JANUARY. By his commandment he maketh the snow to fall apace, and sendeth swiftly the lightnings of his judgement. Through this the treasures are opened and clouds fly forth as fowls. By his great power he maketh the clouds firm and the hailstones are broken small. At his sight the mountains are shaken, and at his will the north wind bloweth. The noise of the thunder maketh the earth to tremble, so doth the northern storm and the whirlwind; as birds flying he scattereth the snow, and the falling down thereof is as the lighting of grasshoppers. The eye marvelleth at the beauty of the whiteness thereof, and the heart is astonished at the raining of it. The hoar-frost also as salt he poureth on the earth, and being congealed it lieth on the top of sharp stakes. When the cold north wind bloweth, and the water is congealed into ice, it abideth upon every gathering together of water, and clotheth the water as with a breastplate. It devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and consumeth the grass as fire. ECCLESIASTICUS xliii. 13-21. THE solar year commences in the very depth of winter; and I open my record of its various aspects under that of its unmitigated austerity. I speak now as I intend to speak, generally. I describe the season not as it may be in this, or another year, but as it is in the average. December may be, I think, very justly styled the gloomiest, January the severest, and February the most cheerless month of the year. In De B cember the days become shorter and shorter; a dense mass of vapour floats above us, wrapping the world in a constant and depressing gloom; and Murky night soon follows hazy noon. BLOOMFIELD. In January this mantle of brumal sadness somewhat dissipates, as if a new year had infused new hope and vigour into the earth; light is not only more plentifully diffused, but we soon perceive its longer daily abode with us; yet, in the words of the common adage, As the day lengthens, The cold strengthens. This is the month of abundant snows and all the intensity of frost. Yet winter, even in its severest forms, brings so many scenes and circumstances with it to interest the heart of the lover of Nature and of his fellow-creatures, that it never ceases to be a subject of delightful observation; and monotonous as it is frequently called, the very variety of the weather itself presents an almost endless source of novelty and beauty. There is first what is called A GREAT STORM. Frost, keen, biting frost, is in the ground; and in the air, a bitter, scythe-edged, perforating wind from the north; or, what is worse, the north-east, sweeps the descending snow along, whirling it from the open fields, and driving it against whatever opposes its course. People who are obliged to be passing to and fro muffle up their faces, and bow their heads to the blast. There is no stopping to loitering, no street-gossiping, no make recognition of each other; they shuffle along the most winterly objects of the scene, bearing on their fronts the tokens of the storm. Against every house, rock, or bank, the snowdrift accumulates. It curls over the tops of walls and hedges in fantastic wildness, forming often the most perfect curves, resembling the scrolls of Ionic capitals, and showing beneath romantic caves and canopies. Hollow lanes, pits, and bogs now become traps for unwary travellers; the snow filling them up, and levelling all to one deceitful plain. It is a dismal time for the traversers of wide and open heaths; and one of toil and danger to the shepherd in mountainous tracts. There the snows fall in amazing quantities in the course of a few hours, and, driven by the powerful winds of those lofty regions, soon fill up the dells and glens to a vast depth, burying the flocks, and houses too, in a brief space. In some winters the sheep of extensive ranges of country, much cattle, and many of the inhabitants, have perished beneath the snow-drifts. At the moment in which I am writing, accounts from Scotland appear in the newspapers of a most tremendous snow-storm, which, leaving the country south ward of Alnwick and Gretna-Green nearly free, has buried all northward of that line, in a vast fall of snow, sweeping across the country even to the shores of the Irish Channel. The mails are stopped, the snow-drifts in many places are stated to be twenty-five feet deep, and great numbers of sheep have perished beneath them, -one farmer having dug out one hundred and fifty in one place, all dead. Hogg, the highlygifted Ettrick Shepherd, one of the most splendid specimens of the peasant-poet, has given in his "Shepherd's Calendar" some exceedingly interesting details of such events. The delights of the social hearth on such evenings as these, when the wild winds are howling around our dwellings, dashing the snow, or hail, or splashing rain against our windows, are a favourite theme with poets, essayists, and writers on the Seasons. And truly it is an inspiring topic. All our ideas of comfort, of domestic affection, of social and literary enjoyment, are combined in the picture they draw of the winter fireside. How often have those lines of Cowper been quoted, commencing, Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, Such is the BRITISH FIRE-SIDE! and we love to hear our writers speaking of its pleasures in strains of enthusiasm. But we may expand the picture. We may add to the zest of its personal, and almost too selfish enjoyments, touches of generous and philanthropic sentiment which will signally heighten its pleasures, and enlarge its power of improving the heart. How delightful, while sitting in the midst of our family, or friendly group, in actual possession of the pleasures just enumerated, not only to contemplate our own happiness, but to send our thoughts abroad over the whole land! To think what thousands of families in this noble country, are at the same moment thus blessedly collected round the social flame. What hearths are lit up with all the charms of kindred affection; of mature wisdom and parental pride; of youthful gladness, gaiety and beauty! How many rural halls and city homes are shining, like stars in their own places, in unabated warmth and splendour, though hid beneath the broad veil of wintry darkness,-the lover's evening visit,-song, wine, the wild tale told to the listening circle, or the unfolded stores of polite literature, making each a little paradise! Then to turn from the bright side of the picture to the dark one. To The huts where poor men lie, |