of the edifice; repairing the sculptured figures and VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF VARIOUS scroll-work, the roof, galleries, shops, &c., in short,

CLIMATES. of renovating the whole structure. The aggregate How various are the climates of the earth, and yet expenses amounted to about 33,0001., of which the how uniform is each climate in its temperature, notthe stone staircases and floors alone cost 60001. withstanding the fact, that we traverse annually a

The old tower was a lofty structure, being one circle in space whose diameter extends over one hundred and seventy-eight feet in height; it consisted hundred and ninety millions of miles. In each parof three stories, with grouped columns and pilasters ticular climate we behold races of animals and plants, of the Corinthian and composite orders at the angles. many of which would not prosper elsewhere. Though The lower story was stone, the upper stories of tim- apparently rains, and winds, and frosts are very irreber, finished by a cupola, on which was sustained a gular, yet we find a remarkable constancy in the ponderous weathercock, in the form of a grashopper. average of the weather and seasons of each place. It was a most singular design, and strikingly dissimilar Very hot summers, or very cold winters, have little to the various church towers. The tower which re. effect in raising or depressing the mean annual templaced it in 1821, and the shell of which remained perature of any one climate above or below its genestill standing after the recent conflagration, was only ral standard. We must be convinced, from observaone hundred and twenty-eight feet six inches in height. tion, that the structure of plants, and the nature of

Within the area, on the four interior sides of the many animals, are specially adapted to the climate in building, were twenty-five large niches, containing which they are located. A vegetable, for example, figures of twenty-two of our sovereigns, namely :- which flourishes when the mean temperature is fiftyon the south side, Edward the First, Edward the five degrees, would perish where the average is only Third, Henry the Fifth, and Henry the Sixth; on the fifty. If our mean temperature were raised or west, Edward the Fourth, Edward the Fifth, Henry lowered by five degrees, our vegetable world would the Seventh, and Henry the Eighth ; on the north, be destroyed, until a new species suited to the Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, altered climate, should be substituted for that which James the First, Charles the First, Charles the

we possess at present. An inhabitant of the equaSecond, and James the Second ; on the east, within torial regions, whose mean temperature is eighty, a conjoined or double niche, were William and Mary; would hardly believe that vegetable life could exist in George the First, George the Second, George the such a climate as ours. We have the same opinion Third, and George the Fourth.

of the arctic regions. But both are equally mistaken ; Such, then, was the Royal Exchange of London, the care of a presiding Providence is limited to no when, on the night of Wednesday, the 10th of January climate ; it last, it fell a prey to the flames. Soon after ten

Lives through all space, extends through all extent, o'clock on that night, a fire broke out in the north- Spreads undivided, operates unspent. eastern corner of the edifice; it spread with rapidity At the equator we find the natives of the Spice towards the west, and in the space of a few hours had Islands, the clove, and nutmeg trees, pepper and mace. made a complete circuit of the quadrangle, destroying, Cinnamon bushes clothe the surface of Ceylon ; the in succession, the northern, western, southern, and odoriferous sandal-wood, the ebony-tree, the teak-tree, eastern sides of the building. Of the tower which and the banyan grow in the East Indies. In the same rose above the principal entrance on the southern latitudes, in Arabia the Happy, we find balm, frankinside, the shell alone was left standing; and some of cense, and myrrh, the coffee-tree and the tamarind. the decorations of the portico above that entrance But in those countries, at least in the plains, the trees sustained but little injury. The statue of Charles and shrubs which decorate our more northerly climes the Second, which stood in the middle of the area

are wanting. And as we go northwards, at every within, was not destroyed; but as the inner walls step we change the vegetable group, both in addition fell, they carried with them all the royal statues which and by subtraction. In the thickets to the west of had formed so conspicuous a feature among their the Caspian Sea we have the apricot, citron, peach, ornaments,

walnut. In the same latitude, in Spain, Sicily, and It is of course very improbable that any length of Italy, we find the dwarf plum, the cypress, the chesttime will elapse before the City of London, be pro- nut, the cork-tree; the orange and lemon-tree perfume vided with another“ Royal Exchange;" and there the air with their blossoms; the myrtle and pomeis little reason to doubt that the new edifice will sur

