28 JANUARY. 



ward of that line, in a vast fall of snow, sweeping 

 across the country even to the shores of the Irish 

 Channel. The mails are stopped, the snow-drifts in 

 many places are stated to be twenty-five feet deep, 

 and great numbers of sheep have perished beneath 

 them, one farmer having dug out one hundred 

 and fifty in one place, all dead. Hogg, the highly- 

 gifted Ettrick Shepherd, one of the most splendid 

 specimens of the peasant-poet, has given in his 

 " Shepherd's Calendar" some exceedingly interest- 

 ing details of such events. 



The delights of the social hearth on such even- 

 ings as these, when the wild winds are howling 

 around our dwellings, dashing the snow, or hail, or 

 splashing rain against our windows, are a favourite 

 theme with poets, essayists, and writers on the 

 Seasons. And truly it is an inspiring topic. All 

 our ideas of comfort, of domestic affection, of 

 social and literary enjoyment, are combined in the 

 picture they draw of the winter fireside. How 

 often have those lines of Cowper been quoted, 

 commencing, 



Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, 

 Let fall the curtain, wheel the sofa round, 

 And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn 

 Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, 

 Which cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 

 So let us welcome peaceful evening in. 



Such is the BRITISH FIRESIDE ! and we love to 

 hear our writers speaking of its pleasures in strains 



