INSECTS AND HARD WINTERS 217 



instead of mere deer-stealing, had for a theme the 

 Border raiding, with its dash of chivalry and 

 patriotism to gild the sordid business of it, he would 

 have been the darling of Sir Walter Scott and 

 Bishop Percy. He engages all our sympathies with 

 unlucky Bill, who, as the 'yoongest of them,' was 

 probably least to blame; still, one feels the pro- 

 priety of ceasing, as soon as he is convicted, to 

 speak of him familiarly as Bill ; it is more than the 

 exigencies of metre that causes him to be mentioned 

 formally as William Smail. The moral, perhaps, is 

 a trifle startling in its sweeping assumption of culp- 

 ability in the audience ; but then doubtless the poet 

 connaissait son monde. 



LXVIII 



The common belief that hard winters are beneficial 



to farmers and gardeners because of the 



Insects and 

 destruction to insect life, has received a Hard 



severe shock in 1895. The foregoing 

 winter has been recorded authoritatively by the 

 Royal Meteorological Society as the severest since 

 1814, the lowest temperature registered in England 

 being 11 degrees below zero 43 degrees Fahren- 

 heit of frost yet all through the summer there 



