LETTER LXV 



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 in two, 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. 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 A r ore-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 

 thermometer in the morning being at 64, and at noon at 

 70, the barometer at 29.6^, and the wind north, I observed 



1 To this awful summer of 1783 Cowper also alludes in his " Task," Book II., 

 p. 41. See Harting's ed., " Selborne," p. 312, note. [R. B. S.] 



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