Part 3
Man is so dependent upon the weather, not only for his comfort but even for his subsistence, that to be able to ascertain its coming changes has naturally always been to him an object of extreme solicitude. When we are very desirous to attain any end, we are easily deluded by whomsoever or whatsoever promises to help us in reaching it. The weather is one of the subjects upon which the credulity of mankind, thus excited, has in every age been taken plentiful advantage of; and, indeed, it seems to be the one of all others over which superstition and imposture have succeeded in establishing the widest and firmest dominion. We have outlived most of the other fond beliefs of more ignorant times; the love of money, though as strong and as universal a passion as ever, blinds nobody now to waste his time in the attempt to discover a solvent for turning all metals into gold; the desire of long life no longer keeps our medical chemists busy in experimenting how to extract or compound an elixir of immortality; these hopes have passed away from the imaginations both of men of science and of the multitude. Even the predictions which astrology pretends to draw from the positions and movements of the stars as to the fates of individuals and kingdoms, although they have still their readers, have lost much of the old faith which used to reverence them almost as direct intimations from heaven. But the prognostications of the same vain science which are published every year on the subject of the weather continue to be not only bought but believed in, almost as much as they were in the darkest ages, by hundreds of thousands, even in our own comparatively enlightened England. ‘Moore’s Almanac’ still sells a quarter of a million of copies. If this were the proper place it might not, perhaps, be difficult to point out the causes which have kept this particular superstition alive so long after so many others have perished, and been nearly forgotten; but it will be more to the present purpose to state in a few words the grounds on which it may be confidently pronounced to be to the full as visionary and absurd as any of those which it has survived.
The weather, as we have remarked, is but another name for the state of the air, as to heat or cold, dryness or humidity, rest or motion, and perhaps one or two other similar particulars. The causes, therefore, which influence the condition of the air in these respects are those that occasion the variations of the weather; and these variations cannot be foretold unless we could calculate and measure the exact force of all those influencing causes. There is plainly no other way of arriving at the knowledge in question. To pretend to divine it, as the almanac-makers affect to do, from the movements of one or two particular stars, is as idle as it would be to attempt to discover what wind should blow on a certain day in December by the motion of a bit of straw or paper thrown up into the air in the preceding January. Even if it were proved, which it by no means either is or is likely to be, that the positions of the heavenly bodies in question really exerted any effect whatever upon our atmosphere, and if the amount of that effect could be calculated, the ascertainment of it would be of no use, unless we could also ascertain the force of all the other operating influences. Without this we are, at the best, merely in the condition of the man who should attempt to describe the whole of a large building from the inspection of one of the bricks brought from its ruins. Were our almanac prophets, therefore, even to take the trouble of going through any calculation to get at the information with which they favour us, it would not be the more valuable or trustworthy on that account. But it is almost needless to remark, that they do not proceed through their work of solemn quackery and fraud with so much form and ceremony. The “dull, though mild,” “fair and frosty,” “mild for the season,” “frosty and more fair,” “rain, perhaps hail,” “windy, perhaps rain,” and other phrases of their cheating trade, which they scribble at intervals, along the calendar, are come at by an easier process than even the simplest or shortest calculation--being in fact, with the exception of course that some regard is had to the general character of the different seasons, put down merely at random. There is not an individual among all those by whom the oracle is consulted, who might not in half an hour manufacture quite as good a calendar of the weather for himself.
Even the most accomplished science, in truth, has as yet made comparatively but very little way into this most difficult subject. The principal properties of the air, both chemical and mechanical, have indeed been ascertained. The apparently simple element has been separated into its two component ingredients of nitrogen and oxygen. Its weight has been taken. Its elasticity, or capability of compression and expansion, has been measured. Instruments have been invented for detecting the quantity of heat, or of moisture, or of electricity, with which it may at any particular moment be charged. But the knowledge of all these different circumstances and properties enables us to do but little in predicting the coming changes of the weather. The property of the air, from the observations of which intimations of this kind have hitherto been chiefly derived, is its _weight_; and even this can only tell us at most, what the weather is to be for a few hours forward, and does not always speak to us to that extent either very certainly or very precisely.
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THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM.
[Illustration: Nightingale.]
