290 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



kind of dread, with which the minds of men are always impressed 

 l>y such strange and unusual phenomena. 



1 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 HONOURABLE DAINES BARRIXGTOX. 



A\ 7 E are very seldom annoyed with thunderstorms ; 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 the 

 summer of 1783, when, though the country round was continu- 

 ally harassed with tempests, and often from the south ; yet 

 we escaped them all, as appears by my journal of that summer. 1 

 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 

 ISatnet, 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 



1 Storms. To this awful summer of 1783, Cowper also alludes in his 

 ' ; Task," book ii. p. 41. 



A world that seems 



To toll the death-bell of its owu decease ; 

 And by the voice of all the elements 

 To preach the general doom." 



