the whole range of literature is contained
in _Antony and Cleopatra_, painting, as it does, the fallen and wasting
state of the emperor (Act IV. Sc. 12.):

"_Ant._ Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
_Eros._ Ay, noble lord!
_Ant._ Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish:
A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion,
A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs:
They are black vesper's pageants.
_Eros._ Ay, my lord.
_Ant._ That which is now a horse, even with a thought,
The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct,
As water is in water.
_Eros._ It does, my lord.
_Ant._ My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
Even such a body: here I am Antony;
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave."

Those who wish to understand this sublime passage must watch a bank of
Cumulus clouds at the western sky on a summer's evening. The tops of the
clouds must not be more than five or ten degrees above the apparent
horizon. There must also be a clear space upwards, and the sun fairly set
to the last stages of twilight. It will then be comprehended as to what is
meant by "black vesper's pageants," and Warton and Knight will no more
mislead by their note. It is only at "black vespers" that such a pageant
can be seen, when the liberated heat of the Cumulus cloud is forcing the
vapour into the grand or fantastic shapes indicated to the poet's eye and
mind.

How truly does Antony read his own condition in the changing and perishable
clouds. Shakspeare names or alludes to the clouds in more than one hundred
passages, and the form of cloud is ever correctly indicated. Who does not
remember the {338} passages in _Romeo and Juliet_? Much more might be
written on this subject.

ROBERT RAWLINSON.

[Footnote 4: _Bush_, not brush, as misprinted in Knight's edition.]

[Footnote 5: _Foul._ Surely this ought to be _full_. A foul bumbard might
be empty. "Foulness" and "shedding his liquor" are not necessarily
contingent; but fulness and overflowing are. A _full_ vessel, shaken,
cannot choose "but shed his liquor."]

* * * * *

At the Hull meeting of the British Association, Mr. Russell, farmer,
Kilwhiss, Fife, read a paper on "The Action of the Winds which veer from
the South-west to West, and North-west to North." This he wound up by a
reference to Shakspeare,