122 CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 



you observe, that he should make any difficulty about it : on 

 the other hand, there is no apparent connection between 

 electricity and hops; so that probably it is some mistake of his 

 correspondent. 



During the late frost we observed that the cold was con- 

 stantly most intense when the sky was clear. There was 

 little or no rime here till the 31st of January, the day before 

 the thaw. Does not a rime after a series of clear steady frost 

 frequently precede a thaw? The rime in 1763 lasted the 

 whole frost; but the sun had never appeared during the whole 

 time. 



Since the breaking of the frost the weather has been in 

 general wet and windy. On the night of the 5th there was a 

 violent gust which lasted but few minutes, that blew down many 

 hay-stacks, stripped houses, &c. ; the windows of a gentle- 

 man's hot-house at Uppingham were shattered to pieces. 

 Wo be to his exotics ! 



The influence of the S.W. exposure seems to consist in 

 weakening vegetation so that the heads of trees in such a 

 situation are thin of branches, and sometimes incline to the 

 N.E. Of the four firs on Baker's-hill the easternmost is 

 apparently the most thriving. Are the bodies of such trees 

 prevented from growing to their full size, or are the leaves 

 only and smaller boughs affected? Does grass and other 

 vegetables suffer from this exposure ? 



The use of rushes as a substitute for candles is unknown in 

 Rutland. Some of the poorest people, particularly manu- 

 facturers, use a kind of lamps that scarcely serve to make 

 darkness visible ; if they could be persuaded to try rushes the 

 advantage would be considerable. 



I should be glad to know how you like Mr. Grimm's per- 

 formances. As your views consist principally of woods, an 

 artist ought to be perfect in that difficult branch of drawing 

 to give you satisfaction. The beautiful scenes of woods rising 

 above one another, so pleasing to the eye, if not well ex- 

 pressed would on paper appear heavy and solid. 



Aratus, in his ' Prognostics,' line 301, mentions dpa^via 

 11 floating in the still air" as an indication of settled weather. 



