The night was dark and stormy. The sun had set behind huge piles of dingy purple clouds, which, after losing the golden hue with which they were for awhile tinged, became sombre and menacing. The blue portions of the sky that here and there had appeared before the sunset, were now rapidly covered over with those murky clouds which are the hiding-places of the storm, and which seemed to roll themselves together in dense and compact masses, ere they commenced the elemental war. In the same manner do the earthly squadrons of cavalry and mighty columns of infantry form themselves into one collected armament, that the power of their onslaught may be the more terrific and irresistible. That canopy of dark and threatening clouds was formed over London; and a stifling heat, which there was not a breath of wind to allay or mitigate, pervaded the streets of the great metropolis. Everything portended an awful storm. In the palace of the peer and the hovel of the artisan the windows were thrown up; and at many, both men and women stood to contemplate the scene--timid children crowding behind them. The heat became more and more oppressive. At length large drops of rain fell, at intervals of two or three inches apart, upon the pavement. And then a flash of lightning, like the forked tongue of one of those fiery serpents of which we read in oriental tales of magic and enchantment, darted forth from the black clouds overhead. At an interval of a few seconds the roar of the thunder, reverberating through the arches of heaven--now sinking, now exalting its fearful tone, like the iron wheels of a chariot rolled over a road with patches of uneven pavement here and there--stunned every ear, and struck terror into many a heart--the innocent as well as the guilty. It died away, like the chariot, in the distance; and then all was solemnly still. The interval of silence which succeeds the protracted thunder-clap is appalling in the extreme. A little while--and again the lightning illuminated the entire vault above: and again the thunder, in unequal tones,--amongst which was one resembling the rattling of many vast iron bars together,--awoke every echo of the metropolis from north to south, and from east to west. This time the dread interval of silence was suddenly interrupted by the torrents of rain that now deluged the streets. There was not a breath of air; and the rain fell as perpendicularly straight as a line. But with it came a sense of freshness and of a pure atmosphere, which formed an agreeable and cheering contrast to the previously suffocating heat. It was like the spring of the oasis to the wanderer in the burning desert. But still the lightning played, and the thunder rolled, above.