330 THUNDER STORMS. 



the sun, in his first book of Paradise Lost, frequently 

 occurred to my mind ; and it is indeed particularly 

 applicable, because, towards the end, it alludes to a 

 superstitious kind of dread, with which the minds of 

 men are always impressed by such strange and un- 

 usual phenomena : 



" As when the sun, new risen, 



Looks through the horizontal, misty air, 

 Shorn of his beams; or, from behind the moon, 

 In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 

 : .. On half the nations, and with fear of change 

 Perplexes monarchs." 



LETTER CX. 



TO THE SAME. 



WE are very seldom annoyed with thunder-storms ; 

 and it is no less remarkable than true, that those 

 which arise in the south have hardly been known to 

 reach this village ; for, before they get over us, they 

 take a direction to the east or to the west, or some- 

 times divide into two, and go in part to one of 

 those quarters, and in part to the other; as was 

 truly the case in summer 1783, when, though the 

 country round was continually harassed with tem- 

 pests, and often from the south, yet we escaped 

 them all ; as appears by my journal of that summer. 

 The only way that I can at all account for this fact 

 for such it is is, that on that quarter, between 

 us and the sea, there are continual mountains, hill 

 behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Burter- 

 hill, and Ports-down, which, somehow divert the 

 storms, and give them a different direction. High 

 promontories, and elevated grounds, have always 

 been observed to attract clouds, and disarm them 

 of their mischievqus contents, which are discharged 



