Malcolm, James Peller: First Impressions Or Sketches from Art and Nature, Animate and Inanimate (London, 1807)

LANTHONY. 151
darkness and aweful silence. The monk faints with
languor and heat within his habit, and is seen,
ivith the cowl thrown back, and moving lips, in
mental ejaculation. At length, the hour for
vespers is announced from the tower; the brethren
advance to the choir, the village mother collects
her osfspring, and the sather proceeds through the
vale, anxioussy assembling his various animals;
which he hurries to their stables and hovels,
where he immediately secures them from the
impending slorm'; himself the last in care. See
the wild scene deserted, the lightning prepared to
bursl from its restraint, the winds ready to rage,
the torrent to descend ; yet a dead calm. In an
intrant the ear is saluted by a distant sound, that
chills the hearer with unutterable dread ; a hoarse
murmur, accompanied by a shrill swell, dies upon
the organ of hearing ; then, increasing, he sees
the effects approach him in the bowing trees,
which are twirled spirally to their roots, and their
branches almost sweep the earth. He withdraws,
and a flood of water beats upon the roof and
windows.
Let us now enter the choir of the Priory.
There the tapers burn, and the monks channt
with threesold earnestness and devotion ; the mu-
iick of the Tervice in soft notes caught the ear;
but the beating of the rain, and the wind howling
along the aiies, and rending the leaves before
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