granate grow wild among the rocks. We cross the pass its predecessor in magnificence. The regrets of Alps, and we find the vegetation which belongs to some, that “ we have not a Sir Christopher Wren Northern Europe, of which England is an instance. to rebuild it now," may be dissipated by the fact, The oak, the beech, and the elm, are natives of Great that Sir Christopher Wren had nothing to do with Britain; the elm-tree seen in Scotland and the north rebuilding it before; and little danger we should trust of England is the wych-elm. As we travel still is to be apprehended of our inability to produce as farther to the north, the forests again change their chaskilful an artist as Mr. Edward Jerman, notwith-racter. In the northern provinces of the Russian emstanding that he was considered by the committee pire are found forests of the various species of firs, the in 1667, (when Sir Christopher Wren was living,) Scotch and spruce-fir, and the larch. In the Orkney to be “the most able known artist," next to “ Mr. Islands no tree is found but the hazel, which occurs Mills the city surveyor." At all events, there is little again on the shores of the Baltic. As we proceed hazard in predicting, that ere long a new edifice will into colder regions, we still find species which appear be erected, and in the conceited doggrel of an old to have been made for these situations. The hoary ballad, written soon after the Great Fire of 1666,

or cold elder makes its appearance north of StockTh’ Exchange, that Royal Infant, shortly will

holm; the sycamore and mountain-ash accompany Her own and forreign language speak with skill, And on that acre the noon sun shall see,

us to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia ; and as we All his long travels in epitomio.

leave this, and traverse the Dophrian rauge, we pass

in succession the boundary lines of the spruce-fir, That which is good to be done, cannot be done too soon;

the Scotch-fir, and those minute shrubs which botaand if it is neglected to be done early, it will frequently nists distinguish as the dwarf-birch and the dwarfhappen that it will not be done at all. - BISHOP MANT. willow. Here, near to, or within the arctic circle, we yet find wild flowers of great beauty,—the meze- narratives be employed for depicting scenes of vice, reon, the yellow and white water-lily, and the another evil of the greatest magnitude is likely to European globe-flower. And when these fail us,' the result from them, even though the conduct exhibited reindeer-moss still makes the country habitable for should be shown to end in remorse and misery. For animals and man.

by the mere familiarity with vice, an injury is done to So also there are boundaries to the growth of corn, the youthful mind, which is in no degree compensated the vine, and the olive. Wheat extends over certain by the moral at the close. Imagination, therefore, is tracts from England to Thibet; it does not flourish a mental power of extensive influence, and capable of in the polar regions, nor within the tropics, except in being turned to important purposes in the cultivation situations considerably raised above the level of the of individual character. But to be so, it must be kept sea. The temperature required for the cultivation of under the strict control of reason and of virtue. If the vine must not be under fifty, nor much above it be allowed to wander at discretion, through scenes sixty-three degrees, though, in the warm climates, of imagined wealth, ambition, frivolity, or pleasure, it elevation of situation will correct the excess of heat. tends to withdraw the mind from the important pur

Maize and olives have their favourite regions in suits of life, to weaken the habits of attention, and to France, Italy, and Spain. We first meet with rice impair the judgment. It tends in a most material west of Milan ; it extends over the northern pro- manner, to prevent the due exercise of those nobler vinces of Persia, and over all the southern districts of powers which are directed to the cultivation both of Asia, where there are facilities for irrigation.

science and virtue. Millet is one of the principal grains of Africa. The state of a mind which has yielded itself to the Cotton is cultivated in the New World no higher influence of this delusive habit, cannot be more than forty degrees latitude ; in the Old it extends to forcibly represented than in the words of an eloquent latitude forty-four degrees, being found in Astrachan. writer :Exceptions, indeed, occur with respect to the sugar.

