104 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1733 



intelligent letter from Williainscot. Poor Mrs. Etty has 

 been a great sufferer both in mind and body, having paid 

 a long attendance on her son Andrew, who languished from 

 spring to midsummer, and then dyed of a slow decay. What 

 added to the affliction was, that Miss Charles Etty* was lying 

 all the while under the same circumstances at Winchester, 

 and dying first, was brought to this place; so that I had 

 the sorrowful office of burying these two young people, the 

 one on one Saturday, and the other on the following. 

 Charles Etty has not been heard of since he sailed for India 

 in March; but the papers mention the Duke of Kingston 

 (his ship) having called at the Cape Verds in April, all well. 

 We have experienced a long summer, with intense heats, 

 little rain, and no storms. But what has been very extra- 

 ordinary, was the long -continued haze^ extending through 

 this island, and, I think, through Europe, attended with 

 vast honey-dews, which destroyed all our hops, and lasted 

 more than a month. Through this rusty coloured air, the 

 sun, "shorn of his beams," appeared like the moon, even 

 at noonday. The country people looked with a kind of 

 superstitious awe on the red lowering aspect of the great 

 luminary, " Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit." 

 And I have no doubt, but that the unusual look of the sky 

 at Caesar's death, mentioned both by historians and poets, 

 was somewhat of the same kind.f As I love to trace 

 natural appearances, I desire to know if you saw a very 

 large luminous meteor traversing the sky from N.W. to S.W. 

 on Monday even Aug. 18th about 9 o'clock. Pray hunt for 

 star-sluch, because several intelligent people, one at present 



* i.e. daughter of Charles, elder brother of the Rev. Andrew Etty. 



t Henry White of Fyfield records in his Journal at this time — 



" 1783, 17th July. The sun sinks away every day into y® blue mist about 

 5 p.m., and seems to set behind vast clouds. 



" 19th. Air seems clearer from y^ late blue thickness, which has been so 

 very remarkable that the superstitious vulgar in town and country have 

 abounded with the most direful presages and prognostications." 



