FROM THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.

MY WORTHY FRIEND,

1750.

I COULD not let the bearer of this go through Northampton without calling, and returning my most grateful acknowledgments for your kind and obliging letter. May the God of grace repay all those sentiments of regard for me I know I never can ;-esteem you very highly I think I must do while I live; and among those many unworthy offerings to heaven, O, that the Divine Goodness may accept but one petition that may reach you, and then how greatly will he honour me! I must just tell you that I have had two large assemblies at my house, of the Mighty, the Noble, the Wise, and the Rich, to hear the gospel by Mr. Whitfield; and I have great pleasure in telling you they all expressed a great deal in hearing him. Sometimes I do hope for dear Lord Chesterfield, and Lord Bath, Mr. Stanhope, and one of the privy council of Denmark, with a great many ladies and people of fashion, as well as of quality. I know your warm heart will rejoice at this, and your prayers will help with ours for an increase to our blessed Lord's kingdom, even among these. I am in a hurry, as it is very late. The person that brings this I think you will like in talking with, he has charge of some poor schools of mine in the country, and is a most worthy, pious, and sensible man.

My kind services to Mrs. Doddridge.

I am, sincerely, dear Sir,

Your obliged Friend,

S. HUNTINGDON.

DEAR SIR,

FROM HENRY BAKER, F. R. S.

Catherine Street, Feb. 13, 1750.

THE shortest apologies are best; and as you are, I hope, convinced of my sincere respect, I shall not waste the little time I can command in writing you the reasons of my long silence, but come directly to the purpose of this letter, which is to inquire if you felt any thing at Northampton of the earthquake* that surprised us last week in London, and to send you some account thereof.

On Thursday last, the 8th instant, as I was walking along Chancery Lane, towards Holborn, at about forty minutes past twelve at noon, people came out of several houses to their doors in great surprise, complaining of the shaking of their houses, and imputing it to the fall of some building, large timber, or other heavy body, which they imagined to have fallen at some little distance from them, and which they came out to inquire after.

When I was got into Holborn I found the people there under the same consternation, and expressing themselves

* It appears from a letter written in answer to this that at the moment of the earthquake Dr. Doddridge, who was just returned from preaching, did not observe any thing remarkable, and that if there was any such sound as that described, it was mistaken for a coach passing at the time. A female friend felt as if her heels were suddenly raised, and was near falling forward. Dr. Stonhouse felt the shock so violently that it seemed to him as if a heavy waggon had struck against the end of the house. Other observations made at Northampton tended to show that the motion was lateral.

The little damage sustained from the earthquake on this occasion may, in a great measure, be accounted for by the substantial mode of building used by our forefathers. Such a visitation at the present day would, it may be feared, be followed with dreadful consequences, as most of the heavy houses in London, the lower fronts of which have been cut away to form shops, are only supported, on that side, by short iron columns, which would immediately give way if thrown for a moment out of the perpendicular.

nearly in the same manner. Going on to Gray's Inn, many people were got together in the great square, talking about the shock they had felt, and, in particular, a lamplighter was giving an account, that being on his ladder pouring oil into a lamp, he was in great danger of falling by the unexpected shaking of the ladder. I then went to a friend's chambers under Gray's Inn library, where the shock had been so great that they thought a clock would have fallen down; and fancied, at the time, that some large box or vast heap of books had been tumbled down over head. The people in all the streets, as I returned home, were talking of this strange motion, which now every body understood to be an earthquake, and many women complained that it had made them sick, in which their fright might probably be equally concerned. On coming home, I found my own family had been no less surprised; and that Mrs. Baker had sent to the neighbours to inquire if any thing had fallen down in their houses, to occasion the shaking of mine, which she described as very violent. She sat at the time in the dining room, on the first floor next the street, and her supposition at the instant was, that one of the servants had fallen all along with great violence in a back room of the next story, had tried to get up, stumbled, and fallen down again, thereby shaking the house and making a great noise. My son was then at the Tower, where the same shock was felt, and every body was startled with the immediate apprehension of some explosion of gunpowder, of which there are great quantities. A gentleman who was sitting at a table writing, in his house in the mint in the Tower, was tossed out of his chair against the table with violence.

I inquired of many people in different streets, that by comparing their accounts I might form a better judgment, and I found them agree universally in the first supposition of the fall of some ponderous body; most said with a great

noise, but some few were not sensible of that. I endeavoured, likewise, to learn its course, and by comparing the reports of people in different situations, it seems to have lain east and west, and to have passed from the west eastward.

I felt nothing of it myself as I walked in the street, nor do I find that many who were walking did, but that I impute to the noise and shaking of the carts and coaches.

Our worthy president of the Royal Society had some gentlemen with him at his house in Queen Square, who were all surprised with something falling, as they imagined, with a great noise, and at the instant the house seemed to heave up, then to sink down again, and totter sideways, till it seemed to settle. Two coaches waiting at his door, the coachmen found themselves lifted up, and almost tumbled from their seats; other people took notice also of this rising and sinking. In Westminster Hall both the judges and pleaders thought the hall would tumble on their heads; and the judges, whose seats are contiguous to the wall, felt it shake from its foundation. Doors were opened, pewter and other things thrown down in many houses, and some chimneys fell.

This day fortnight a most extraordinary light appeared in the sky towards the south east, between six and seven in the evening, and surprised the whole town with the apprehension of a great fire; for the sky appeared of a fiery redness at the beginning, and then a line of dark red fire of about fifteen degrees in width seemed to form, which continued for some time, was then diffused, and left a remarkable lightness in the sky during the whole night after.

One cannot, I think, let such uncommon phænomena pass unheeded: if these terrors of the Almighty will not excite reflection, surely nothing will. I hope, therefore, this short account will prove acceptable, and that you will

excuse my great omissions towards you for a long time past, which I assure you have often given me uneasiness.

I have several times been thinking of the two instances you mentioned, when I saw you last, of the effect some wounds have on the jaws and nervous system, by locking up the mouth as it were, and thereby bringing on death. As such cases are very little known, and we have none of them among the many papers sent to the Royal Society, you would oblige us much by an account thereof, especially of the last case, which, happening in your own house, you can more particularly speak to; and if you shall not judge it proper to mention the gentleman's name, if you call him only a young gentleman, it will be (from you) sufficiently satisfactory.*

:

I have just received a letter from Dr. Miles, informing me that the earthquake was felt at Tooting, though not by his family it was felt pretty strongly at Greenwich, and at Darking in Kent, at Hampstead, at Kilburn, at Richford, and Kingston in Middlesex, and also at Enfield. Other places I am as yet uncertain of. A line from you

* Mr. Baker probably alludes to some circumstances which attended the death of Mr. Worcester, one of the pupils at Northampton, and of which the following account is abstracted from a letter of Dr. Doddridge's, in other respects of little interest.

Mr. Worcester was playing at football with some other students, when the ball struck against a piece of broken bone (which was sticking up in the ground) in such a way that it cut through his shoe and wounded him in the great toe. No attention was paid to the accident at first; but after a few days the wound became troublesome, and a pain arose in the chest, attended with rigors, anxiety, and fever, which proved fatal.

His death was a sudden affliction to his friends, as he had written to his father to say that he was only indisposed; but it so happened that his sister, dreaming that he was dead, felt anxious about him, and sent to inquire how he was, just at the time of his decease.

After his death a Sermon was found which he had written in five hours, to which a note was added to the effect that it might perhaps be the only one he should ever write, and that he hoped it would not be deemed presumptuous that it was written in so short a space of time.