EARLY YEARS

AND

LATE REFLECTIONS.

THE winter of 1798-9 was remarkably long and severe; snow remained on the ground, even in Cornwall, till the latter end of February or beginning of March; and our intercourse with the Continent, which was then almost exclusively carried on by the way of Cuxhaven and Hamburgh, was interrupted for very many weeks together. On leaving Cornwall with two friends, one of whom was my lamented brother, the late Rector of Truro, we were twice snowed up in posting to London, first at a little inn, at Bridestowe, Devon; and, secondly, at Blandford, where, with the passengers from I know not how many coaches, we were detained a day or two, owing to the great accumulation of snow in some of the Dorsetshire defiles.*

The winters of 1832 and the three following have been so remarkably mild, that the absence of old Father Christmas, on his white horse, has even been a matter of lamentation to the junior members of the community.

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Such winters have, however, their occasional charms, and I shall never forget the gratification I experienced, after escaping from Blandford, from the following occurrence. We slept at Hertfordbridge. A partial thaw had taken place the preceding evening, and all Nature around us was wet and comfortless; but the wind returning in the night to a cold quarter, afforded us an opportunity of witnessing, when we arose in the morning, a scene of such transcendent beauty as could only be rivalled by what Phillips has so charmingly described, in his poetical epistle to the Earl of Dorset, from Copenhagen, March 9th, 1709:

"From frozen climes, and endless tracks of snow,

From streams that northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring?"

After depicting the miseries of a northern winter, he proceeds :

"And yet but lately have I seen, e’en here,
The winter in a lovely dress appear.

Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds began through hazy skies to blow,
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose ;
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
The face of nature, in a rich disguise,
And brightened every object to my eyes;
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.

The thick sprung reeds the watery marshes yield,
Seem polished lances in a hostile field.

The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine,
Glazed over, in the freezing æther shine.
The frighted birds the rustling branches shun,
That wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies;

The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends.
Or, if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wintry charm,

The traveller a miry country sees,

And journies sad beneath the dripping trees."

Such was the scene which charmed us on our first stage from Hertfordbridge, equally beautiful with that described by Phillips, but more transient in proportion to the less enduring intensity of the cold. A bright sun, giving at first increased brilliancy to the crystallized objects around us, together with the agitation of a moderate breeze, in no long time broke the enchantment, and, before the middle of the day, the fairy vision had entirely disappeared, leaving an impression which the perusal of the poetical and beautifully graphic epistle from Copenhagen preserves in all its freshness.

There is an allusion to a similar scene, varying only with local circumstances, in Captain Lyon's "Narrative of an Expedition to the North Pole," where he says, In the Polar regions, what are called fogs, are in fact from the sea, and a sky of most provoking

brilliancy is frequently seen over head. The view from the deck is bounded to about a hundred yards, and such is the rapid formation of the icicles on the rigging, that it is actually possible, when the temperature is low, to see them grow beneath the eye. Yet, chilling as this may appear, the sudden clearing of the fog no sooner permits the sun to break forth in its full vigour, than the ship and rigging glisten in the most brilliant manner, as if they were of glass, and a rapid thaw quickly restores every thing to its original colour."

In our case, the thaw, which was merely that produced by the noon-day sun, had not the effect of making the roads very miry, nor did we "journey sad beneath the dropping trees." Our greatest inconvenience was from the demand made upon our pockets for an additional pair of horses, which the obstruction occasioned by the snow on the preceding day made necessary, but which were no longer required by us, in passing over well-beaten roads. But, "he that has travelled much about," knows that it is easier to be accommodated with the addition, than the abstraction, of a pair of post-horses, and we therefore made no great resistance to an obvious imposition. The enchanted landscape, bespangled with crystals that glistened like diamonds on every side, together with the pleasure of drawing near to the Metropolis, after many vexatious delays, and

perils by snow and storm, put us in good humour; and, I may add, that, with one of our party, it was evident that the eclat of driving to his hotel in a chaise and four, overcame any paltry consideration of economy.

After remaining a few days in London, I set off with two other passengers, in the mail-coach for Norwich, the weather being apparently favourable. We proceeded at the usual speed of these excellent vehicles for the first thirty-five miles, when a snow-storm coming on, difficulties began to gather around us, and although a good coachman and strong cattle continued to force a way for us for some time, yet we found, at last, on reaching an extensive common, that we were getting considerably out of the road. It was therefore deemed necessary to pull up, and, abandoning the coach in the midst of snow on the common, to lead the horses back to the nearest inn as well as we could. One of the lamps which we took with us soon went out, and there was no small difficulty in retracing, with the assistance of the other, the track made by the wheels, which was rapidly filling with drifting and falling snow.

The coachman and guard were bound, on account of the horses, to make the best of their way back to some inn; but the passengers had their choice of accompanying them or of remaining snowed up in the coach; which latter alternative one of us only pre