36 FEBRUARY. 



ladders, a bustling, anxious laying-on of logs, 

 rails, harrows, or whatever may come to hand 

 to keep down the mutinous roof. Old wives, 

 with spectacled noses, and kerchiefs inconti- 

 nently tied over their mob-caps, are seen re- 

 connoitring pig-sties, hen-roosts, etc. lest they 

 be blown down, or something be blown down 

 upon them. What a solemn and sublime roar 

 too there is in the woods — a sound as of tem- 

 pestuous seas ! Whatever poetical spirit can 

 hear it without being influenced by incommu- 

 nicable ideas of power, majesty, and the stupen- 

 dous energies of the elements ! 



Oh storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong ! 

 What picturesque ruin is there scattered around 

 you! Trees overwhelmed, immense branches 

 torn down, small boughs broken, and dry leaves 

 whirled along, or quivering in the air like birds. 

 What a harvest of decayed sticks for the Goody 

 Blakes, who, with their checked-aprons held up, 

 will not fail to discover it ! What a harvest too 

 for the newspapers, which will be filled for a 

 season with calamitous accounts of accidents 

 and deaths by falling of chimneys, shipwrecks, 

 and so forth ! 



Towards the end of the month, we are glad- 

 dened with symptoms of approaching spring. 

 On warm banks the commencement of vegeta- 

 tion is perceptible ; the sap is stirring in the 



