234 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



occasion Milton's noble simile of 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 unusual phaenomena. 



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/^ar of change. 



' Perplexes monarchs. 1 " 



LETTER LXVI. 



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 

 sometimes divide into two, and go in part to one of those quar- 

 ters, 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 some how 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 thermometer in the 



Annual Register for 1783. Hamilton estimates the loss of life at 40,000. An 

 " island just risen out of the ocean near Iceland " is mentioned in the Gentleman s 

 Magazine for April, 1783, and in the Annual Register for the same year.] 



1 [Paradise Lost, L, 594.] 



