ning and a low peal of thunder, but I had scarcely reached my quarters, and sate down with several other visitors, at our drawingroom window, which overlooked the beach and the bay, when a torrent of fire, in apparently perpendicular descent, fell from the blackness above, and was instantaneously accompanied by an explosion of thunder that seemed to spend itself on the roof of the house, bounding, rebounding, and shaking the fabric to the foundation. I and my companions instinctively ran to the farther end of the room, covering our faces, and not knowing but that the next moment we might all meet in eternity. The alarm soon subsided, and the tempest passed away almost as hastily as it had collected; but it left a record that it had been, which I can never forget while I remember myself. The lightning the reddest, broadest, fiercest sheet of flame I ever beheld - had struck, within a few hundred yards of the house where I was sheltered, a ship on the stocks, where it killed three men, one at work on

the deck, another within the hulk, (sparing his comrade close at his side,) and a third under the bow; at the same time blinding and deranging in his senses a little boy, who was gathering chips beneath the scaffolding. The third victim of this tremendous visitation was a venerable and pious old man, belonging to the Baptist church here; when the first flash came, he had remarked to some by-standers, "God is riding in his chariot of fire to-day." It was not long (as I have ventured to say since) before the chariot descended and caught him up to the place whither Elijah was carried.

A few evenings after the aforementioned circumstance, (in 1805,) I happened to be on the parade at the Spa-House, to watch the tide going down, where, from the repercussion of the wooden walls of that humble fortification, the conflict between the waves retiring and those advancing, as they intermingle and dash each other into foam, is at all times strikingly interesting to a landsman, but on this occasion was peculiarly magni

ficent, there being a brisk gale and a heavy swell from the north-east. As the sun went down, the clouds thickened, and a sharp shower coming on, I took refuge in the SpaHouse news-room, and began to read the papers. The rain not abating so speedily as I expected, and the darkness deepening within doors and without, I began to feel anxiety respecting my escape, particularly when frequent though pale streaks of lightning, followed by the murmur of far distant thunder, illumined the horizon. The hurricane increased, and ere long it was in full march over the sea directly towards the place of my confinement, while just on the opposite side of the bay, as long as daylight continued, the skeleton-vessel, which had been recently smitten, was distinguishable from the window out of which I frequently peeped "into the mingling storm." In spite of all my resolution to maintain tranquillity, my agitation grew violent, and while my eyes ran over the columns of the journals before me, and I tried to persuade myself that I was

attentively perusing them, not a thought or a syllable remained in recollection for more than an instant. Meanwhile the twilight failed, and the tempest blackened, narrowing its space and coming down upon the deep; -the lightnings blazed nearer and brighter, -the thunders rolled louder and longer at every return. I got up and walked backward and forward, being alone in the desolate apartment, where I had remarked nothing particular but bare walls, an old table with a few chairs in one corner, and a wooden bench running along three sides. There was something else, however; and something that had motion, if not life, as I found to my no small surprize. In the midst of this alarm within and terror abroad, when my nerves were fretted to the highest excitement of morbid sensibility, a stroke it might have been a stroke of lightning - suddenly electrified my whole frame, and made me start and tremble with amazement; for it was some seconds before I was sufficiently collected to understand that it was only the stroke of a

crazy clock, stuck against the wall, at the lower end of the room, innocently announcing the hour of eight. This was a peremptory warning to quit the place, unless I meant to remain there all night, where, truly, there was nothing very tempting. I went to the door, and was looking out like a fox from his covert, when the governor of the Spa came from his house adjoining, to shut the windows of the news-room. "It is a dismal wet night, sir,” said I, ruefully eying him. "Yes," replied his excellency; " and I see you have no great coat, sir:" but as he neither offered to lend me one, nor invited me to shelter by his fire-side, I was too diffident or too stubborn to ask a favour at such a time; so buttoning myself up to the chin, I bade him good night, and ran off. As I followed the winding track of the sands to my lodgings, the storm was at its height, blowing, raining, thundering, lightning, while in the uproar of elements it seemed as though the cliffs were falling into the sea before, behind, and over my head. They