The influence of this habit of dwelling on the beautiful cane, the indigo-tree, the plantain, and the mulberry, fallacious forms of imagination, will accompany the mind all natives of India and China; for these productions into the most serious speculations, or rather, musings, on have found a genial climate in the West Indies and the real world, and what is to be done in it, and expected ; South America. The genuine tea-tree seems indis

as the image which the eye acquires from looking at any posed to flourish out of China, though the South dazzling object, still appears before it wherever it turns.

The vulgar materials that constitute the actual economy of American Indians have something like it. The the world, will rise up to its sight in fictitious forms, which Cassava yams, the bread-fruit-tree, the sago-palm, it cannot disenchant into plain reality, nor will even suspect and the cabbage-tree, are all apparently special pro. to be deceptive. It cannot go about with sober, rational visions for the islands in which they are peculiarly inspection, and ascertain the nature and value of all things found to flourish.

around it. Indeed, such a mind is not disposed to examine, It is impossible, we think, to reflect upon all this It is content with ignorance, because environed with some

with any careful minuteness, the real condition of things. variety of natural wealth, and upon the adaptation thing more delicious than such knowledge, in the paradise of each species to the climate in which it is found, which imagination creates. In that paradise it walks dewithout perceiving that the distribution of those pro- lighted, till some imperious circumstance of real life call it ductions,—no one climate yielding a perfect substi. thence, and gladly escapes thither when the avocation is tute, generally speaking, for that of another,—was past. There everything is beautiful and noble, as could be originally designed to prompt and to continue desired to form the residence of an angel. If a tenth part

of the felicities that have been enjoyed, the great actions throughout human existence, that commercial and that have been performed, the beneficent institutions that friendly intercourse which has been long since esta have been established, and the beautiful objects that have blished between the inhabitants of countries the most been seen in this happy region, could have been imported remote from each other.—Quarterly Review.

into this terrestrial place, what a delightful thing it would have been to awake each morning to see such a world once

more.

ON READING WORKS OF IMAGINATION. To the same purpose are the words of another There has been considerable difference of opinion in writer of the highest authority :regard to the effects produced upon the mind by

To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination fictitious narratives. Without entering minutely upon 100 much in silent speculation.

out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight

He who has nothing the merits of this controversy, I think it may be con

external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own tended that two evils are likely to arise from much thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not,-for indulgence in works of fiction. The one is a tendency who is content with what he is ? He then expatiates in to give way to the wild play of the imagination, a boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions practice most deleterious both to the intellectual and that which, for the present moment, he should most desire ; moral habits. The other is a disruption of the har.

amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers

upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances mony which ought to exist between the moral emotions from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combina. and the conduct,-a principle of extensive and im- tions, and riots in delight which' nature and fortune, with portant influence. In the healthy state of the moral all their bounty, cannot bestow. In time, some particular feelings, for example, the emotion of sympathy excited | train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual by a tale of sorrow, ought to be followed by some

gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or efforts for the relief of the sufferer. When such rela leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and

feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended tions in real life are listened to from time to time with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of without any such efforts, the emotion gradually fancy is confirmed ; she grows first imperious, and in time becomes weakened, and that moral condition is despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false produced which we call selfishness, or darkness of opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of heart. Fictitious tales of sorrow appear to have rapture or of anguish. a similar tendency,—the emotion is produced with

[ABERCROMBIE on the Intellectual Powers.] but the corresponding conduct; and, when this habit has been much indulged, the result seems to be, WHATEVER God himself has pleased to think worthy of that a cold and barren sentimentalism is produced, his making, its fellow.creature man should not think uninstead of the habit of active benevolence. If fictitious worthy of his knowing: -BOYLE.

were

FROSTS, AND FROST FAIRS, UPON THE Evelyn, however, who was an eye-witness of this RIVER THAMES.

scene, furnishes the following extraordinary account Within the last eight hundred years several instances of it in his Diary, of January the 24th. are recorded in our history of frosts so severe as to

