580 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



THE METEOROLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE. 



We may safely assume that Englishmen in the olden time, like their sons in 

 these days, took much interest in the weather. They discussed the influence of 

 the past portions of a season, the effects of the present showers or sunshine, and 

 the good or evil signs for the coming day, month, or year. For this they had even 

 stronger inducements than ourselves. A wet harvest time might bring the perils 

 of actual famine home, not merely to scattered individuals, but to entire districts. 

 Further, the weather and its signs were looked on in what we should regard as a 

 superstitious light. Unusual seasons over and above their own unpleasantness 

 were held to forbode foreign wars or civil tumults, pestilence and other calamities. 

 It may be, therefore, not uninteresting to glance at the weather-lore of our fore- 

 fathers, and ask in how far their rules for a foreknowledge of the season were well 

 founded. For connecting this subject with the name of Shakespeare we have 

 good reason. We have no certainty as touching the scraps and jingles in which 

 popular meteorology is embodied. They may be old as the hills, or they may 

 date no further back than the last century, and may have been blended with the 

 results of modern investigation. But for the passages on this subject which we 

 find here and there in the writings of Shakespeare we have a minimum limit. 

 They must represent the traditions current in the days of his youth, and which 

 had been handed down for at least a couple of generations. They must have arisen 

 in an age when the barometer, the thermometer, and all other meteorological in- 

 struments were still unknown. 



The first point we notice is that the south wind is held in strange disrespect. 

 It is regarded as unhealthy, as boisterous and wet, and as especially connected 

 with fog. Thus we read — 



" All the contagions of the south light on you." 



Coriolanus, I., 8. 

 " A south-west blow on ye 

 And blister you all o'er !" 



Tempest, I., 4. 



Elsewhere we find — 



" The south fog rot thee !" 



And again — 



" Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain." . 



In short this wind is never well spoken of by Shakespeare, except in one pas- 

 sage : 



" Like the sweet south 



That breathes upon a bank of violets. 

 Stealing and giving odour." 



Twelfth Night, T. , i 



