OF SELBORNE. 303 



January 7th. Snow driving all the day, which was fol- 

 lowed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 12th, when a 

 prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting 

 over the tops of the gates and filling the hollow lanes. 



On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad, and 

 thinks he never before or since has encountered such rugged 

 Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were now filled 

 above the tops of the hedges, through which the snow was 

 driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking 

 to the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and 

 pleasure. The poultry 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 compelled 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 birthday, were strangely incommoded ; 

 many carriages of persons who got in their way to town, 

 from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrass- 

 ments, 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, 



county of Rutland, six inches and a half of rain. And the terrible long 

 frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were 

 very high. G, W. 



