Though Night approaching bids for rest prepare, BLOOMFIELD. FEBRUARY. As I have already observed, I regard this as the most cheerless month in the year. There may be pleasant varieties of it; the latter end may, and frequently is, much more agreeable than the commencement; but, as a whole, it is as I have characterised it. It is at once damp and foggy. Besides the earth being saturated with a whole winter's moisture, there is generally abundance of rain during this month, so much so as to have acquired for it the cognomen of February fill-dike." The frosts and snows which have been locking up and burying the earth for weeks and months, are now giving way, and what is so cheerless and chilly as 66 A GREAT THAW? There is a lack of comfort felt everywhere. In real winter weather the clear frosty air sharply saluted the face by day, and revealed to the eye at night a scene of pure and sublime splendour in the lofty and intensely blue sky glittering with congregated stars, or irradiated with the placid moon. There was a sense of vigour, of elasticity, of freshness about you, which made it welcome: but now, most commonly, by day or by night, the sky is hidden in impenetrable vapour; the earth is sodden and splashy with wet; and even the very fireside does not escape the comfortless sense of humidity. Every thing presents to the eye, accustomed so long to the brightness of clear frosts, and the pure whiteness of snow, a dingy and soiled aspect. All things are dripping with wet: it hangs upon the walls like a heavy dew; it penetrates into the drawers and wardrobes of your warmest chambers; and you are surprised at the unusual dampness of your clothes, linen, books, and papers; and, in short, almost every thing you have occasion to examine. Brick and stone floors are now dangerous things for delicate and thinly-shod people to stand upon. To this source, and in fact, to the damps of this month operating in various ways, may be attributed not a few of the colds, coughs, and consumptions so prevalent in England. Pavements are frequently so much elevated by the expansion of the moisture beneath, as to obstruct the opening and shutting of doors and gates, and your gravel-walks resemble saturated sponges. Abroad the streets are flooded with muddy water, and slippery with patches of half-thawed ice and snow, which strike through your shoes in a moment. The houses, and all objects whatever, have a dirty and disconsolate aspect; and clouds of dim and smoky haze hover over the whole dispiriting scene. In the country the prospect is not much better: the roads are full of mire. Instead of the enchantments of hoar-frost, you have naked hedges, sallow and decaying weeds beneath them, brown and wet pastures, and sheets of ice, but recently affording so much fine exercise to skaiters and sliders, half submersed in water, full of great cracks, scattered with straws and dirty patches, and stones half liberated by the thaw : -such are the miserable features of the time. Let us felicitate ourselves that such joyless period is seldom of long duration. The winds of March speedily come piping their jovial strains, clearing the face of the blessed heavens from their sullen veil of clouds, and |