i88 3 .] 
29 
The Meteorology of Shakspere. 
examinations get paid whether pupils succeed or not ; but 
the Science teacher has to depend for the payment he may 
receive from the Department , not solely on the marks the 
examiner may give, as there are exceptional rules which ex- 
clude the teacher receiving payment on results in not a few 
cases. Uncertainty in the duration of an employment, and 
uncertainty as to the amount to be received for the labour 
and time that has been given, must ever adt unfavourably 
in securing the best talent. 
VI. THE METEOROLOGY OF SHAKSPERE. 
^^E may safely assume that Englishmen in the olden 
jSrvr 5) 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 forebode 
foreign wars or civil tumults, pestilence, and other calami- 
ties. It may be, therefore, not uninteresting to glance at 
the weather-lore of our forefathers, and ask in how far their 
rules for a foreknowledge of the season were well founded. 
For connecting this subject with the name of Shakspere we 
have good reason. We have no certainty as touching the 
scraps and jingles in which popular meteorology is embo- 
died. 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 Shakspere 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' 
