SEVERE FROSTS. 251 



On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad; and 

 thinks he never before or since has encountered such rugged 

 Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were now filled 

 above the tops of the hedges ; through which the snow was 

 driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to 

 the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. 

 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 com- 

 pelled by hunger; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts 

 and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to 

 numbers of them. 



From the 14th 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 18th passed 

 over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances 

 at the Castle and other inns. 



On the 20th 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 21st 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 22 d the author had occasion to go to London through 



* This fact would seem very generally to be the case, whenever there is much snow in the 

 couth of England. ED. 