The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames render the surface of the Thames, at London, one before London was still planted with boothes in formal immoveable mass of ice; the last of them occurred streetes, all sortes of trades and shopes furnish'd, and ful within the memory of the present generation. Upon of commodities, even to a printing-presse, where the people these occasions the river has been the scene of diver- and ladyes tooke a fancy to have their names printed, and

the day and yeare set down when printed on the Thames: sions and amusements, remarkable indeed, not so

this humour tooke universally, that 'twas estimated the much in themselves, as from the nature of the place printer gain d 51. a day, for printing a line onely, at sixpence in which they were practised.

a name, besides what he got by ballads, &c. Coaches plied As early as 1092, in the reign of William Rufus, from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other is recorded a frost “whereby,” in the words of an

staires to and fro, as in the streetes; sleds, sliding with old chronicler, " the great streams [of England] were

skertes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet-plays,

and interludes, cookes, tipling, and other places, so that it congealed in such a manner that they could draw two

seem'd to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the hundred horsemen and carriages over them; whilst at

water. their thawing, many bridges, both of wood and stone, were borne down, and divers water-mills

Upon this occasion king Charles the Second, his broken up, and carried away.” In 1281, is mentioned queen, and several other personages of the Royal another frost and snow" such as no man living could Family visited the diversions upon the ice ; and even remember the like;" five arches of London-bridge had their names printed on the ice in conformity were on this occasion “borne downe and carried away with the “humour” which Evelyn mentions as so with the streame.”

prevalent. There is still in existence one of the very The winter of 1564-5 was remarkable for a very papers on which the king and his royal companions severe frost which began on the 21st of December, had their names printed ; and we need hardly say that and according to Holinshed continued to such an ex- among collectors of the curious, it is regarded as an tremity, that on New Year's Eve “people went over invaluable rarity. It contains the names of “Charles, and alongst the Thames on the ise from London- king ;" his brother “ James, duke" (of York) afterbridge to Westminster."

wards James II. ; “Katherine Queen" the Infante of Some plaied at the football as boldlie there as if it had Portugal; “ Mary, Dutchess ;'" Mary D'Este, sister of beene on the drie land; diverse of the Court being then at the duke of Modena, and second wife of James; “Ann, Westminster, shot dailie at prickes set upon the Thames ; Princesse,” second daughter of the duke of York, and the people, both men and women, went on the Thames, afterwards Queen Anne; and “George, Prince" of in greater numbers, than in anie street of the Citie of Lon- Denmark, her husband. The king's visit is thus noticed don. On the third daie of January, at night, it began to thaw, and on the fift there was no ise to be seene betweene in a small poem printed on the river, entitled ThaLondon Bridge and Lambeth, which sudden thaw caused masis's Advice to the Painter from her Frigid Zone, or great floods and high waters, that bare downe bridges and IV onders

upon

the Water. houses, and drowned manie people, in England; especiallie

Then draw the King, who on his Leads doth stay, in Yorkshire, Owes Bridge was borne awaie with others."

To see the Throng as on a Lord Mayor's day; The next remarkable frost recorded is that of 1608.

And thus unto his Nobles pleas'd to say; It begun on the 8th of December, and continued With these Men on this Ice, I'de undertake until the 15th; a thaw then ensued until the 22nd, To cause the Turk all Europe to forsake: when it began"againe to freeze violently, so as divers An army of these Men, arm’d and compleat,

Would soon the Turk in Christendom defeat ! persons went balfe way over the Thames upon the ice; and the 30th of December, at every ebbe, many The same poem contains the following advice to its people went quite over the Thames in divers places, readers :: and so continued until the 3rd of January.”

to the Print-house go The people passed daily betweene London and the Where Men the Art of Printing soon do know : Bankside at every halfe ebbe, for the floud removed the ice Where for a Teuster you may have your Name and forced the people daily to tread new paths, except onely Printed, hereafter for to show the same; betweene Lambeth and the ferry at Westminster, the And sure in former Ages ne'er was found which, by incessant treading, became very firm, and free A Press to print where men so oft were dround ! passage, untill the great thaw; and from Sunday, the tenth of January, until the fifteenth of the same, the frost grew

In 1709 the Thames was again frozen over at . so extreme, as the ice became firme, and removed not, and intervals, and some persons crossed on the ice, but then all sorts of men, women, and children, went boldly the frost was not sufficiently permanent to allow upon the ice in most parts; some shot at prickes; others

another Frost Fair. But in 1715-6 all the sports bowled and danced, with other variable pastimes, by reason of which concourse of people, there were many that set up

of 1683 were renewed, the frost beginning at the boothes and standings upon the ice, as fruit-sellers, vic

end of November, and lasting till the 9th of February tuallers, that sold beere and wine, shoomakers, and a barber's following. tent, &c."

