ommonly wet, and drowned with vast rain 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 completely
glutted and chilled with water; and hence dry autumns are seldom
followed by rigorous winters.

January 7th.--Snow driving all the day, which was followed by frost,
sleet, and some snow, till the twelfth, 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 are now filled above the tops of the hedges;
through which the snow was driven in most romantic and grotesque shapes,
so striking to the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and
pleasure. The poultry dared not stir out of their roosting-places; for
cocks and hens are so dazzled and confounded by the glare of the 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 in their regular
stages; and especially on the western roads, where the fall appears to
have been greater 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 embarrassment, here came to a dead stop. 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 deg., 28 deg. 25 deg. and thereabout; but on the 21st it
descended to 20 deg.. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable and
starving condition. Tamed by the season,