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°, 28° 25° and thereabout; but on the 21st it descended to 20°. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable and starving condition. Tamed by the season, sky-larks settled in the streets of towns, because they saw the ground was bare; rooks frequented dung-hills close to houses; hares now came into men's gardens, and scraping away the snow, devoured such plants as they could find. On the 22nd, the author had occasion to go to London; through a sort of Laplandian scene very wild and grotesque indeed. But the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appearance than the country; for, being bedded deep in snow, the pavement could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' feet, so that the carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation.