s passage?

That the uniform meaning of _flaws_ in the poet's time was _sudden gust
of wind_, and figuratively sudden gusts of passion, or fitful and
impetuous action, is evident from the following passages:--

"Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
Wreck to the seamen, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
_Gust_ and foul _flaws_ to herdsmen and to herds."
_Venus and Adonis._

"Like a great sea-mark standing every _flaw_."
_Coriolanus_, act v. sc. iii.

"--patch a wall to expel the winter's _flaw_."
_Hamlet_, act v. sc. i.

"Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams
Do calm the fury of this mad-bred _flaw_."
_3d Pt. Henry VI._, act iii. sc. i.

"--these _flaws_ and starts (impostors to true
fear)."
_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. iv.

"Falling in the _flaws_ of her own youth, hath
blistered her report."
_Meas. for Meas._, act ii. sc. iii.

So far for the poet's acceptation of its meaning.

Thus also Lord Surrey:--

"And toss'd with storms, with _flaws_, with wind, with weather."

And Beaumont and Fletcher, in _The Pilgrim_:--

"What _flaws_, and whirles of weather,
Or rather storms, have been aloft these three days."

Shakspeare followed the popular meteorology of his time, as will appear
from the following passage from a little ephemeris then very frequently
reprinted:--

"_De Repentinis Ventis_.

"8. Typhon, Plinio, Vortex, aliis Turbo, et vibratus Ecnephias,
de _nube gelida_ (ut dictum est) abruptum aliquid saepe numero
secum voluit, ruinamque suam illo pondere aggravat: quem
_repentinum flatum_ a nube prope terram et mare depulsum,
definuerunt quidam, ubi in gyros rotatur, et proxima (ut
monuimus) verrit, suaque vi sursum raptat."--MIZALDUS,
_Ephemeridis AEris Perpetuus: seu Rustica tempestatum
Astrologia_, 12