Our engraving represents a view of the memorable In these tents were fires. The ice lasted till the Frost Fair on the Thames in the Winter of 1739-40, afternoon of the 2nd of February, when “it was quite the most severe which had occurred since the year dissolved and clean gon.”

1716. In the beginning of it, the houses then standIn the winter of 1683-4 the festivities of a frost ing on London Bridge received considerable damage fair were again witnessed on the Thames at London, from the many vessels which broke from their moorThe frost commenced in the beginning of December, ings and lay beating against them. On the 31st of and lasted until the 5th of February. The river was December, it was announced in one of the newspapers congealed to that degree, that another city, as it were, that "all the watermen above the bridge have hauled was created thereon; where, by the great number of their boats on shore, the Thames being very nigh streets, and shops, with their rich furniture, it repre- frozen over.” The “rocks” and “shoals" of ice which sented a great fair, with a great variety of carriages, for some time floated on the river, became at length and diversions of all sorts; and near Whitehall, a whole united into one solid mass, and represented “a snowy ox was roasted on the ice,"

field everywhere rising in masses and hills of ice and

snow.” Tents and printing-presses were speedily | same spot; the following is one of the Bills printed erected, and a complete Frost Fair was once more " on the ice, at the Thames Printing Office, opposite established; but some persons lost their lives in St. Catherine's Stairs :"walking over the river. Among the productions of

The silver Thames was frozen o'er, the press upon this occasion, were the following lines

No difference 'twixt the stream and shore, “Printed on the Ice upon the Thames at Queenhithe,

The like no Man hath seen before January the 29th, 1739-40."

Except he lived in days of yore. Behold the liquid THAMES now frozen o'er

The frost was severely felt to a great distance down That lately ships of mighty burden bore.

the river ; the East India ships were hastily sent Here you may PRINT your name tho' cannot write down to Gravesend, to which place, and even below 'Cause numb'd with cold: 'Tis done with great delight. it, large shoals of ice had floated. The navigation of And lay it by; That Ages yet to come

boats was entirely stopped, and it was supposed that May see what Things upon the Ice were done.

the river would soon be completely impassable from In one of the newspapers for the 2nd of January, London Bridge to Woolwich. Every morning at it was announced that

London Bridge, vast quantities of boiling water were Several vintners in the Strand bought a large ox in Smith- poured on the water-works before the wheels could field on Monday last, which is to be roasted whole on the ice be set in motion ; and twenty-five horses were daily on the River of Thames, if the frost continues.

employed in removing the ice which surrounded Mr. Hodgeson, a butcher in St. James's Market, claims them. At Blackfriars, the masses of floating ice the privilege of selling, or knocking down, the beast, as a

were said to be eighteen feet in thickness; the surright inherent in his family, his father having knocked down the ox roasted on the river, in the great Frost, 1684;

face of the river in some places was “ smooth for a as himself did that roasted in 1715, near Hungerford-stairs.mile or two," and then “rough and mountainous" The beast is to be fixed to a stake in the open market, and from the bodies of frozen snow. Putney and FulMr. Hodgeson comes dressed in a rich laced cambric apron, ham, “ from the morning dawn till the dusk of rea silver steel, and a hat and feathers to perform the office. turning evening, were a scene of festivity and gaiety.”

