ighted by that
household sun, a lamp, one feels through the long evenings comfortably
independent of the out-of-door tempests. But though we may have, and did
have, fires all through the dog-days, there is no shutting out daylight;
and sixteen hours of rain, pattering against the windows and dripping
from the eaves--sixteen hours of rain, not merely audible, but visible
for seven days in the week--would be enough to exhaust the patience of
Job or Grizzel; especially if Job were a farmer, and Grizzel a country
gentlewoman. Never was known such a season! Hay swimming, cattle
drowning, fruit rotting, corn spoiling! and that naughty river, the
Loddon, who never can take Puff's advice, and 'keep between its banks,'
running about the country, fields, roads, gardens, and houses, like
mad! The weather would be talked of. Indeed, it was not easy to talk of
anything else. A friend of mine having occasion to write me a letter,
thought it worth abusing in rhyme, and bepommelled it through three
pages of Bath-guide verse; of which I subjoin a specimen:--

'Aquarius surely REIGNS over the world,
And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd;
Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake,
And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake;
Though it is not in Lethe--for who can forget
The annoyance of getting most thoroughly wet?
It must be in the river called Styx, I declare,
For the moment it drizzles it makes the men swear.
"It did rain to-morrow," is growing good grammar;
Vauxhall and camp-stools have been brought to the hammer;
A pony-gondola is all I can keep,
And I use my umbrella and pattens in sleep:
Row out of my window, whene'er 'tis my whim
To visit a friend, and just ask, "Can you swim?"'

So far my friend. * In short, whether in prose or in verse, everybody
railed at the weather. But this is over now. The sun has come to dry the
world; mud is turned into dust; rivers have retreated to their proper
limits; farmers have left off grumbling; and we are about to take a
walk, as usual, as far as the Shaw, a pretty wood about a mile off. But
one of our companions being a stranger to the gentle reader, we must do
him the honour of an introduction.

*This friend of mine is a person of great quickness and
talent, who, if she were not a beauty and a woman of
fortune--that is to say, if she were prompted by either of
those two powerful stimuli, want of money or want of
admiration,