the flash that melts the ball.

These verses she acknowledged in a letter which, written while on the
homeward path, she sent from Dover, where she arrived at the beginning
of November.

"I have this minute received a letter of yours, sent me from Paris. I
believe and hope I shall very soon see both you and Mr. Congreve; but as
I am here in an inn, where we stay to regulate our march to London, bag
and baggage, I shall employ some of my leisure time in answering that
part of yours that seems to require an answer.

"I must applaud your good nature, in supposing that your pastoral lovers
(vulgarly called haymakers) would have lived in everlasting joy and
harmony, if the lightning had not interrupted their scheme of happiness.
I see no reason to imagine that John Hughes and Sarah Drew were either
wiser or more virtuous than their neighbours. That a well-set man of
twenty five should have a fancy to marry a brown woman of eighteen, is
nothing marvellous; and I cannot help thinking, that, had they married,
their lives would have passed in the common track with their fellow
parishioners. His endeavouring to shield her from the storm, was a
natural action, and what he would have certainly done for his horse, if
he had been in the same situation. Neither am I of opinion, that their
sudden death was a reward of their mutual virtue. You know the Jews were
reproved for thinking a village destroyed by fire more wicked than those
that had escaped the thunder. Time and chance happen to all men. Since
you desire me to try my skill in an epitaph, I think the following lines
perhaps more just, though not so poetical as yours:

Here lies John Hughes and Sarah Drew;
Perhaps you'll say, what's that to you?
Believe me, friend, much may be said
On this poor couple that are dead.
On Sunday next they should have married;
But see how oddly things are carried!
On Thursday last it rain'd and lighten'd;
These tender lovers, sadly frighten'd,
Shelter'd beneath the cocking hay,
In hopes to pass the storm away;
But the bold thunder found them out
(Commissioned for that end, no doubt),
And, seizing on their trembling breath,
Consign'd them to the shades of death.
Who knows if 'twas not kindly done?
For had they seen the next year's sun,
A beaten wife and cuckold swain
Had jointly curs'd the marriage chain;
Now they are happy in their doom,
For P. has wrote upon their tomb.

"I confess, these senti