A * MATUTINAL HOUR.' 143 



her moods. She is the very April among nations. 

 The Barometer, a tolerably steady-going guide else- 

 where, she turns into a perfect laughing-stock. 

 Fourteen times out of fifteen, it is said, she makes 

 him play the fool. He is like an old Pointer 

 always making a dead set at a dead scent, or at 

 nothing : a dis&ip-pointer indicating that which 

 was, and is no longer. 



Is it a vice or a virtue? It does not come for 

 nothing. It has its meaning. It is not sent'pro- 

 miscuous-like ' to worry and perplex 'us fools of 

 Nature,' for no object or intent. In her trickiest 

 and wildest and most fantastic frolics, Nature is full 

 of soul, full of deepest, and aye ! of most loving 

 purpose, manward. Under hotter skies, wherS the 

 flesh of beasts is not so much a food as an unhealthy 

 stimulant to the blood, and where the cool vegetable 

 and farinaceous diet are all that man's strength or 

 warmth or appetite requires, ' cats and dogs' indeed 

 do sometimes come rattling down for days together : 

 but they come in a pack, full cry : or in equally 

 expressive Indian phrase, it pours ' monkeys with 

 their mouths open' when it pours at all. But the 

 gentle English sky alone 'rains Turnips:' and Eng- 

 lish Legs o' mutton, and English Roast-beef, were 



