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of the edifice; repairing the sculptured figures and scroll-work, the roof, galleries, shops, &c., in short, of renovating the whole structure. The aggregate expenses amounted to about 33,000l., of which the the stone staircases and floors alone cost 60007.

The old tower was a lofty structure, being one hundred and seventy-eight feet in height; it consisted of three stories, with grouped columns and pilasters of the Corinthian and composite orders at the angles. The lower story was stone, the upper stories of timber, finished by a cupola, on which was sustained a ponderous weathercock, in the form of a grashopper. It was a most singular design, and strikingly dissimilar to the various church towers. The tower which replaced it in 1821, and the shell of which remained still standing after the recent conflagration, was only one hundred and twenty-eight feet six inches in height. Within the area, on the four interior sides of the building, were twenty-five large niches, containing figures of twenty-two of our sovereigns, namely :on the south side, Edward the First, Edward the Third, Henry the Fifth, and Henry the Sixth; on the west, Edward the Fourth, Edward the Fifth, Henry the Seventh, and Henry the Eighth; on the north, Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James the First, Charles the First, Charles the Second, and James the Second; on the east, within a conjoined or double niche, were William and Mary; George the First, George the Second, George the Third, and George the Fourth.

Such, then, was the Royal Exchange of London, when, on the night of Wednesday, the 10th of January last, it fell a prey to the flames. Soon after ten o'clock on that night, a fire broke out in the northeastern corner of the edifice; it spread with rapidity towards the west, and in the space of a few hours had made a complete circuit of the quadrangle, destroying, in succession, the northern, western, southern, and eastern sides of the building. Of the tower which rose above the principal entrance on the southern side, the shell alone was left standing; and some of the decorations of the portico above that entrance sustained but little injury. The statue of Charles the Second, which stood in the middle of the area within, was not destroyed; but as the inner walls fell, they carried with them all the royal statues which had formed so conspicuous a feature among their

ornaments.

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VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF VARIOUS
CLIMATES.

How various are the climates of the earth, and yet
how uniform is each climate in its temperature, not-
withstanding the fact, that we traverse annually a
circle in space whose diameter extends over one
hundred and ninety millions of miles. In each par-
ticular climate we behold races of animals and plants,
many of which would not prosper elsewhere. Though
apparently rains, and winds, and frosts are very irre-
gular, yet we find a remarkable constancy in the
average of the weather and seasons of each place.
Very hot summers, or very cold winters, have little
effect in raising or depressing the mean annual tem-
perature of any one climate above or below its gene-
ral standard. We must be convinced, from observa-
tion, that the structure of plants, and the nature of
many animals, are specially adapted to the climate in
which they are located. A vegetable, for example,
which flourishes when the mean temperature is fifty-
five degrees, would perish where the average is only
fifty. If our mean temperature were raised or
lowered by five degrees, our vegetable world would
be destroyed, until a new species suited to the
altered climate, should be substituted for that which
we possess at present. An inhabitant of the equa-
torial regions, whose mean temperature is eighty,
would hardly believe that vegetable life could exist in
such a climate as ours. We have the same opinion
of the arctic regions. But both are equally mistaken;
the care of a presiding Providence is limited to no
climate; it

Lives through all space, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.

At the equator we find the natives of the Spice Islands, the clove, and nutmeg trees, pepper and mace. Cinnamon bushes clothe the surface of Ceylon; the odoriferous sandal-wood, the ebony-tree, the teak-tree, and the banyan grow in the East Indies. In the same latitudes, in Arabia the Happy, we find balm, frankincense, and myrrh, the coffee-tree and the tamarind. But in those countries, at least in the plains, the trees and shrubs which decorate our more northerly climes are wanting. And as we go northwards, at every step we change the vegetable group, both in addition and by subtraction. In the thickets to the west of the Caspian Sea we have the apricot, citron, peach, 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 surgranate 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 Stockholm; the sycamore and mountain-ash accompany us to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia; and as we leave this, and traverse the Dophrian range, we pass in succession the boundary lines of the spruce-fir, the Scotch-fir, and those minute shrubs which botanists distinguish as the dwarf-birch and the dwarfwillow. Here, near to, or within the arctic circle,

Th' Exchange, that Royal Infant, shortly will
Her own and forreign language speak with skill,
And on that acre the noon sun shall see,
All his long travels in epitomie.

