ld,
Heaven, earth, and ocean, plunder'd of their sweets,
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,
Sermons, and city feasts, and fav'rite airs,
Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits.
And Katerfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wond'ring for his bread.

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on the uninjur'd ear.
Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanc'd
To some secure and more than mortal height.
That liberates and exempts me from them all
It turns submitted to my view, turns round
With all its generations; I behold
The tumult, and am still. The sound of war
Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me;
Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride
And avarice that make man a wolf to man;
Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats
By which he speaks the language of his heart,
And sigh, but never tremble at the bound.
He travels and expatiates, as the bee
From flower to flower, so he from land to land:
The manners, customs, policy, of all
Pay contribution to the store he gleans;
He sucks intelligence in every clinic,
And spreads the honey of his deep research
At his return--a rich repast for me.
He travels, and I too. I tread his deck,
Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes
Discover countries, with a kindred heart
Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes;
While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

COWPER.

[Note:_Katerfelto_. A quack then exhibiting in London.]

* * * * *

A HARD WINTER.

There were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost of January
1776 so singular and striking, that a short detail of them may not be
unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages from my
journal, which were taken from time to time, as things occurred. But it
may be proper previously to remark, that the first week in January was
unc