Besides the subjects already noticed, the old news-writers delighted in signs and portents in the air, and failed not to improve the occasion whenever they met with a text so much to their liking. There was a fall of meteorites in 1628, which was chronicled at the time in an illustrated pamphlet, entitled, ‘Looke up and See Wonders: a miraculous Apparition in the Ayre, lately seen in Barke-shire, at Bawlkin Greene, neere Hatford, April 9th, 1628.’ The author, like his fellow-chroniclers, already quoted, regards the occurrence as a sign of Heaven’s displeasure, and addresses his readers thus:—‘So Benummed wee are in our Sences, that albeit God himselfe Holla in our Eares, wee by our wills are loath to heare him. His dreadfull Pursiuants of Thunder and Lightning terrifie vs so long as they haue vs in their fingers, but beeing off, wee dance and sing in the midst of our Follies.’ He then goes on to tell how ‘the foure great quarter-masters of the World (the foure Elements) ... haue bin in ciuill Warres one against another.... As for Fire, it hath denied of late to warme vs, but at vnreasonable rates, and extreame hard conditions. But what talke I of this earthy nourishment of fire? How haue the Fires of Heauen (some few yeares past) gone beyond their bounds, and appeared in the shapes of Comets and Blazing Starres?... The Aire is the shop of Thunder and Lightning. In that, hath of late been held a Muster of terrible enemies and threatners of Vengeance, which the great Generall of the Field who Conducts and Commands all such Armies (God Almighty, I meane) auert from our Kingdome, and shoote the arrowes of his indignation some other way, vpon the bosomes of those that would confound his Gospell.... Many windowes hath he set open in heauen, to shewe what Artillery hee has lying there, and many of our Kings haue trembled, when they were shewne vnto them. What blazing Starres (euen at Noone-dayes) in those times hung houering in the Aire? How many frightfull Ecclipses both of Sun and Moone?... It is not for man to dispute with God, why he has done this so often ... but, with feare and trembling casting our eyes vp to Heauen, let vs now behold him, bending his Fist onely, as lately he did to the terrour and affrightment of all the Inhabitants dwelling within a Towne in the County of Barkshire.... The name of the Towne is Hatford, some eight miles from Oxford. Ouer this Towne, vpon Wensday being the ninth of this instant Moneth of April, 1628, about fiue of the clocke in the afternoone this miraculous, prodigious and fearefull handy-worke of God was presented.... The weather was warme, and without any great shewe of distemperature, only the skye waxed by degrees a little gloomy, yet not so darkened but that the Sunne still and anon, by the power of the brightnesse, brake through the thicke clouds....

‘A gentle gale of wind then blowing from betweene the West and North-west, in an instant was heard, first a hideous rumbling in the Ayre, and presently after followed a strange and fearfull peale of Thunder, running vp and downe these parts of the Countrey, but it strake with the loudest violence, and more furious tearing of the Ayre, about a place called The White Horse Hill, than in any other. The whole order of this thunder, carried a kind of Maiesticall state with it, for it maintayned (to the affrighted Beholders’ seeming) the fashion of a fought Battaile.

‘It beganne thus: First, for an onset, went off one great Cannon as it were of thunder alone, like a warning peece to the rest that were to follow. Then a little while after was heard a second; and so by degrees a third, vntil the number of 20 were discharged (or thereabouts) in very good order, though in very great terror.

‘In some little distance of time after this was audibly heard the sound of a Drum beating a Retreate. Amongst all these angry peales shot off from Heauen, this begat a wonderful admiration, that at the end of the report of every cracke, or Cannon-thundering, a hizzing noyse made way through the Ayre, not vnlike the flying of Bullets from the mouthes of great Ordnance; and by the iudgement of all the terror-stricken witnesses they were Thunder-bolts. For one of them was seene by many people to fall at a place called Bawlkin Greene, being a mile and a half from Hatford: Which Thunder-bolt was by one Mistris Greene caused to be digged out of the ground, she being an eye-witnesse amongst many others, of the manner of the falling.

‘The forme of the Stone is three-square, and picked in the end: In colour outwardly blackish, some-what like Iron: Crusted ouer with that blacknesse about the thicknesse of a shilling. Within it is soft, of a grey colour, mixed with some kind of minerall, shining like small peeces of glasse.

‘This Stone brake in the fal: The whole peece is in weight nineteene pound and a halfe: The greater peece that fell off weigheth fiue pound, which with other small peeces being put together, make foure and twenty pound and better....

‘It is in the Countrey credibly reported that some other Thunder-stones haue bin found in other places: but for certainty there was one taken vp at Letcombe, and is now in the custody of the Shriefe.’

This curious account is illustrated with a quaint woodcut, in the foreground of which the thunder-bolt seen by Mistress Green is being ‘digged out of the ground.’

FALL OF METEORS AT BAWLKIN GREEN, BERKSHIRE, APRIL 9, 1628.

Amongst the many publications relating to the victorious career of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, there was one entitled the Swedish Intelligencer, printed at London, in 1632, for Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas Bourne, both of them names associated with the first establishment of newspapers in England. The Swedish Intelligencer gives very full accounts of the exploits of Gustavus, and it is illustrated with his portrait, a bird’s-eye view of the siege of Magdeburg, a plan showing how the King of Sweden and his army crossed the river Lech into Bavaria, and a plan or bird’s-eye view of the battle of Lutzen, where Gustavus was killed. The portrait, the siege of Magdeburg, and the battle of Lutzen, are engraved on copper, but the passage of the Lech is a woodcut. I have copied the latter, the others being too elaborate for reproduction on a reduced scale. The three last named are very curious as illustrations of war news. Gustavus had crossed the Danube, and his troops overspread the country between that river and the river Lech. Field Marshal Tilly was in front of him, waiting for reinforcements from the army of Wallenstein, in Bohemia, and the junction of fresh levies raised in Bavaria, with which he hoped to drive the invaders back across the Danube. The account in the Swedish Intelligencer of this celebrated passage of the River Lech is too long for quotation, but I give a condensed version of the circumstances from other sources.