THAT which is good to be done, cannot be done too soon;
and if it is neglected to be done early, it will frequently
happen that it will not be done at all.-BISHOP MANT.

5

we yet find wild flowers of great beauty,—the mezereon, the yellow and white water-lily, and the European globe-flower. And when these fail us, the reindeer-moss still makes the country habitable for animals and man.

sea.

So also there are boundaries to the growth of corn, the vine, and the olive. Wheat extends over certain tracts from England to Thibet; it does not flourish in the polar regions, nor within the tropics, except in situations considerably raised above the level of the The temperature required for the cultivation of the vine must not be under fifty, nor much above sixty-three degrees, though, in the warm climates, elevation of situation will correct the excess of heat. Maize and olives have their favourite regions in France, Italy, and Spain. We first meet with rice west of Milan; it extends over the northern provinces of Persia, and over all the southern districts of Asia, where there are facilities for irrigation.

Millet is one of the principal grains of Africa. Cotton is cultivated in the New World no higher than forty degrees latitude; in the Old it extends to latitude forty-four degrees, being found in Astrachan. Exceptions, indeed, occur with respect to the sugarcane, the indigo-tree, the plantain, and the mulberry, all natives of India and China; for these productions have found a genial climate in the West Indies and South America. The genuine tea-tree seems indisposed to flourish out of China, though the South American Indians have something like it. The Cassava yams, the bread-fruit-tree, the sago-palm, and the cabbage-tree, are all apparently special provisions for the islands in which they are peculiarly found to flourish.

It is impossible, we think, to reflect upon all this variety of natural wealth, and upon the adaptation of each species to the climate in which it is found, without perceiving that the distribution of those productions, no one climate yielding a perfect substitute, generally speaking, for that of another,—was originally designed to prompt and to continue throughout human existence, that commercial and friendly intercourse which has been long since established between the inhabitants of countries the most remote from each other.—Quarterly Review.

ON READING WORKS OF IMAGINATION. THERE has been considerable difference of opinion in regard to the effects produced upon the mind by fictitious narratives. Without entering minutely upon the merits of this controversy, I think it may be con⚫tended that two evils are likely to arise from much indulgence in works of fiction. The one is a tendency to give way to the wild play of the imagination, a practice most deleterious both to the intellectual and moral habits. The other is a disruption of the harmony which ought to exist between the moral emotions and the conduct,-a principle of extensive and important influence. In the healthy state of the moral feelings, for example, the emotion of sympathy excited by a tale of sorrow, ought to be followed by some efforts for the relief of the sufferer. When such relations in real life are listened to from time to time without any such efforts, the emotion gradually becomes weakened, and that moral condition is produced which we call selfishness, or darkness of heart. Fictitious tales of sorrow appear to have a similar tendency,—the emotion is produced without the corresponding conduct; and, when this habit has been much indulged, the result seems to be, that a cold and barren sentimentalism is produced, instead of the habit of active benevolence. If fictitious

narratives be employed for depicting scenes of vice, another evil of the greatest magnitude is likely to result from them, even though the conduct exhibited should be shown to end in remorse and misery. For by the mere familiarity with vice, an injury is done to the youthful mind, which is in no degree compensated by the moral at the close. Imagination, therefore, is a mental power of extensive influence, and capable of being turned to important purposes in the cultivation of individual character. But to be so, it must be kept under the strict control of reason and of virtue. If it be allowed to wander at discretion, through scenes of imagined wealth, ambition, frivolity, or pleasure, it tends to withdraw the mind from the important pursuits of life, to weaken the habits of attention, and to impair the judgment. It tends in a most material manner, to prevent the due exercise of those nobler powers which are directed to the cultivation both of science and virtue.

