LECTURE V. 



IT has long been agreed in good society, that to talk 

 about the weather is not good ton, that no topic can be so 

 tiresome, and that it ought, therefore, to be left to sailors 

 and bashful lovers. When now I enter upon a disquisition 

 concerning the weather, I am quite ready to admit that my 

 Lecture is likely enough to prove somewhat tedious ; but I 

 altogether deny that the weather is less talked about in 

 the best society than elsewhere, and must distinctly declare 

 that the weather is not a tedious subject. For what is 

 tedious ? Seldom or never the subject, but the. manner in 

 which it is treated. Can anything be more interesting to 

 ladies (and it may be to some gentlemen) than the fashions ? 

 But a lady would think any one very tiresome who addressed 

 her with such a remark as, " The fashions are very pretty 

 now ;" quite as tiresome, I think, as if he said, " The 

 weather is very fine." It is very different, when in such 

 conversation, noticing how well the chosen cap or bonnet 

 suits the head, one passes to the head-dresses of different 

 nations, to those of celebrated women, pointing out what 

 influence climate, necessity, and national peculiarities have 



