"And toss'd with storms, with flaws, with wind, with weather."
And Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Pilgrim:—
"What flaws, and whirles of weather,
Or rather storms, have been aloft these three days."
Shakspeare followed the popular meteorology of his time, as will appear from the following passage from a little ephemeris then very frequently reprinted:—
"De Repentinis Ventis.
"8. Typhon, Plinio, Vortex, aliis Turbo, et vibratus Ecnephias, de nube gelida (ut dictum est) abruptum aliquid sæpe numero secum voluit, ruinamque suam illo pondere aggravat: quem repentinum flatum à nube prope terram et mare depulsum, definuerunt quidam, ubi in gyros rotatur, et proxima (ut monuimus) verrit, suáque vi sursum raptat."—MIZALDUS, Ephemeridis Æris Perpetuus: seu Rustica tempestatum Astrologia, 12º Lutet. 1584.
I have sometimes thought that Shakspeare may have written:—
"As flaws congested in the spring of day."
It is an easy thing to have printed congealed for that word, and congest occurs in A Lover's Complaint. Still I think change unnecessary.
Has the assertion made in An Answer to Mr. Pope's Preface to Shakspeare, by a Strolling Player, 1729, respecting the destruction of the poet's MSS. papers, been ever verified? If that account is authentic, it will explain the singular dearth of all autograph remains of one who must have written so much. As the pamphlet is not common, I transcribe the essential passage:—