The state of a mind which has yielded itself to the influence of this delusive habit, cannot be more forcibly represented than in the words of an eloquent writer:

The influence of this habit of dwelling on the beautiful fallacious forms of imagination, will accompany the mind into the most serious speculations, or rather, musings, on the real world, and what is to be done in it, and expected; as the image which the eye acquires from looking at any dazzling object, still appears before it wherever it turns. The vulgar materials that constitute the actual economy of the world, will rise up to its sight in fictitious forms, which it cannot disenchant into plain reality, nor will even suspect to be deceptive. It cannot go about with sober, rational inspection, and ascertain the nature and value of all things around it. Indeed, such a mind is not disposed to examine, It is content with ignorance, because environed with somewith any careful minuteness, the real condition of things. thing more delicious than such knowledge, in the paradise which imagination creates. In that paradise it walks delighted, till some imperious circumstance of real life call it thence, and gladly escapes thither when the avocation is past. There everything is beautiful and noble, as could be desired to form the residence of an angel. If a tenth part that have been performed, the beneficent institutions that of the felicities that have been enjoyed, the great actions have been established, and the beautiful objects that have been seen in this happy region, could have been imported into this terrestrial place, what a delightful thing it would have been to awake each morning to see such a world once

more.

To the same purpose are the words of another writer of the highest authority :

To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination too much in silent speculation. out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not,-for who is content with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which, for the present moment, he should most desire; amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinaupon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances tions, and riots in delight which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow. In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.

[ABERCROMBIE on the Intellectual Powers.]

WHATEVER God himself has pleased to think worthy of his making, its fellow-creature man should not think unworthy of his knowing.-BOYLE.

FROSTS, AND FROST FAIRS, UPON THE RIVER THAMES. WITHIN the last eight hundred years several instances are recorded in our history of frosts so severe as to render the surface of the Thames, at London, one immoveable mass of ice; the last of them occurred within the memory of the present generation. Upon these occasions the river has been the scene of diversions and amusements, remarkable indeed, not so much in themselves, as from the nature of the place in which they were practised.

As early as 1092, in the reign of William Rufus, is recorded a frost "whereby," in the words of an old chronicler," the great streams [of England] were congealed in such a manner that they could draw two hundred horsemen and carriages over them; whilst at their thawing, many bridges, both of wood and stone, were borne down, and divers water-mills were broken up, and carried away." In 1281, is mentioned another frost and snow" such as no man living could remember the like;" five arches of London-bridge were on this occasion "borne downe and carried away with the streame."

The winter of 1564-5 was remarkable for a very severe frost which began on the 21st of December, and according to Holinshed continued to such an extremity, that on New Year's Eve "people went over and alongst the Thames on the ise from Londonbridge to Westminster."

Some plaied at the football as boldlie there as if it had beene on the drie land; diverse of the Court being then at Westminster, shot dailie at prickes set upon the Thames; and the people, both men and women, went on the Thames, in greater numbers, than in anie street of the Citie of London. On the third daie of January, at night, it began to thaw, and on the fift there was no ise to be seene betweene London Bridge and Lambeth, which sudden thaw caused great floods and high waters, that bare downe bridges and houses, and drowned manie people, in England; especiallie in Yorkshire, Owes Bridge was borne awaie with others."

The next remarkable frost recorded is that of 1608. It begun on the 8th of December, and continued until the 15th; a thaw then ensued until the 22nd, when it began "againe to freeze violently, so as divers persons went halfe way over the Thames upon the ice; and the 30th of December, at every ebbe, many people went quite over the Thames in divers places, and so continued until the 3rd of January."

Evelyn, however, who was an eye-witness of this scene, furnishes the following extraordinary account of it in his Diary, of January the 24th.

The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with boothes in formal streetes, all sortes of trades and shopes furnish'd, and ful of commodities, even to a printing-presse, where the people and ladyes tooke a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and yeare set down when printed on the Thames : this humour tooke universally, that 'twas estimated the printer gain'd 57. a day, for printing a line onely, at sixpence a name, besides what he got by ballads, &c. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes; sleds, sliding with skertes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet-plays, and interludes, cookes, tipling, and other places, so that it seem'd to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the

water.

