Broadsides; Chapbooks; Street literature -- Great Britain
above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant my eyes may
never behold the like, now seeing above ten thousand houses all in one
flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames,
the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of
towers, houses, and churches, was like a hideous storm, and the air all
about so hot and inflamed that at last one was not able to approach it,
so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on,
which they did for near two miles in length and one in breadth. The
clouds of smoke were dismal and reached upon computation near fifty
miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoon burning, a resemblance
of Sodom, or the last day--London was, but is no more!
H. Jones, Printer, Smith Street, London.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE FATAL THUNDERSTORM,
Which happened in these parts, and the
SINGULAR DREAM OF A YOUNG MAN,
Well known in this Neighbourhood.
On the first day of this month there was a dreadful storm of thunder
and lightning in these parts. Its most fatal effects occurred about
three miles from this town. There was a young shepherd, about
twenty-three years of age, who had always entertained a remarkable
dread of such storms; on that day, as it began to grow cloudy, his
mother would have dissuaded him from going out, but he said he must
go, as certain of his sheep absolutely required his attendance. This
was agreeable to a tenderness of temper which, from his childhood,
had been remarkable in his character. Quickly after he got into the
fields, the storm arose; he was then in an open valley of greensward,
and upon the neighbouring land there were two places of shelter equally
distant; the one a stack of beans where some men were employed in
thrashing, the other a rick of hay where nobody was. Humanly speaking,
his life depended upon the choice he made between these two places,
and he unhappily chose the rick. Quickly after, the thrashers at a
small distance saw it take fire! They immediately ran to extinguish it,
which they did without any great difficulty, as stacked hay burns but
slowly; but they found the shepherd dead! His heels were stuck up, and
his back rested against a part of the rick which had not been on fire.
On a more careful examination, they found that his coat was singed on
the right shoulder; his waistcoat did not appear to be burnt; but his
shirt was reduced to tinder, not only on the shoulder, but all over the
back. The skin under it appeared a little blistered, but the flesh not
at all torn. His right leg was blistered round the outer ankle, and
his shoe-buckle shattered almost to perfect powder. There was no wound
on any part of the body which could be thought the cause of his death.
About a month before this accident he told his mother a dream which
struck deeply upon his imagination for a considerable time. He said he
fancied himself surprised by a storm of thunder, and that he fled for
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