THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 239 
with such trees as are able to withstand accidental severities, 
and not subject themselves to the vexation of a loss which 
may befall them once perhaps in ten years, yet may hardly be 
recovered through the whole course of their lives. | 
As it appeared afterwards, the ilexes were much injured, 
the cypresses were half destroyed, the arbutuses lingered on, 
but never recovered; and the bays, laurustines, and laurels 
were killed to the ground; and the very wild hollies, in hot 
aspects, were so much affected that they cast all their 
leaves. 
By the 14th January the snow was entirely gone; the 
turnips emerged not damaged at all, save in sunny places ; the 
wheat looked delicately, and the garden plants were well pre- 
served; for snow is the most kindly mantle that infant vege- 
tation can be wrapped in: were it not for that friendly meteor 
’ no vegetable life could exist at all in northerly regions. Yet 
in Sweden the earth in April is not divested of snow for more 
than a fortnight before the face of the country is covered with 
flowers. 
LETTER LVII. 
There were some circumstances attending the remarkable 
frost in January, 1776, so singular and striking, that a short 
detail of them may not be unacceptable. 
The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the pas- 
sages from my journal, which were taken from time to time, 
as things occurred. But it may be proper previously to re- 
mark that the first week in January was uncommonly wet, 
and drowned with vast rains from every quarter: from whence 
may be inferred, as there is great reason to believe is the 
case, that intense frosts seldom take place till the earth is 
