THE EARTH. 319 



Wherever it came, every plantation fell before it ; 

 it tore up the ground, split great oaks, and other 

 trees, without number ; the fields of rye were cut 

 down, as if levelled with a scythe ; wheat, oats, 

 and barley, suffered the same damage. The in- 

 habitants found but a precarious shelter even in 

 their houses, their tiles and windows being broke 

 by the violence of the hail-stones, which, by the 

 force with which they came, seemed to have des- 

 cended from a great height. The birds, in this, 

 universal wreck, vainly tried to escape by flight ; 

 pigeons, crows, rooks, and many more of the 

 smaller and feebler kinds, were brought down. 

 An unhappy young man, who had not time to 

 take shelter, was killed ; one of his eyes was 

 struck out of his head, and his body was all over 

 black with the bruises : another had just time to- 

 escape, but not without the most imminent dan- 

 ger, his body being bruised all over. But what 

 is most extraordinary, all this fell within the com- 

 pass of a mile. 



Mezeray, in his history of France, tells us of a 

 shower of hail much more terrible, which hap- 

 pened in the year 1510, when the French monarch 

 invaded Italy. There was, for a time, a horrid 

 darkness, thicker than that of midnight, which 

 continued till the terrors of mankind were chang- 

 ed to still more terrible objects, by thunder and 

 lightning breaking the gloom, and bringing on 

 such a shower of hail, as no histoiy of human 

 calamities could equal. These hailstones were 

 of a bluish colour; and some of them weighed 

 not less than a hundred pounds. A noisome 



56 



