[ 130 ] [FEB. 



A FROST IN LONDON. 



A FROST in London ! What a miscellany of absurd mischances, 

 what lavish materials for laughter and description are comprised in these 

 words ! Every quarter of London abounds in food for cachinnation. 

 Let me extract a few " Random Records." In the more fashionable 

 streets, where the quick, bustling step of business is little, if at all, 

 known, the pavement on either side (for I am supposing a strenuous 

 frost ushered in by its usual herald, a snow-storm) is one mass of dark 

 glossy ice, which the trim dandy eyes with a ludicrous misgiving, as if 

 but to look, were to tumble. Should he wear stays, his trepidation 

 deepens into paralysis. Hard by the squares, close underneath whose 

 rails, a mass of drifted snow lies couched, some five or six urchins are 

 busy manufacturing snow-balls, one of which, destined for the sconce of 

 a fellow idler, wears away on the wrong tack, and drives bump ashore 

 against the midriff of a fat man in spectacles. On the Serpentine, a 

 prepossessing young skaiter, whose first year of shaving will not expire 

 till March, inspired by the manifest admiration of a group of lovely 

 girls, resolves for once to outdo himself, but, alas ! in rounding the loop 

 of the Figure of Three, he loses his equilibrium, changes abruptly from 

 the perpendicular to the horizontal, and cuts one figure more than he 

 had anticipated. Close beside him stands a determined wag, who over- 

 powered by his sense of the ridiculous, misses his footing, and plunges 

 into an adjacent hole, and finishes his laugh three feet beneath the sur- 

 face of the ice. It is to be hoped that he will be drowned, as the in- 

 terest of his situation will be materially improved thereby. In Sloane- 

 gtreet, which the " nipping blasts" scour from one end to the other, like 

 Cossacks on a foraging party, Number 179, in venturing forth to visit 

 Number 98, meets with Number 82 First Floor Furnished, with a thin 

 blueish tinge at the tip of her nose. Neither ladies have been conscious 

 of the existence of hands or feet for the last ten minutes. Their tongues 

 however, it is gratifying to add, are still in high condition. Through- 

 out the east-end, every third plebeian's digits are deep " embowelled" in 

 his pockets : the Hounsditch Israelites, with their stiff frozen beards, 

 look like itinerant statues of .^Esculapius : and the driver of the hackney 

 coach, which stands next the airy regions of Finsbury-square, is a petri- 

 faction from the waist downwards. At Bishopsgate Within, Miss A , 

 the Venus of the ward, who has been asked thrice in church, cannot 

 become one flesh with Mr. B , the Apollo of Farringdon Without, till 

 the huge chilblain, on the fourth finger of her left hand, has become 

 sufficiently thawed to permit the passage of the wedding ring. Her 

 opinion of the frost is, in consequence, far from disinterested. At the 

 Horse Guards, the two mounted sentries look ossified and hopeless, for 

 an indefatigable north-east wind is momently assimilating their condition 

 to that of Lot's wife. In turning up from Guildford-street into Russell- 

 square, an intelligent, serious looking gentleman comes into hasty and 

 unexpected collision with another, equally intelligent, at the edge of a 

 long slide. The consequences are obvious. Both plunge to earth, and 

 (wonderful to relate) the same oath, given out in a bold bravura style, 

 mellowed by a slight touch of the plaintive like the Jeremiads of the 

 Poor Gardeners bursts at the same moment from the lips of both. On 

 comparing damages, one gentleman finds that he has split his new black 

 shorts ; the other, that he has staved in the crown of his best hat. In 



