scenes and 

 weather which prevail commonly on the vigil of St. Paul : 



" Winter's white shrowd doth cover all the grounde, 



And Caecias blows his bitter blaste of woe ; 

 The ponds, and pooles, and streams in ice are bounde, 

 And famished birds are shivering in the snowe. 