The breaking up of this famous frost was attended The thaw which followed this frost was rapid. It with some amusing scenes; it is thus noticed in a had been for some time expected, and at length it newspaper of January 22nd:

commenced with some rain about two o'clock on Yesterday morning the inhabitants of the west prospect Tuesday, January the 13th; and before night, the of the bridge were presented with a very odd scene; for, on

streets were almost overflowed. the opening of their windows there appeared underneath, Perhaps, (says a newspaper of the time,) the breaking on the river, a parcel of booths, shops, and huts, of different up of the Fair upon the Thames last Tuesday night below forms, and without any inhabitants, which, it seems, by the bridge, exceeded every idea that could be formed of it, as swell of the waters, and the ice separating, had been it was not until after the dusk of the evening, that the brought down from above. As no lives were lost, it might busy crowd was persuaded of the approach of a thaw. be viewed without horror. Here stood a booth with trinkets, This, however, with the cracking of some ice about eight there a hut with a dram of old gold; in another place, a o'clock, made the whole a scene of the most perfect confuskittle-frame and pins, and in a fourth “the Noble Art and sion; as men, beasts, booths, turn-abouts, puppet-shows, Mystery of Printing, by a servant to one of the greatest Sc. &c., were all in motion, and pouring towards the shore trading companies in Europe.” With much difficulty last on each side. The confluence here was so sudden and imnight, they had removed the most valuable effects.

petuous, that the watermen who had formed the toll-bars In 1768 another remarkable frost took place, and

over the sides of the river, where they had broken the ice in 1785 another, which lasted for one hundred and from this crowd, &c., pulled up the boards, by which a

for that purpose, not being able to maintain their standard fifteen days. In 1789 the Thames was again frozen number of persons who could not leap, or were borne down over, and a Fair held on the ice, several booths being by the press, were soused up to the middle. The difficulty erected on the 9th of January. Passages across the of landing at the Tower-stairs was extreme, until near ten ice, strewed with ashes, were formed at Gun-dock, o`clock, occasioned by the crowding of the people from the Execution-dock, &c., and these parts seem to have shore, who were attracted by the confusion on the water.

The inconvenience to the shipping is now increased more constituted the principal scenes of attraction.

than ever, since the setting in of the frost, as no persons No sooner, (says a contemporary chronicle,) had the

will venture upon the ice to fetch or carry anything for them, Thames acquired a sufficient consistency, than booths,

and it is not yet sufficiently disunited for a boat to live. turn-abouts, &c. &c., were erected; the puppet-shows, wild The last Frost Fair upon the River Thames at beasts, &c., were transported from every adjacent village; London, was held in the beginning of the year 1814. whilst the watermen, that they might draw their usual | The frost commenced on the evening of the 27th of resources from the water, broke in the ice close to the December preceding, with a thick fog which lasted shore, and erected bridges, with toll-bars, to make every passenger

pay a halfpenny for getting to the ice. One of for several days, and was suceeded by a remarkably the suitling-booths has for its sign, “Beer, Wine, and heavy fall of snow, which continued for nearly two Spirituous Liquors, without a License.” A man who sells days with slight intermissions. The cold became inhot gingerbread, has a board, on which is written, "no shop-tense, the wind blowing almost constantly from the tax nor window duty." All the adventurers contend, in north and north-east; the river was covered with these short sentences, for the preference of the company; vast fragments of ice and hardened snow, which and the Thames is in general crowded.

floated along with the tide, and sometimes united to Another specimen of the humour exhibited at this form a hard and fixed mass. After this frost had place, was contained in the following inscription on lasted for a whole month, a thaw of four days, from a temporary building on the Thames :—"This Booth the 26th to the 29th of January, took place; and so to Let. The present possessor of the premises is large a quantity of ice was floated down in detached Mr. Frost. His affairs, however, not being on a per- pieces, that the river between Blackfriars and London manent footing, a dissolution or bankruptcy may Bridges, became almost impassable. But this thaw soon be expected, and the final settlement of the was succeeded by a renewal of the frost, so severe, whole intrusted to Mr. Thaw." On Wednesday, that the Thames very soon became one immoveable January the 7th, a large pig was roasted on one of sheet of ice; and even on Sunday, the 30th, was the principal roads; and on Monday, the 12th, a crossed by some venturous persons on foot in differyoung bear was hunted on the ice, near Rotherhithe. ent parts. On Tuesday, the 1st of February, the As usual, too, a printing-press was erected near the usual entries were formed by the unemployed water

men, particularly between Blackfriars Bridge and tent, like the Russ and Laplander, to bury yourselves Three Cranes Wharf; and notices were posted in the under that snow over which you now tread with mirth and streets leading thereto, announcing a safe footway over glee.

