174 GREAT FROST 



of people, vieing with each other in the richness or 

 o-audiness of their attire, flocked at the risk of their lives 

 to Avitness this unprecedented exhibition, as they have 

 since done to see the performance of some favourite actor, 

 and as they now do to listen to a popular preacher — all 

 for the same reason, to the same purpose, and with the 

 same effect. 



I have been thus particlar in recording this remarkable 

 variation in our temperate climate, because circumstances 

 called me a distance of nearly 500 miles from home, a 

 journey at that time requiring some little stamina and 

 exertion. 



My next brother, about three years younger than 

 myself, had chosen to be a printer ; he was accordingly 

 apprenticed to the Messrs. Hansard, the king's printers ; 

 and his time having nearly expired, it was thought 

 advisable, to complete his instruction in this wide-spread 

 art, that he should spend the last year or two with 

 Messrs. Ballantyne, of Edinburgh, whose establishment 

 was then considered the most complete in Europe. The 

 terms being settled, I was sent for to accomjDany him to 

 the northern capital. Although I had my hands full, and 

 could but ill afford the time it would take from mv 

 business, T was rather pleased than otherwise at the 

 prospect of the journey. 



I quitted home the last day of the old year ; and, 

 leaving my wife and child with my married sister at their 

 comfortable house on the Downs, drove to Petersfield, 

 Avhere I got into the night coach, and arrived safe in 

 London the following morning. The next day we started 

 from the " Saracen's Head," Snow Hill, in the old York 



