GREAT SNOW-STORM OF 1S36. 93 



short distance south of Leicester, where some coaches 

 are stated to be detained. Seventeen coaches (and it 

 is probable that the ' Estafette,' and eight fast coaches 

 running between this town and the metropoHs, are of 

 the number) are stated to have stuck fast at or near 

 Dunchurch, which is about a stage south of Coventry. 



''Bristol. — A very heavy fall of snow, accompanied 

 by most violent gusts of wind, took place on Saturday 

 and Sunday last, which had the effect of obstructing 

 and rendering impassable the road betwixt this city 

 and London. On Marlborough Downs and in that 

 neighbourhood, the drift had accumulated to a depth of 

 fourteen feet in some places, and it became necessary 

 to remove it alonsf four miles of the road. There has 

 been no fall equal to the present since 1806, when the 

 unfortunate Neville was frozen to death ; but the 

 atmosphere had not then been particularly cold." 



The above account I found to be so badly ex- 

 pressed and so difficult to understand, that I have been 

 forced to add a word here and there to make the 

 meaning comprehensible. In the same way, I have 

 left out a few passages which are of no interest to the 

 present generation. 



I trust I am not appropriating what does not 

 belong to me, since I have a virtuous horror of any- 

 thing like literary piracy ; but it would be impossible 

 to write a book on a subject of this kind that was 

 entirely the emanations of one's own mind. It is only 

 the writer of fiction that can lay claim to the proud 

 distinction of being purely original, and not dependent 

 on books of reference of any kind. As regards the 

 above account, it is copied from a Western provincial 

 journal published in the year 1836, and I give it 

 almost verbatim, particularly as a similar, though not 



