desolation:--

"--Ipsa silentia terrent."

On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost became
very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the
thermometer fell to 11 degrees, 7 degrees, 6 degrees, 6 degrees; and at
Selborne to 7 degrees, 6 degrees, 10 degrees; and on the 31st January,
just before sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass,
the quicksilver sank exactly to zero, being 32 degrees below the freezing
point; but by eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it sprang up to
16.5 degrees,--a most unusual degree of cold this for the south of
England! During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that it
occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds; and in the day the wind
was so keen that persons of robust constitutions could scarcely endure to
face it. The Thames was at once so frozen over, both above and below
bridge, that crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely
encumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty, and, turning grey,
resembled bay-salt; what had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry
that, from first to last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the
city--a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest housekeepers
living. According to all appearances we might now have expected the
continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks to come, since every night
increased in severity; but behold, without any apparent cause, on the 1st
February a thaw took place, and some rain followed before night, making
good the observation above, that frosts often go off as it were at once,
without any gradual declension of cold. On the 2nd February the thaw
persisted; and on the 3rd swarms of little insects were frisking and
sporting in a courtyard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no frost.
Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs of such minute
beings are not frozen is a matter of curious inquiry.

Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents, for at the same
juncture, as the author was informed by accurate correspondents, at
Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, the thermometer stood at 19 degrees; at
Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19 degrees; and at Manchester, at 21
degrees, 20 degrees, and 18 degrees. Thus does some unknown circumstance
strangely overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes much
greater in the southern than the northern parts of this kingdom.

The consequen