A Nightingale that all day long Had cheer’d the village with his song, Nor yet at eve his note suspended, Nor yet when eventide was ended, Began to feel, as well he might, The keen demands of appetite; When, looking eagerly around, He spied far off, upon the ground, A something shining in the dark, And knew the glow-worm by his spark, So, stooping from the hawthorn top, He thought to put him in his crop. The worm, aware of his intent, Harangued him thus, right eloquent:-- Did you admire my lamp, quoth he, As much as I your minstrelsy, You would abhor to do me wrong, As much as I to spoil your song; For ’twas the self-same Power Divine Taught you to sing, and me to shine; That you with music, I with light, Might beautify and cheer the night. The songster heard his short oration, And warbling out his approbation, Released him, as my story tells, And found a supper somewhere else. Hence jarring sectaries may learn Their real interest to discern; That brother should not war with brother And worry and devour each other; But sing and shine with one consent, Till life’s poor transient night is spent, Respecting in each other’s case, The gifts of nature and of grace. Those Christians best deserve the name, Who studiously make peace their aim; Peace, both the duty and the prize, Of him that creeps and him that flies.
COWPER.
[Illustration: Male and Female Glow-worms. Male winged, Female wingless.]
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_State of Europe in the Dark Ages._--In less than a century after the barbarous nations settled in their new conquests, almost all the effects of knowledge and civility, which the Romans had spread through Europe, disappeared. Not only the arts of elegance, which minister to luxury, and are supported by it, but many of the useful arts, without which life can scarcely be considered as comfortable, were neglected or lost. Literature, science, and taste, were words little in use during the ages which we are contemplating; or, if they occur at any time, eminence in them is ascribed to persons and productions so contemptible, that it appears their true import was little understood. Persons of the highest rank, and in the most eminent stations, could not read or write. Many of the clergy did not understand the breviary which they were obliged daily to recite; some of them could scarcely read it. The memory of past transactions was, in a great degree, lost, or preserved in annals filled with trifling events or legendary tales.--_Dr. Robertson’s Introduction to the History of Charles V._
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_Remarkable Detection of Fraud._--A few years ago an important suit, in one of the legal courts of Tuscany, depended on ascertaining whether a certain word had been erased by some chemical process from a deed then before the court. The party who insisted that an erasure had been made, availed themselves of the knowledge of M. Gazzeri, who, concluding that those who committed the fraud would be satisfied by the disappearance of the colouring matter of the ink, suspected (either from some colourless matter remaining in the letters, or perhaps from the agency of the solvent having weakened the fabric of the paper itself beneath the supposed letters) that the effect of the slow application of heat would be to render some difference of texture or of applied substance evident, by some variety in the shade of colour which heat in such circumstances might be expected to produce. Permission having been given to try the experiment, on the application of heat _the important word re-appeared_, to the great satisfaction of the court.--_Babbage, on the Decline of Science._
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_London Mile-stones._--The various roads from London are now measured from ten or eleven different places, two, three, and even four miles distance from each other. The catalogue is curious. Hyde Park Corner and Whitechapel Church; the Surrey side of London Bridge and Westminster Bridge; Shoreditch Church; Tyburn Turnpike; Holborn Bars (long since removed); the place where St. Giles’s Pound formerly stood; the place where Hicks’s Hall once stood; the Standard, in Cornhill, of which no other tradition remains, its exact site being unknown; and the Stones’-end, in the Borough, which moves with the extension of the pavement. Thus the actual distance of any place cannot be known without minute inquiry and local knowledge of London. “The easy remedy,” says Mr. Rickman, from whose admirable ‘Statement of Progress in the Population Inquiry for 1831,’ this is taken, “consists in adopting the mileage of the Post-office, when it shall have been re-measured from the new site of that office, the frontage of which grand centre of communication could not be more appropriately adorned than by an obelisk which would become a LONDON STONE, in imitation of that which stood in the Forum of ancient Rome. The vicinity of St. Paul’s, the most conspicuous object in London, recommends the new Post-office especially for this purpose; and turnpike-road trustees would not refuse to accommodate to it their mile-stones, under the direction of the road-surveyor of the Post-office.”
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Nelson, when young, was piqued at not being noticed in a certain paragraph of the newspapers, which detailed an action wherein he had assisted. “But, never mind,” said he, “I will one day have a Gazette of my own.”
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Transcriber’s Notes
This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized changes from the original text:
• p. 91: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “Keep up your spirits, and you will be soon out of danger.” • p. 94: Added comma after phrase “some years before his death.”