Printed on the River Thames, and in commemora

tion of a great fair held upon it on the 31st of January, the river. It is said that many of the watermen

1814, when it was completely frozen over from shore to received six pounds in the day by the toll which they shore. The frost commenced the 27th of December, 1813, took from persons passing over their little bridges, and was accompanied by a thick fog that lasted eight days; from the edge of the river to the firm ice.

and after the fog, came a heavy fall of snow, that prevented The standing amusements of an English Frost Fair all communication with the northern and western parts of

the country for several days. now commenced, (says Mr. Richard Thomson in his Chronicles of London Bridge,) and many cheerfully paid Another bill upon the same subject, containing to see and partake of that upon the frozen Thames, which fewer reflections and more humour, promises that at any other time they would not have deigned to look the press shall be kept going " in the true spirit of upon. Beside the roughly-formed paths paved with ashes, liberty,"—if the public buy impressions. leading from shore to shore, there was a street of tents called the “ City Road," in which gay flags, inviting signs,

Friends ! Now is your time to support the freedom of music and dancing, evinced what excellent entertainment the Press! Can the Press have greater liberty ? Here was to be found there. That ancient wonder, peculiar to you find it working on the middle of the Thames; and if the place, the roasting of a small sheep over a fire, was ex- you encourage us by buying our impressions, we will keep hibited to many a six

penny audience, while the provision it going in the true spirit of liberty during the frost. itself, under the name of " Lapland Mutton," sold for one One of the last papers printed on the river ran shilling a slice ! Several printing-presses were also erected thus :to furnish memorials of the Frost in old verse and new

To Madam Tabitha Thaw.j prose.

Dear Dissolving Dame. Some of these papers are amusing; especially

Father Frost and Sister Snow have bonyed those which apostrophize the Printing-press in its my borders, formed an idol of ice upon my bosom, and all novel situation :

the Lads of LONDON come to make merry; now, as you You that walk here, and do design to tell

love mischief, treat the multitude with a few Cracks by a Your children's children what this year befell

sudden visit, and obtain the prayers of the poor upon both Come buy this print, and then it will be seen,

banks. That such a year as this hath seldom been.

Given at my own Press, the 5th of February 1814.

THOMAS THAMES. The logical precision of the inference in the last two lines of this effusion, is not more curious than

Upon the evening of the very day on which this the following grandiloquent burst of panegyric upon invocation was printed, “ Madam Tabitha Thaw," the Press.

suddenly made her appearance with a fall of rain ; OMNIPOTENT PRESS! Tyrant Winter has enchained the ice cracked and floated in several places, and the noblest torrent that flows to the main ; but Summer about two o'clock on the following day, the tide, which will return and set the captive free. So may tyranny for a during the frost had apparently not risen above half time “freeze the genial current of the soul;" but a Free its usual height, began to flow very rapidly. The Press, like the great source of light and heat, will, ere river was covered with detached masses of ice, and long, dissolve tyranny of the mightiest. Greatest of the arts? What do we not owe to thee? The knowledge which every vestige of this last Frost-Fair speedily disdirects industry, the liberty which encourages it, the secu

appeared. rity which protects it, and of industry how precious are the The features of this British Carnival (said Mr. Thomson fruits ! Glowing and hardy temperaments, which defy a few years ago,) are in the memories of the greater part the vicissitudes of seasons, and comfortable homes which of the present generation; though if it were otherwise, the make you regret not the gloom that is abroad. But for representations of it are few and scarce, and generally very Industry, but for Painting, you might now have been con inferior.

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