PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN. BY SAMUEL WARREN, F. R. S. AUTHOR OF "TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR." COPYRIGHT Edition. SECOND SERIES. LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1844. In the summer of 18-, London was visited by one of the most tremendous thunder-storms that have been known in this climate. Its character and effects some of which latter form the subject of this chapter will make me remember it to the latest hour of my life. There was something portentous -a still, surcharged air about the whole of Tuesday the 10th of July, 18—, as though nature were trembling and cowering beneath a common shock. In the exquisite language of one of our old dramatists,** there seemed "A calm Before a tempest, when the gentle air For that she fears steals on to ravish her." From about eleven o'clock at noon the sky wore a lurid threatening aspect that shot awe into the beholder; suggesting to startled * This is a narrative · for obvious reasons somewhat varied in circumstances of a lamentable occurrence in the author's family. About fourteen years ago, a very beautiful girl, eighteen years old, terrified at a violent thunder-storm, rushed into a cellar to escape, as she thought, from the danger, and was found there in the state described in the text. She died four days afterwards. Diary of a Physician. II. ** Marlow. 1 |