278 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



From the i4th the snow continued to increase, and began to 

 stop the road waggons, and coaches, which could no longer keep 

 on their regular stages ; and especially on the western roads, 

 where the fall appears to have been deeper than in the south. 

 The company at .Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birth- 

 day, were strangely incommoded : many carriages of persons, who 

 got in their way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, after 

 strange embarrassments, here met with a ne plus ultra. The ladies 

 fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they would shovel 

 them a track to London ; but the relentless heaps of snow were 

 too bulky to be removed; and so the i8th passed over, leaving 

 the company in very uncomfortable circumstances at the Castle 

 and other inns. 



On the 2oth the sun shone out for the first time since the frost 

 began ; a circumstance that has been remarked before much in 

 favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not very intense, 

 for the thermometer stood at 29, 28, 25, and thereabout; but 

 on the 2ist it descended to 20. The birds now began to be in 

 a very pitiable and starving condition. Tamed by the season, 

 sky-larks settled in the streets of towns, because they saw the 

 ground was bare ; rooks frequented dunghills close to houses ; and 

 crows watched horses as they passed, and greedily devoured what 

 dropped from them : hares now came into men's gardens, and, 

 scraping away the snow, devoured such plants as they could find. 



On the 22nd the author had occasion to go to London through 

 a sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. But 

 the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appearance 

 than the country ; for, being bedded deep in snow, the pavement 

 of the streets could not be touched by the wheels or the horse's 

 feet, so that the carriages ran about without the least noise."' Such 

 an exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant ; 

 it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation : 



" Ipsa silentia terrent." 



On the 2yth much snow fell all day, and in the evening the 

 frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four 

 following nights, the thermometer fell to 11, 7, 6, 6; and a 



