“Saint Swithin’s-day, gif ye do rain, For forty days it will remain; Saint Swithin’s-day, an ye be fair, For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.” This superstition originated with Swithin, or Swithum, bishop of Winchester, who died in the year 868. He desired that he might be buried in the open churchyard, “where the drops of rain might wet his grave;” “thinking,” says Bishop Hall, “that no vault was so good to cover his grave as that of heaven.” But when Swithin was canonized the monks resolved to remove his body into the choir of the church. According to tradition, this was to have been done on the 15th of July; but it rained so violently for forty days that the design was abandoned. Mr. Howard remarks, that the tradition is so far valuable, as it proves that the summers in the southern part of our island were subject, a thousand years ago, to occasional heavy rains, in the same way as at present. This accurate observer has endeavoured to ascertain how far the popular notion is borne out by the fact. In 1807 and 1808, it rained on St. Swithin’s-day, and a dry season followed. In 1818 and 1819, it was dry on the 15th, and a very dry season followed. The other summers, occurring between 1807 and 1819, seem to show, “that in a majority of our summers, a showery period which, with some latitude as to time and local circumstances, may be admitted to constitute daily rain for forty days, does come on about the time indicated by the tradition of St. Swithin.” But in these calculations, it is necessary to bear in mind that the change of style has very much interfered with St. Swithin. With the day allowed in the closing year of the last century, St. Swithin’s day is how thirteen days earlier in the calendar than it would have been by the old style. Thus the true St. Swithin’s-day, according to the tradition, is about the 28th of July, and not the 15th, as set down in the present calendar. There must, therefore, be a considerable difference as to the rains and this day. We now proceed to collect a number of prognostics connected with the appearances of the heavenly bodies and of the sky; they are the result of long experience, but at the same time it is necessary to caution our readers against attaching much importance to them.