severe to the milder season, opening,
however, with storms.

_Wind._ An immense deal of curious weather-lore[148] has been associated
with the wind from the earliest period; and in our own and foreign
countries innumerable proverbs are found describing the future state of
the weather from the position of the wind, for, according to an old
saying, "every wind has its weather." Shakespeare has introduced some of
these, showing how keen an observer he was of those every-day sayings
which have always been much in use, especially among the lower classes.
Thus the proverbial wet which accompanies the wind when in the south is
mentioned in "As You Like It" (iii. 5):

"Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain."

[148] See Swainson's "Weather-Lore."

And again, in "1 Henry IV." (v. 1):

"The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his [_i. e._, the sun's] purposes;
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
Foretells a tempest, and a blustering day."

A popular saying to the same effect, still in use, tells us that:

"When the wind is in the south,
It is in the rain's mouth."

Again, in days gone by, the southerly winds were generally supposed to
be bearers of noxious fogs and vapors, frequent allusions to which are
given by Shakespeare. Thus, in "The Tempest" (i. 2), Caliban says:

"a south-west blow on ye
And blister you all o'er."

A book,[149] too, with which, as already noticed, Shakespeare appears to
have been familiar, tells us, "This southern wind is hot and moist.
Southern winds corrupt and destroy; they heat, and make men fall into
the sickness." Hence, in "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 1), Thersites
speaks of "the rotten diseases of the south;" and in "Coriolanus" (i.
4), Marcius exclaims:

"All the contagion of the south light on you."

[149] Batman upon Bartholomaeus--"De Proprietatibus Rerum," lib.
xi. c. 3.

Once more, in "Cymbeline" (ii. 3), Cloten speaks in the same strain:
"The south fog rot him."

_Flaws._ These are sudden gusts of wind. It was the opinion, says
Warburton, "of some philosophers that the vapors being congealed in the
air by cold (which is the most intense in the morning), and being
afterwards rarefied and let loose by the warmth of the sun, occasion
those sudden and impetuous gusts of wind which were called 'flaws.'"
Thus he comments on the following passage in "2 Henry IV." (iv. 4):