CLASSICAL METEOROLOGY. 199 



His pupil, Theophrastus, wrote in a more popular 

 style, in a work of four general divisions viz., the 

 prognostications of rain, of wind, of storms, and of fair 

 weather. Socrates, too, seems to have been something 

 of a meteorologist. The ribald poet Aristophanes 

 held him up to ridicule in ' The Clouds ; ' introducing 

 him in a basket drawn across the top of the stage, for 

 the purpose, he was made to tell the scoffing mob, of 

 making observations on the weather. The poets, both 

 of Greece and Kome, also treated of the universally in- 

 teresting subject of weather. Aratus, once the popular 

 versifier of ' Phenomena ' and * Prognostics,' is now 

 chiefly known to us because quoted by St Paul in his 

 speech to the men of Athens, and because of his singu- 

 lar fortune in having had two such illustrious transla- 

 tors as Cicero and Caesar Germanicus. Facts and fables, 

 follies and superstitions, are so mingled in the meteor- 

 ological portions of the poetry of Lucretius, that they 

 do not merit serious consideration. No reader of the 

 ' Georgics ' needs to be reminded that far higher heed 

 should be paid to the weather- wisdom of Virgil. Be- 

 lieving him to have been an accurate observer, it would 

 be interesting to compare the prognostics which in his 

 day indicated change of weather, with those which are 

 still relied on by the people of Italy ; and should some 

 Italian meteorologist be induced to make the compari- 

 son, we should anticipate new confirmation of the per- 

 sistency of the popular faith in natural indications of 

 coming changes in the condition of the atmosphere. 



Passing from the philosophy and poetry of the ancients 

 to the kalendars and almanacs of times nearer our own, 

 we come upon a singular repository of strange things 

 about men and animals and the weather. As a contrast 

 to a quarterly report of the Meteorological Society, we 

 think our readers will not be displeased to be furnished 

 with a few specimens of popular meteorology, as set forth 

 in some of the old almanacs of England and France. 



We begin with ' A Prognostication of Eight Goode 



