t with respect
to the other sense, I am, at times, disabled:

"And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."

LETTER XXIII.

SELBORNE, _June_ 8_th_, 1775.

Dear Sir,--On September 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and intent on
field-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I came into the
enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with
a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew
hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed, as it
were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another. When
the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked
that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the
incumbrances from their faces with their fore-feet, so that, finding my
sport interrupted, I returned home musing in my mind on the oddness of
the occurrence.

As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, and the day
turned out one of those most lovely ones which no season but the autumn
produces; cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the South of France
itself.

About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention, a
shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing,
without any interruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not
single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but perfect
flakes or rags; some near an inch broad, and five or six long, which fell
with a degree of velocity that showed they were considerably heavier than
the atmosphere.

On every side as the observer turned his eyes might he behold a continual
succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like
stars as they turned their sides towards the sun.

How far this wonderful shower extended would be difficult to say; but we
know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, and Alresford, three places which
lie in a sort of a triangle, the shortest of whose sides is about eight
miles in extent.

At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for whose veracity
and intelligent turn we have the greatest veneration) who observed it the
moment he got abroad; but concluded that, as soon as he came upon the
hill above his house, where he took his morning rides, he should be
higher than this meteor which he imagined might have been blown, like
thistledown, from the common above; but, to his great astonishment, when
he rode to the most elevated pa