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to the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleas- 

 ure. The poultry dared not to stir out of their roosting places; 

 for cocks and hens are so dazzled and confounded by the glare 

 of snow that they would soon perish without assistance. The 

 hares also lay sullenly in their seats, and would not move till 

 compelled by hunger; being conscious poor animals that 

 the drifts and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and 

 prove fatal to numbers of them. 



From the I4th the snow continued to increase, and began 

 to stop the road wagons, 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 birthday, were strangely incommoded : many car- 

 riages 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 laborers if they would shovel them a track to Lon- 

 don ; 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 favor 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, skylarks settled in the streets of towns, 

 because they saw the ground was bare; rooks frequented dung- 

 hills 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, de- 

 voured 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 singu- 

 lar appearance than the country ; for, being bedded deep in 

 snow, the pavement of the streets could not be touched by 



