stony, like the mood of such spirits. This independence 'argues an insensibility.' A hopeful token, in truth, is a just susceptibility to the weather. There is reason in its universality, as a subject of discussion; there is a real benefit in being alive to its influences. Dr. Johnson indeed, with characteristic hardihood, boasted of his immunity from skyey influences;' but Milton confesses that his poetical vein flowed only between the autumnal and vernal equinox. Thomson declared his muse was most docile in the fall; and Byron always felt most religiously disposed on a sunny day. Hear the stout Ashyre ploughman

'How stan' you this blae eastlin wind,
That's like to blaw a body blind?

For me my faculties are frozen,

In Naples, they have a saying, when any literary production is very bad, that it was written during a sirocco.

The air and sky are a common heritage-they greet all the living impartially; and, while the changes of all things else affect only certain classes and individuals, their variations influence us all. It is well that there is thus a theme of universal sympathy, about which men, as such, ean exchange opinions. The weather is essentially a republican subject; and of all topics, whereby to get over the awkwardness of a first interview, it is de. cidedly the most convenient. What idea would answer we not the weather? If

to begin a colloquy with, had the elements were as fixed, or as regular in their changes, as the earth, what an available starting point in conver sation should we be deprived of! After being introduced

to an individual of whom we know nothing, what could we find to talk about, were this elemental theme not ever-present? To speak of literature or music, without knowing the taste of our new acquaintance, might prove a damper; to begin chatting about other people, might betray us into scandalizing the kindred of our auditor; but to allude enthusiastically to the beauty of the evening, or sympathetically to its coldness, would, in all probability, advance us at once far on the pleasant track of sociability. Besides it is altogether so natural and human to talk about the weather-to tell how we feel under its prevailing influence-and to listen, with profound interest, to the details our companion may give as to its effect on him. In this way we glide, with transcendant ease, into a sympathizing vein; glimpses of mutual char. acter are incidentally afforded, and then the way to more familiar communion lies clear and open. Let the conceited non-observers of the weather, who are liable to find themselves at a non-plus in conversation, consider the remarkable adaptativeness of the theme; and for this, if for no better reason, hasten to excite their lukewarm zeal as amateur meteorologists.

Weather-wisdom is a consoling acquirement. I have often re-learned the lesson of human equality, in observing the complacency of an honest tar, as he interpreted the signs of the sky to some accomplished veteran in book lore. The poor sailor, only matriculated by some marine witchery on crossing the line for the first timeand who only graduated, after some fierce whaling adventure, from cabin-boy to seaman-thenceforth witless

of farther degrees--expounding to the attentive univer. sity-man, a chapter of his knowledge in the ways of the wind, with as much zest as his hearer ever cleared up a puzzling passage in the Georgies to a group of wondering striplings. Such a scene, not seldom witnessed by the voyager, evinces what a comfortable device is weather-wisdom. Admitting it is the illusive thing many deem it, what a pleasant peg it affords some people to hang a little self-sustaining pride upon. To those who have not wit enough to comprehend the abstract sciences, -to those who regard the beauties of literature as mysteries, and who can make nothing of political economywhat a ready alternative is weather-wisdom! It requires little sense to keep a journal of the dates of snow storms, or to talk, with seeming sagacity, of the prospects of the season. And what a benevolent provision is this of nature's-that such as are bereft of more recondite lore, can yet nourish self-respect on their notable attainments in weather-wisdom!

But these are only secondary evidences of our obliga tions to the weather; insensibly do its variations gratify our love of novelty. Every day is new-if not from change of circumstances, from change of weather. How tame might not be our feelings, if sameness was a law of the elements! It is no inconsiderable pastime to note, on every successive morning, a new condition of the physical world; and pitiable, we repeat, is he who finds no refreshment in the shifting scene-to whose eye all aspects of external nature are alike; then, be assured,

some deep grief has overshadowed the soul, or some physical infirmity palsied the sense.

There is something morbid in those who are insensible to the weather, as well as in such as are nervously alive to its every minute alteration. It is a beautiful indication of humanity to habitually take cognizance of these subtle agencies that surround us-—to regard them as ministrants intimately associated with human weal. I once stood amid the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre with a man of deep social sympathies; we spoke of the myriads who once thronged the now silent spot. We have reason to believe,' said he, that wherever they are, they are together; what a happy idea, that even a dismal fate may be meliorated by sympathy! And we that now throng a living temple--would it not be an anomaly if we did not sympathize under the operation of universal laws? There is truth to human nature in Hamlet's allusion to the weather, even when awaiting his father's ghost.

Our interest in the weather is not altogether direct. Not alone to our individual senses does it appeal. Human hopes sway in every breeze. Destiny sometimes seems dependent upon the elements. How many anx. ious beings are noting the wayward winds when their loved ones are upon the waters; how many tearful eyes are directed to the sky when the cherished invalid is exposed to its varying phases. Property and life, success and love, are too often and too nearly associated with the weather, to permit even the hardy and the stern to boast perfect immunity from its influences. And we wonder not that the ancients deified and invoked the agents of

such mighty revolutions. Invisibly, and with a scarcely perceptible increase, the new wind arises; but on its unseen wings float-how many human interests! It bears to the worn and watching tidings of the absent; it wafts to the unthinking breast the seeds of a fell disease; it awakens hymns among the light foliage, and refreshes the care-shadowed brow:-odours and music, gladness and grief, life and death, are borne with silence and certainty to their destined ends. And so with the sunlight and the storm, the summer shower and the noontide heat-they have voices many and impressive, and fulfil a thousand noiseless and subtle missions with prompti. tude.

We are told that at one period in the ancient history of medicine, but two kinds of disease were recognized, resulting from the contracted and relaxed state of the pores. Doubtless this system originated in the observation of the effects of atmospheric changes upon the skin. Some individuals feel the weather chiefly through this medium; some are made aware of its variations by the sensations they excite in the region of the lungs or stomach; and to others the temples or thorax are as a per petual barometer. By the peculiar sensibility of some part of their bodies, all are, in a greater or less degree, physically susceptible to the weather; and through whatever portal the unbidden guest enters, the nervous sense is soon aware of iis presence. And thus, the universal agent, the spirit of the elements, insinuates itself into a higher domain. Our mental moods are, more or less, affected; and when the temperament 'is poetical, the