MAECH. 



To the inhabitants of a variable climate, like our own, 

 the weather is at all times one of the most interesting 

 themes of speculation ; but at no period of the year does 

 it come more directly home to our feelings than in March. 

 "We know that there is a new sign in the heavens, and 

 the altitude of the sun in his meridian seems plainly to 

 assure us of the comforts of spring. But the aspect of 

 the heavens is constantly changing, the winds ever veer- 

 ing, clouds alternating with sunshine, wind with calm, 

 and rain with snow ; so that we are never sure, on a 

 bland morning in March, when the sun is shining almost 

 with the fervor of summer, that we may not be overtaken 

 by a snow-storm before noonday, or the cold of the Arctic 

 Circle before sunset. Any one of the three winter months, 

 though usually cold and stormy, may once in a few years 

 be mild and pleasant from beginning to end ; but March 

 preserves the same variable and boisterous character from 

 year to year, without deviating from its precedents. It 

 is the only month when day's harbingers never fulfil their 

 promises, when the rosy hours that come up with the 

 morning and the fair sisters that weave the garlands of 

 evening are all deceivers. 



Though the present time is nominally the spring of 

 the year, there is not yet a flow^er in the fields or gar- 

 dens, and the buds of the trees are hardly swollen with 

 waking vegetation. The wild-flowers are still buried 

 under the snows and ices of winter, and the grass has 

 begun to look green only under the southern protection 