Upon this occasion king Charles the Second, his queen, and several other personages of the Royal Family visited the diversions upon the ice; and even had their names printed on the ice in conformity with the "humour" which Evelyn mentions as so prevalent. There is still in existence one of the very papers on which the king and his royal companions had their names printed; and we need hardly say that among collectors of the curious, it is regarded as an invaluable rarity. It contains the names of "Charles, king;" his brother "James, duke" (of York) afterwards James II.; "Katherine Queen" the Infante of Portugal; "Mary, Dutchess;"' Mary D'Este, sister of the duke of Modena, and second wife of James; "Ann, Princesse," second daughter of the duke of York, afterwards Queen Anne; and "George, Prince" of Denmark, her husband. The king's visit is thus noticed in a small poem printed on the river, entitled Thamasis's Advice to the Painter from her Frigid Zone, or Wonders upon the Water.

Then draw the King, who on his Leads doth stay,
To see the Throng as on a Lord Mayor's day;
And thus unto his Nobles pleas'd to say;
With these Men on this Ice, I'de undertake
To cause the Turk all Europe to forsake:
An army of these Men, arm'd and compleat,
Would soon the Turk in Christendom defeat!

The same poem contains the following advice to its readers :

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 Teaster 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 1683 were renewed, the frost beginning at the of which concourse of people, there were many that set up 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 tent, &c."

In these tents were fires. The ice lasted till the afternoon of the 2nd of February, when "it was quite dissolved and clean gon."

following.

Our engraving represents a view of the memorable Frost Fair on the Thames in the Winter of 1739-40, the most severe which had occurred since the year 1716. In the beginning of it, the houses then stand

In the winter of 1683-4 the festivities of a frosting on London Bridge received considerable damage fair were again witnessed on the Thames at London, The frost commenced in the beginning of December, and lasted until the 5th of February. The river was congealed to that degree, that another city, as it were, was created thereon; where, by the great number of streets, and shops, with their rich furniture, it represented a great fair, with a great variety of carriages, and diversions of all sorts; and near Whitehall, a whole ox was roasted on the ice."

from the many vessels which broke from their moorings and lay beating against them. On the 31st of December, it was announced in one of the newspapers that "all the watermen above the bridge have hauled their boats on shore, the Thames being very nigh frozen over." The "rocks" and "shoals" of ice which for some time floated on the river, became at length united into one solid mass, and represented "a snowy field everywhere rising in masses and hills of ice and

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snow."

Tents and printing-presses were speedily erected, and a complete Frost Fair was once more established; but some persons lost their lives in walking over the river. Among the productions of the press upon this occasion, were the following lines "Printed on the Ice upon the Thames at Queenhithe, January the 29th, 1739-40."

Behold the liquid THAMES now frozen o'er
That lately SHIPS of mighty burden bore.
Here you may PRINT your name tho' cannot write
'Cause numb'd with cold: 'Tis done with great delight.
And lay it by; That AGES yet to come

May see what THINGS upon the ICE were done.

In one of the newspapers for the 2nd of January, it was announced that

Several vintners in the Strand bought a large ox in Smithfield on Monday last, which is to be roasted whole on the ice on the River of Thames, if the frost continues.

Mr. Hodgeson, a butcher in St. James's Market, claims the privilege of selling, or knocking down, the beast, as a right inherent in his family, his father having knocked down the ox roasted on the river, in the great Frost, 1684; as himself did that roasted in 1715, near Hungerford-stairs. The beast is to be fixed to a stake in the open market, and Mr. Hodgeson comes dressed in a rich laced cambric apron, a silver steel, and a hat and feathers to perform the office.

The breaking up of this famous frost was attended with some amusing scenes; it is thus noticed in a newspaper of January 22nd:

Yesterday morning the inhabitants of the west prospect of the bridge were presented with a very odd scene; for, on the opening of their windows there appeared underneath, on the river, a parcel of booths, shops, and huts, of different forms, and without any inhabitants, which, it seems, by the swell of the waters, and the ice separating, had been brought down from above. As no lives were lost, it might be viewed without horror. Here stood a booth with trinkets, there a hut with a dram of old gold; in another place, a skittle-frame and pins, and in a fourth "the Noble Art and Mystery of Printing, by a servant to one of the greatest trading companies in Europe." With much difficulty last night, they had removed the most valuable effects.

