was taking his reaper into the yellow field, and just beginning to top the barley's frail stalk, seen all the armies of the winds. meet in the shock of battle, tearing up by the roots whole acres of heavy corn, and whirling it on high, just as a common hurricane would sweep down its dark current light straw and flying stubble. Oft, too, comes rushing from the sky a vast column of waters, the clouds mustering from the length and breadth of heaven, and making their dark storms into one great murky tempest; down crashes the whole dome of the firmament, washing away before the mighty rain-deluge all those smiling crops, all for which the ox toiled so hard. The dykes are filled, the deep streams swell with a roar, and the sea glows again through every panting inlet. The great Father himself, intrenched in a night of storm-clouds, wields the huge thunderbolt with flashing arm: at that shock the giant earth trembles, the beasts have disappeared, and men's hearts all the world over lie quailing low in terror; he with his blazing javelin strikes Athos or Rhodope on the high Ceraunian range: doubly loud howls the south wind, doubly thick gathers the cloud of rain, and under the blast's mighty stroke forest and shore by turns wail in agony.

With this terror before you, look watchfully to the heaven, its seasons and its signs. Mark into what dreary regions Saturn's cold star withdraws itself; what celestial orbit comprises the wanderings of the Cyllenian fire. First of all, worship the gods, and year by year pay great Ceres her recurring honour, with a sacrifice on the luxuriant sward, when winter has at last fallen, and spring begins to clear the sky. Those are the days when lambs are fat, and wine at its mellowest, when sleep is pleasant, and the trees on the mountains thick of shade. Then summon all your rustic force to worship Ceres; to pleasure her, mix the honeycomb with milk, and the wine-god's mellow juice, and thrice let the auspicious

victim be led round the young corn, with the whole quire of your mates following it in triumph, and shouting invitations to Ceres to come and dwell with them; nor let any put the sickle into the ripe corn, ere in Ceres' honour he wreathe his brow with the oaken chaplet, join in the uncouth dance, and take part in the song!

Moreover, it is that these dangers may be known to us by infallible tokens-the heat, I mean, and the rain, and the wind that brings the cold-that the great Father himself has ordained what should be the lesson taught by each month's moon, what the signal for the south wind to fall asleep, what the symptom which, repeatedly observed, makes the husbandman keep his herds within sight of their stalls. From the first, when the wind is getting up, either the inlets of the sea begin to work and swell, and a dry crashing sound is heard shivering down the high mountains, or a confused roar echoes far along the beach, and the whispering of the forests comes fast and thick. By this time the wave can scarcely keep itself from falling on the vessel's keel, at the moment when the gulls fly swiftly home from over the sea, and their noise travels with them to the shore; at the moment, when the cormorants, whose element is the water, are sporting on the land, and the heron forsakes its home in the marsh, and flies aloft above the clouds. Often, too, when wind is near, you will see stars shooting headlong from the sky, with long trails of flame behind them, glimmering white through the blackness of night; often you will see light chaff and fallen leaves flying about, and films of gossamer in sportive conjunction floating on the water's brim. But when from the quarter of the savage North come lightnings, and thunder rolls through the halls of the East and the West, every field is flooded from the dyke's overflow, and every sailor afloat furls his dripping sails. Never man was surprised by rain at unawares. He might either

have seen the cranes dropping from the sky to the depths of the valley, to shelter themselves from it as it rises, or the heifer turning its face to heaven, and sniffing up the air with its broad nostrils, or the swallow flying twitteringly round and round the pool, and the frogs sitting in the slime, and singing their old complaining note. Often, too, the ant is seen carrying its eggs out of its secret cells along that narrow well-worn path, and the great rainbow drinking, and the army of rooks, as it draws off from its pasture in long column, crying and flapping its serried wings. Again, the tribes of sea-birds, and such as dig for treasure far and wide in the Asian meads among Cayster's sweet waters, may be observed in rivalry with each other, pouring showers of spray over their backs, now presenting their heads to the waves, now running into the sea, rejoicing, as it were, in the mere aimless delight of bathing. Then the raven, in her deep tones, like an ill spirit, calls down the rain, and stalks in stately solitude along the dry sea sand: Even at night, maidens at their tasks can still tell stormy weather, when in the blazing lamp they see the oil sputter, and fungus clots form round the wick.

