h 2/ 2
January 7th.— Snow driving all the day, which was followed by
froft, fleet, and fome fnow, till the 12th, when a prodigious mafs
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 fince has encountered fuch rugged
Siberian weather. . Many of the narrow roads were now filled
above the tops of the hedges ; through which the fnow was driven
into moft romantic and grotefque lhapes, fo ftriking to the imagination
as not to be feen without wonder and pleafure. The
poultry dared not to ftir out of their roofting places; for cocks
and hens are fo dazzled and confounded by the glare of fnow
that they would foon perilh without affiftance. The hares alfo lay
fullenly in their feats,, and would not move till compelled by
hunger; being confcious, poor animals, that the drifts and heaps
treacheroufly betray their footfteps, and prove fatal to numbers of
them.
From the 14th the fnow continued to increafe, and began
to flap the road waggons and coaches, which could no longer
keep on their regular ftages; and efpecially on the weftefn roads,
where the fall appears to have been deeper than in the fouth.; The
company at Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen’s birth-day, were
ftrangely incommoded : many carriages of perfons, who got in
their way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, after ftrange
embarraffments, here met with a no plus ultra. The ladies' fretted,
and offered large rewards to labourers if they would fhovéï them
a track to London: but the relentlefs heaps of fnow were too
bulky to be removed; and fo the 18th palfed over, leaving the
company in very uncomfortable circumftances at the CaJHe and
other inns.
On
On the 20th the fun fhone out for the firft time fince the
froft began; a circumftance that has been remarked before much
in favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not very
intenfe,: for the thermometer flood at 29, 28, 25, and thereabout;
but .on the 2ift it defcended to 20. The. birds now
began to be in a very pitiable- and ftarving condition. Tamed
by the feafon, fky-larks fettled in the ftreets of towns, becaufe
they faw the ground was bare; rooks frequented dunghills clofe to
houfes; and crows watched horfes as they palfed, and greedily
devoured what dropped from them ; hares now came into men’s
gardens, and, feraping away the fnow, devoured fuch plants as
they, could find.
On the 22d the author had occafion to . go to London
through a fort of Laplahdian-fcène, very wild and grotefque indeed.
But the metropolis itfelf, exhibited a.ftill more: Angular appearance
than.the country; for, being bedded deep in fnow, the pavement
of the ftreets could not be touched by the wheels or the borfesbfeet,
fo that the carriages ran about without the leaft noife. Such an
exemption from din- and clatter was ftrange, but not pleafant; it
feemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of defolation :
— — — ipfa filentia terrent.”
On the 27th much fnow fell-all day, and-in the evening
the froft became very intenfe. At South Lambeth, for the four
following nights, the thermometer fell to 11, 7, 6, 6'; and at
Selborne to 7, 6, 10; and on the .31ft of January, juft before
fun-rife, with rime on the trees, and on the tube of the glafs,
the quickfilver funk exaSly to zero, being 32 degrees below the
freezing point: but by eleven in the morning, though in the
fhade,