OF 8ELB0BNE. 
803 
January 7tli. — Snow driving all the day, wliich was fol- 
lowed by frosty 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. 
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