"Her corns with shooting pains torment her--
And to her bed untimely send her."

That couplet is included by Hone with what is said of Aunt Betty.

"The smoke from chimneys right ascends,
Then spreading back to earth it bends.
The wind unsteady veers around;
Or, settling in the south is found."

Those are as philosophically accurate and valuable as any.

"The tender colts on back do lie;
Nor heed the traveler passing by.
In fiery red the sun doth rise,
Then wades through clouds to mount the skies."

The first of those couplets is untrue. It is doubtless alluded to as one
of the acts of the animal creation, indicating sleepiness and inaction,
which precede storms; but colts do not lie on the back. The other couplet
is both true and important. This collection entire, whether written by
Darwin or Jenner, contains most of the signs which have been preserved,
and which are of much practical importance in our climate.

It is unquestionably true that "appointed signs foreshow the weather," to
a great extent, every where, but with more certainty in the climate in
which Virgil wrote than in our variable and excessive one. "Showers" and
"freezing gales" we can, perhaps, as well understand; but the "_reign of
heat_," by which he probably meant the dry period, when the southern edge
of the extra-tropical belt of rains is carried up to the north of them, we
do not experience. Something like it we did indeed have, during the
excessive northern transit, in the summer of 1854; but it was an
exception, not the rule.

Some of the most important of those signs from Virgil and Jenner I propose
to allude to in detail; but it is necessary to look; in the first place,
to the character of the season and the month.

We have seen that the years differ during different periods of the same
decade. That they incline to be hot and irregular during the early part of
it, and cool, regular, and productive during the latter portion--subject,
however, to occasional exceptions. The latter half of the third decade of
this century (1826 to 1830, inclusive) was comparatively warm; and, in the
latitude of 41 deg., was very unhealthy, and so continued during the early
part of the next, over the hemisphere, embracing the _cholera seasons_.
The spots upon the sun were much less numerous than usual, during the
latter half of the third decade. Thus the spots from

1826 to 1830, inclusive, were 873
1836 to 1840 "