Not less sure are the signs by which to foresee and learn a change from rain to sunshine and clear open sky. Then there is no bluntness about the edge of the stars, nor does the moon seem to rise in deep debt to her brother's light, nor are thin fleeces of wool seen to float over the sky.

Nor do the Halcyons, whom the sea-goddess loves, stand on the shore, spreading their wings to the warm sun; nor does it occur to the uncleanly swine to toss in their snouts loosened wisps of hay. But the clouds fly lower and stretch themselves along the plain, and as she watches the sunset on her tower, the owl, all for nothing, keeps plying her weary task of song. Nisus is seen soaring in the clear sky, while Scylla suffers vengeance for the purple ringlet. Wherever her flying wings

cut through the thin ether, see there is Nisus, her savage foe, with a mighty sound chasing her through the air. Where Nisus flies up into the air there is she, with her flying wings cutting scuddingly through the thin ether. Then the rooks, narrowing their throats, utter a clear note, three or four times over, and repeatedly in their nests on the tree top, moved by some mysterious ecstasy beyond their wont, make a chatter among the leaves for pleasure belike, when the rain is over, at seeing their young and their own dear nests again. Not, if I may judge, that Heaven has given them any spark of wit like ours, or Fate any deeper insight into things, but that when the weather and the fitful moisture of the sky has changed its course, and the god of the air with his wet gales. from the south condenses particles, which ere-while were thin, and releases what was dense, there is a change in the phases of their life, and movements rise in their breasts, unlike those they felt while the wind was gathering the clouds. There lies the secret of the birds' rural chorus, and the ecstasy of the cattle, and the rook's triumphant paan. ab

But if you will watch the whirling sun and the array of the moons, the morrow will never play you false, nor will you fall into the snare set by a clear night. When the moon is first mustering her rallied fires, if her horns are dull, with dark atmosphere between, there will be a mighty storm brewing for farming-men and sea. But if her face should be suffused with a maiden blush, then there will be wind: the approach of wind ever flushes the cheek of golden Phoebe. But if, on her fourth rising, for that is your safest counsellor, she shall sail through the sky clear, and with unblunted horn, then that whole day, aye, and the days which shall be born from it to the month's end, shall be untroubled by rain or wind, and seamen safely landed shall pay their vows on the beach to Glaucus and Panopea, and Ino's darling, Melicerta.

The sun, too, alike when rising and when going under the wave, will give you tokens: no train of tokens is surer than the sun's, those which attend his morning return, and those which recur with the rising stars. For him, when you find him flecking his infant dawn with spots, buried in a cloud, and shrinking from the middle of his disk, beware of showers: for there is looming overhead a south wind, foe to tree, and crop, and cattle. Again, when at daybreak his rays come shivered and scattered through a thick mass of cloud, or when Aurora rises pale from Tithonus' saffron bed, alas, the vine branch that day will be a poor shelter to your ripe grapes, so pelting are the spokes of hail that bound and crackle on your roof. This warning, too, it will serve you more to bear in mind when he has finished his course, and is quitting the sky, for then we often see various hues wandering over his countenance the dusky portends rain, the fiery-red east winds; but if dark spots and red fire begin to blend, then you will see the whole firmament in one fierce turmoil of wind and stormcloud. Let no one advise me to take a journey on the sea that night, or pluck the cable from the shore. But if both when he restores the day, and when he hides away again the restored treasure, his disk is bright, your alarms of storm-clouds will be vain, and you will see the woods swaying to and fro in a clear north wind.

In short, the secrets which evening carries on his wing, the quarter whence a fair wind will blow to drive away the clouds, the hidden purposes of the rainy South, of all these the Sun will give you prognostics. The Sun-who will dare to call him untrue? Nay, he it is who often betrays the stealthy approach of battle alarms, the heavings of treason and concealed rebellion. Nay, he it was that had compassion for Rome at her Cæsar's death, when he veiled his shining head with a gloom of iron-grey, and a godless world was afraid of