1883J The Meteorology of Shakspere. 31 
to the shores of England. We think of the proverb still 
current in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire : — 
“ When the wind is in the west 
The weather is the best ; 
When the wind is in the east 
It’s neither good for man nor beast.” 
It is still possible that as fens and marshes were much 
more abundant in the Elizabethan age than they are now, 
and that as the south wind is generally accompanied by 
warm weather, malaria may have been more common in 
times of southerly winds than when the weather was colder. 
But in all other respedts we cannot do other than pronounce 
the epithets which Shakspere applies to the south wind 
grossly libellous, and the traditions upon which they are 
founded instances of loose observation. We should, indeed, 
be glad to escape coming to this unfavourable conclusion ; for 
our great poet, though his attention was mainly fixed upon 
human passion and human character, had yet a keen eye 
for external Nature, as we shall show below. The Ancient 
Britons are said to have applied the name “ cloudy or 
misty sea ” to the German Ocean, from the fadt that winds 
blowing from that quarter were apt to bring fog and gloom. 
But if the south wind was little admired in the Elizabethan 
days, the northern wind fared no better. Shakspere would 
not have committed himself by writing an ode like that per- 
petrated by Kingsley. The longing which some people in 
these days profess for a good old-fashioned winter, and the 
opinion of the “ bracing ” charadter of a north-easter, are, 
we suspedt, notions of somewhat modern origin, and are 
often chimney-corner aspirations, about as real as Jamie 
Thompson’s praises of early rising. Shakspere shows no 
love for winter : — • 
“ You and you are sure together 
As the winter to foul weather.” 
As You Like It, V., 7. 
It is only luxurious ages and persons who can expose 
themselves to the weather only when and how they 
like, and come in to a comfortable home when sufficiently 
“ braced,” who can like winter. 
The opinion is often expressed that the climate of these 
islands, and indeed of Western Europe altogether, has un- 
dergone a change for the worse during the last two or three 
centuries. Even if our average temperature has not de- 
creased, or our mean rainfall — or rather number of wet 
