We may not improperly conclude this paper with some lines which have been transmitted to us, as a production of the late Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination. We, of course, do not recommend an implicit reliance upon such _natural_ prophecies of the weather of the coming day. But, at any rate, whatever connected with this subject tends to open a man’s own eyes,--whatever excites in him the habit of observation and comparison,--is a benefit; whilst a reliance, on the contrary, on the unprincipled quackeries of the more popular almanacs which still disgrace our country, as well as every other prostration of the understanding before the shrine of ignorance, is the most deceptive of all states of the human mind, and the most likely to engender a train of other delusions which shut up the sources of real knowledge, and degrade the whole moral as well as intellectual character. SIGNS OF RAIN. Addressed by Dr. Jenner, in 1810, to a Lady who asked him if he thought it would rain to-morrow. The hollow winds begin to blow, The clouds look black, the glass is low: The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, And spiders from their cobwebs creep: Last night the sun went pale to bed, The moon in halos hid her head: The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, For see, a rainbow spans the sky; The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel; The squalid toads at dusk were seen Slowly crawling o’er the green; Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, The distant hills are looking nigh; Hark, how the chairs and tables crack, Old Betty’s joints are on the rack; And see yon rooks, how odd their flight, They imitate the gliding kite, Or seem precipitate to fall As if they felt the piercing ball; How restless are the snorting swine, The busy flies disturb the kine, Low o’er the grass the swallow wings, The cricket too, how loud she sings, Puss on the hearth with velvet paws Sits wiping o’er her whisker’d jaws:-- ’Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow, Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow. ----- Footnote 3: Every Man out of his Humour; Act iii. Scene 7. --------------------- THE BRITISH MUSEUM.--No. 4. [Illustration: The Musk-Ox.]