ILL OMENS. 249 



upon that event was an amazing and portentous one ; 

 there were alarmino- meteors and tremendous thunder- 

 storms ; for many weeks of June, July, and August, 

 the sun was clouded over with a smoky fog, that 

 proceeded from whatever quarter the wind blew ; 

 the sun when it rose and set was lurid and blood- 

 coloured. This phenomenon prevailed over the whole 

 of Europe ; people looked with superstitious awe upon 

 this singular twilight." To Englishmen, particularly 

 sensitive to meteorological influences, having lost 

 America, they became fully convinced that their 

 country was ruined ; to those of the French, who had 

 time to think amidst the terror and confusion which 

 everywhere prevailed during the Revolution, this 

 peculiar phenomenon must have appeared as though 

 it were an indication of the anger of Heaven, and of 

 the vengeance that would overtake those that had 

 brought their country to such a terrible pass. 



As regards England, the money she spent in losing 

 America, she afterwards succeeded in replacing in 

 her exhausted treasury. The prevailing notion during 

 the greater part of the reign of George III. was that 

 England was in its declination, and these ideas were 

 supplemented by positive assertions that her popu- 

 lation was decreasing, and would go on doing so 

 indefinitely ; but this is proved never to have been 

 the case ; in fact, if it had been the case, it might, 

 in a manner, have benefited the State, by re- 

 lieving it of its surplus population, for whom 

 there was no employment. Oliver Goldsmith 



admits that the depopulation which he deplores in 

 his wonderful poem, the " Deserted Village," was 

 nowhere to be seen in reality. In my previous 

 chapters I have given a parody on this poem, and 



