OF SELBORNE 253 



alludes to a superstitious kind of dread, with which the 

 minds of men are always impressed by such strange and 

 unusual phaenomena. 



" 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 LXVI 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



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 sometimes 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 tempests, 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 moun- 

 tains, hill behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser- 

 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 mischievous contents, which 

 are discharged into the trees and summits as soon as they 

 come in contact with those turbulent meteors; while the 

 humble vales escape, because they are so far beneath them. 

 But, when I say I do not remember a thunder-storm 

 from the south, I do not mean that we never have suffered 

 from thunder-storms at all; for on June 5th, 1784, the 