In 1768 another remarkable frost took place, and in 1785 another, which lasted for one hundred and fifteen days. In 1789 the Thames was again frozen over, and a Fair held on the ice, several booths being erected on the 9th of January. Passages across the ice, strewed with ashes, were formed at Gun-dock, Execution-dock, &c., and these parts seem to have constituted the principal scenes of attraction.

No sooner, (says a contemporary chronicle,) had the Thames acquired a sufficient consistency, than booths, turn-abouts, &c. &c., were erected; the puppet-shows, wild beasts, &c., were transported from every adjacent village; whilst the watermen, that they might draw their usual resources from the water, broke in the ice close to the shore, and erected bridges, with toll-bars, to make every passenger pay a halfpenny for getting to the ice. One of the suttling-booths has for its sign, "Beer, Wine, and Spirituous Liquors, without a License." A man who sells hot gingerbread, has a board, on which is written, "no shoptax nor window duty." All the adventurers contend, in these short sentences, for the preference of the company; and the Thames is in general crowded.

Another specimen of the humour exhibited at this place, was contained in the following inscription on a temporary building on the Thames :-"This Booth to Let. The present possessor of the premises is Mr. Frost. His affairs, however, not being on a permanent footing, a dissolution or bankruptcy may soon be expected, and the final settlement of the whole intrusted to Mr. Thaw." On Wednesday, January the 7th, a large pig was roasted on one of the principal roads; and on Monday, the 12th, a young bear was hunted on the ice, near Rotherhithe. As usual, too, a printing-press was erected near the

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same spot; the following is one of the Bills printed on the ice, at the Thames Printing Office, opposite St. Catherine's Stairs :"

The silver Thames was frozen o'er,

No difference 'twixt the stream and shore,
The like no Man hath seen before

Except he lived in days of yore.

The frost was severely felt to a great distance down the river; the East India ships were hastily sent down to Gravesend, to which place, and even below it, large shoals of ice had floated. The navigation of boats was entirely stopped, and it was supposed that the river would soon be completely impassable from London Bridge to Woolwich. Every morning at London Bridge, vast quantities of boiling water were poured on the water-works before the wheels could be set in motion; and twenty-five horses were daily employed in removing the ice which surrounded them. At Blackfriars, the masses of floating ice were said to be eighteen feet in thickness; the surface of the river in some places was "smooth for a mile or two," and then "rough and mountainous" from the bodies of frozen snow. Putney and Fulham, "from the morning dawn till the dusk of returning evening, were a scene of festivity and gaiety." The thaw which followed this frost was rapid. had been for some time expected, and at length it commenced with some rain about two o'clock on

It

Tuesday, January the 13th; and before night, the streets were almost overflowed.

Perhaps, (says a newspaper of the time,) the breaking up of the Fair upon the Thames last Tuesday night below bridge, exceeded every idea that could be formed of it, as it was not until after the dusk of the evening, that the busy crowd was persuaded of the approach of a thaw. This, however, with the cracking of some ice about eight o'clock, made the whole a scene of the most perfect confusion; as men, beasts, booths, turn-abouts, puppet-shows, &c. &c., were all in motion, and pouring towards the shore on each side. The confluence here was so sudden and impetuous, that the watermen who had formed the toll-bars over the sides of the river, where they had broken the ice for that purpose, not being able to maintain their standard from this crowd, &c., pulled up the boards, by which a number of persons who could not leap, or were borne down by the press, were soused up to the middle. The difficulty of landing at the Tower-stairs was extreme, until near ten o'clock, occasioned by the crowding of the people from the shore, who were attracted by the confusion on the water. The inconvenience to the shipping is now increased more than ever, since the setting in of the frost, as no persons will venture upon the ice to fetch or carry anything for them, and it is not yet sufficiently disunited for a boat to live.

