The coachmen on the several roads, particularly on the western and northern roads, never remembered a severer frost than they experienced on the Sunday night just mentioned. Those who recollected that of 1814, when the Thames was frozen over, and booths raised on the ice, declared that they did not feel it so severely, as it did not come on so suddenly. The houses and trees in the country had a singular appearance on the Monday, owing to the combination of frost and fog; the trees, and fronts of houses, and even the glass was covered with thick white frost, and was no more transparent than ground-glass. Butchers, in the suburbs, where the frost was felt more keenly than in the metropolis, were obliged to keep their shops shut in order to keep out the frost; many of them carried the meat into their parlours, and kept it folded up in cloths round the fires, and unfolded it as their customers came in and required it. The market gardeners also felt the severity of the weather--it stopped their labours, and some of the men, attended by their wives, went about in parties, and with frosted greens fixed at the tops of rakes and hoes, uttered the ancient cry of “Pray remember the gardeners! Remember the poor frozen out gardeners!”[36] * * * * * _The Apparition._ ’Twas silence all, the rising moon With clouds had veil’d her light, The clock struck twelve, when, lo! I saw A very chilling sight. Pale as a snow-ball was its face, Like icicles its hair; For mantle, it appeared to me A sheet of ice to wear. Tho’ seldom given to alarm, I’ faith, I’ll not dissemble, My teeth all chatter’d in my head, And every joint did tremble. At last, I cried, “Pray who are you, And whither do you go?” Methought the phantom thus replied, “My name is Sally Snow; “My father is the Northern Wind, My mother’s name was Water; Old parson Winter married them, And I’m their hopeful Daughter. “I have a lover--Jackey Frost, My dad the match condemns; I’ve run from home to-night to meet My love upon the Thames.” I stopp’d Miss Snow in her discourse, This answer just to cast in, “I hope, if John and you unite, Your union wo’n’t be lasting! “Besides, if you should marry him, But ill you’d do, that I know; For surely Jackey Frost must be A very slippery fellow.” She sat her down before the fire, My wonder now increases; For she I took to be a maid, Then tumbled into pieces! For air, thin air, did Hamlet’s ghost, His foremost cock-crow barter; But what I saw, and now describe, Resolv’d itself to water. GREAT FROST, 1814.