On Thunderbolts. 
[December, 
7 22 
Measure for Measure , II. 2 [Isabella loq.] “ Merciful 
heaven ! thou, rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, 
splitt’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak than the soft 
myrtle.” 
Coriolanus, V. 3 [Volumnia loq . j . “ To tear with thunder 
the wide cheeks o’ the air, and yet to charge thy sulphur 
with a bolt that should but rive an oak.” 
Cymbeline, V. 4 [Jupiter loq. J . “ How dare you, ghosts, 
accuse the thunderer, whose bolt you know, sky-planted, 
batters all rebelling coasts ?” 
I would suggest that in no one of these extracts does 
Shakespeare give the reader the idea of any other adtion 
than that of an ordinary lightning stroke, or of the irre- 
sistible force that (with the utmost physical accuracy) such 
a stroke may figuratively be supposed to typify. But to 
render it more certain "that this master of the English 
tongue knew well the difference between such a stroke or 
bolt of force as I contend he has in the foregoing sentences 
been, alluding to and the material bolt of which a thunder- 
stone might convey the impression, I will now give two 
instances in which the poet actually mentions the lattei 
term. 
Cymbeline, IV. 2 [Guiderius loq.] Fear no more the 
lightning flash.” [Arviragus loq.] . “ Nor the all-dreaded 
thunderstone.” 
Julius Ccesar, I. 3 [Cassius loq. J . “And thus unbraced, 
Casca, as you see, have bar’d my bosom to the thunder- 
stone.” 
Moreover, if my researches be accurate, Shakespeare, 
throughout his Plays, only makes twelve allusions to 
strokes of lightning ; in no less than ten of these he uses 
the term thunderbolt to set forth his meaning ; and only in 
two of them does he employ the expression lightning. He 
mentions this last word altogether on fifteen occasions, of 
which eleven are in connection with the principal physical 
element of lightning, viz., light ; two are in respedt of its 
heating qualities, and two (as aforesaid) to denote the stroke 
or explosion of which lightning is usually the accompani- 
ment. 
In regard to the use of the term thunderbolt to signify a 
lightning stroke, by writers on physical science, I am 
under the impression that during the last century, and long 
after a knowledge of eledtricity had spread over the world, 
the word was by no means infrequently availed of, but at 
present I can only lay my hands on two examples. The 
