‘And see where it has hung th’ embroidered banks
    With forms so various that no powers of art,
    The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene! 
    Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high
    (Fantastic misarrangement!) on the roof
    Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees
    And shrubs of fairyland.  The crystal drops,
    That trickle down the branches, fast congealed,
    Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
    And prop the pile they but adorned before. 
    Here grotto within grotto safe defies
    The sunbeam; there, embossed and fretted wild,
    The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
    Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain
    The likeness of some object seen before.’

From the beautiful beacon cliff—­to which we eagerly toil through the snow, and up and down the slippery hill-sides—­we behold the sea as still and smiling as in summer, and as clearly reflecting the exquisite blue of the vault above; but each of the many little rills which the long rains preceding the frost had caused to flow over the face of the red cliffs, is now a stationary thread of silver, spell-bound by the enchaining frost; and icicles, or, as old-fashioned people call them, aglets, of three or four feet long, ornament the overhanging ledges, prone to fall to the beach—­far, far below—­when a thaw releases them from their present stations.  But the air is so very keen that nothing but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the juniors, prevent our stagnating into ‘pellucid pillars’ ourselves.  So much, then, for our January ramble.  The season of which I have now to speak was most different.  After unusual cold, especially after snow, it is not uncommon to see an early spring appear, and so it was now, as Spenser says—­

    ’The fields did laugh, the flowers did freshly spring,
    The trees did bud, and early blossoms bore;’

and so warm was it one day towards the end of February, and the air so sweet, that I resolved on having ‘Jack’ and sallying forth in search of wild-flowers—­not flowers of frostwork, but real spring jewels.

On this excursion, I thought it expedient to take Fanny, which, though a somewhat stubborn little beast of burden; yet so bent was I on seeing the sweet spring-like hedges and banks, that I agreed to endure Fanny; and at the given time on her I mounted, and after much persuasion, got her under-weigh:  the boy George bringing up the rear.