And noble grace that dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe!”
Armstrong, the poet of the “Art of Preserving Health,” thus describes the effect of frost upon the waters:
“Now blows the surly North and chills throughout
The stiffening regions, while by stronger charms
Than Circe e’er or fell Medea brewed,
Each brook that wont to prattle to its banks
Lies all bestilled and wedged betwixt its banks,
Nor moves the withered reeds . . .
The surges baited by the fierce North-east,