The last Frost Fair upon the River Thames at London, was held in the beginning of the year 1814. The frost commenced on the evening of the 27th of December preceding, with a thick fog which lasted for several days, and was suceeded by a remarkably heavy fall of snow, which continued for nearly two days with slight intermissions. The cold became intense, the wind blowing almost constantly from the north and north-east; the river was covered with vast fragments of ice and hardened snow, which floated along with the tide, and sometimes united to form a hard and fixed mass. After this frost had lasted for a whole month, a thaw of four days, from the 26th to the 29th of January, took place; and so large a quantity of ice was floated down in detached pieces, that the river between Blackfriars and London Bridges, became almost impassable. But this thaw was succeeded by a renewal of the frost, so severe, that the Thames very soon became one immoveable sheet of ice; and even on Sunday, the 30th, was crossed by some venturous persons on foot in different parts. On Tuesday, the 1st of February, the usual entries were formed by the unemployed water

men, particularly between Blackfriars Bridge and Three Cranes Wharf; and notices were posted in the streets leading thereto, announcing a safe footway over the river. It is said that many of the watermen received six pounds in the day by the toll which they took from persons passing over their little bridges, from the edge of the river to the firm ice.

The standing amusements of an English Frost Fair

now commenced, (says Mr. Richard Thomson in his Chronicles of London Bridge,) and many cheerfully paid to see and partake of that upon the frozen Thames, which at any other time they would not have deigned to look upon. Beside the roughly-formed paths paved with ashes, leading from shore to shore, there was a street of tents called the "City Road," in which gay flags, inviting signs, music and dancing, evinced what excellent entertainment was to be found there. That ancient wonder, peculiar to the place, the roasting of a small sheep over a fire, was exhibited to many a sixpenny audience, while the provision itself, under the name of "Lapland Mutton," sold for one shilling a slice! Several printing-presses were also erected to furnish memorials of the Frost in old verse and new prose.

Some of these papers are amusing; especially those which apostrophize the Printing-press in its novel situation :

You that walk here, and do design to tell Your children's children what this year befell Come buy this print, and then it will be seen, That such a year as this hath seldom been. The logical precision of the inference in the last two lines of this effusion, is not more curious than the following grandiloquent burst of panegyric upon

the Press.

OMNIPOTENT PRESS! Tyrant Winter has enchained the noblest torrent that flows to the main; but Summer will return and set the captive free. So may tyranny for a time "freeze the genial current of the soul;" but a Free Press, like the great source of light and heat, will, ere long, dissolve tyranny of the mightiest. Greatest of the arts! What do we not owe to thee? The knowledge which directs industry, the liberty which encourages it, the security which protects it, and of industry how precious are the fruits! Glowing and hardy temperaments, which defy the vicissitudes of seasons, and comfortable homes which make you regret not the gloom that is abroad. But for Industry, but for Painting, you might now have been con

tent, like the Russ and Laplander, to bury yourselves under that snow over which you now tread with mirth and glee. Printed on the River Thames, and in commemoration of a great fair held upon it on the 31st of January, shore. The frost commenced the 27th of December, 1813, 1814, when it was completely frozen over from shore to and was accompanied by a thick fog that lasted eight days; and after the fog, came a heavy fall of snow, that prevented all communication with the northern and western parts of the country for several days.

Another bill upon the same subject, containing fewer reflections and more humour, promises that the press shall be kept going "in the true spirit of liberty,"-if the public buy impressions.

Friends! Now is your time to support the freedom of the Press! Can the Press have greater liberty? Here you find it working on the middle of the Thames; and if you encourage us by buying our impressions, we will keep it going in the true spirit of liberty during the frost. One of the last papers printed on the river ran thus :TO MADAM TABITHA THAW.] Dear Dissolving Dame.

FATHER FROST and SISTER SNOW have bonyed my borders, formed an idol of ice upon my bosom, and all the LADS OF LONDON come to make merry; now, as you love mischief, treat the multitude with a few CRACKS by a sudden visit, and obtain the prayers of the poor upon both banks.

Given at my own Press, the 5th of February 1814. THOMAS THAMES. Upon the evening of the very day on which this invocation was printed, "Madam Tabitha Thaw," suddenly made her appearance with a fall of rain; the ice cracked and floated in several places, and about two o'clock on the following day, the tide, which during the frost had apparently not risen above half its usual height, began to flow very rapidly. The river was covered with detached masses of ice, and every vestige of this last Frost-Fair speedily disappeared.

The features of this British Carnival (said Mr. Thomson a few years ago,) are in the memories of the greater part of the present generation; though if it were otherwise, the representations of it are few and scarce, and generally very inferior.

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LONDON: Published by JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND'; and sold by all Booksellers.

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