Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. 325
School dialogues, of a varied character, intervene, but enveloped as they are in the shadows of the past, they present
a confused and misty appearance. Among other passengers
of less note, Queen Zenobia, with a train of attendants,
appears in one of them. The performance concludes with
an entire two-act play, entitled the " Military School " very
well done, but the special life of the piece is i Old Pipes,"
a decayed soldier with a crutch and a wooden leg, who,
perpetually smoking, perfumes the room-not with tobacco
smoke, but the more agreeable odor of pennyroyal. Exeunt
omnes-the curtiain falls,
The scene changes now to a day in summer. The rain
that commenced early in the morning has increased in violence, until school-house hill is a fair sized cataract, and the
street at its base a running river. Mringled with the deluge
of the watery element, are thunder and lightning so terrifio
and oft-repeated, that the more youthful pupils hide in terror
beneath their desks. At last there com.es a shock more
terrible than all that preceded it-like a broadside from
Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar, or the Allies.' fire at S;ebastopol.
The room is filled with sparks, and without the whole atmosphere seems a blaze of fire. When it has passed,
revealing faces livid with affright, the stillness of death
succeeds, for simultaneous with the last great shock, the
rain has almost instantly ceased, and teacher and pupils
rushing out of doors, discover that the belfry has been
shattered to fragments, one of the chimneys rent asunder,
and the bricks scattered upon the roof and the ground
below. Looking in the direction of the residence of William Jones, Esq. they see that one of the chimneys has
entirely disappeared, and the windows of the first floor are
in a sadly damaged condition. A man in the door of
Wiggin & Story's grocery, at the corner of State and
Penhallow streets, is telling some people that while standing in that position a few minutes before he saw in the air