_(For the Mirror.)_
Like a low-hung cloud, _it rains so fast_,
That all at once it falls.--DRYDEN.
There are two English proverbs relative to rain; the first is, "_It
rains by Planets._" "This the country people (says Ray) use when it
rains in one place and not in another; meaning that the showers are
governed by planets, which being erratic in their own motions, cause
such uncertain wandering of clouds and falls of rain. Or it rains by
planets--that is, the falls of showers are as uncertain, as the motions
of the planets are imagined to be." The second--"_It never rains but it
pours:_" which appears to be the case at present. In the year 553 it
rained violently in Scotland for five months; in 918 there was a
continual rain in that country for five months; a violent one in London
1222; again 1233, so violent that the harvest did not begin till
Michaelmas; 1338, from Midsummer to Christmas, so that there was not one
day or night dry together; in Wales, which destroyed 10,000 sheep,
September 19th 1752; in Languedoc, which destroyed the village of Bar le
Due, April 26th, 1776; and in the Island of Cuba, on the 21st of June,
1791, 3,000 persons and 11,700 cattle of various kinds perished by the
torrents occasioned by the rains.