32 
The Meteorology of Shakspere . 
[January, 
days — been augmented, we have, men say, a less prospeCt of 
warmth, and dryness, and calm coming when they are 
wanted, — that is, from the blooming of the wheat to the in- 
gathering of the various crops. True, we have had, since 
1870, great store of unseasonable weather, among which 
1879 holds a memorably evil pre-eminence. But let us 
listen to the following passage 
“ Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, 
As in revenge, have sucked up from the sea 
Contagious fogs ; which falling on the land 
Have every pelting river made so proud 
That they have overborn their continents ; 
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain, 
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn 
Hath rotted ere its youth attained a beard. 
The fold stands empty in the drowned field, 
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock. 
The nine-men's morris is filled up with mud, 
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, 
For lack of tread are undistinguishable. 
The human mortals want their winter cheer, 
No night is now with hymn or carol blest ; 
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, 
Pale in her anger washes all the air 
That rheumatick diseases do abound. 
And thorough this distemperature we see 
The seasons alter ; hoary-headed frosts 
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose ; 
And on old Hyem’s chin and icy crown 
An od’rous chaplet of sweet summer buds 
Is as in mockery set. The spring, the summer, 
The chiding autumn, angry winter change 
Their wonted liveries, and th’ amazed world, 
By their inverse now knows not which is which.” 
Midsummer Night's Dream , Adi II., Sc. 2. 
Is this a mere imaginary description ? We should say 
that it is a most faithful picture of such a season as that of 
1879, with all its distressing features. We have summer 
frosts, short fits of mild weather coming when cold would be 
more seasonable, overflowing rivers, fields swamped, sheep 
perishing of foot-rot and o-f “ flukes ” in the liver, the corn 
rotting before it can reach maturity, the field-paths becoming 
indistinguishable because impassable. It is, in short, 1879 
to the life, as any faithful observer — especially if living in 
a rural district — would have found it, and no one could have 
given its sad characters at once so strikingly and yet so 
briefly. We see, then, that cold wet summers are not a 
misfortune peculiar to the nineteenth century. A glacial 
epoch may be returning, but “ cruel 1879 ” * s no proof that 
such is to be the doom of our immediate posterity. 
The appearance of the sky at sun-rising has always been 
