WEATHER. 313 



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 



