Scarcely had we recorded the hyperborean temperature last week ere
a supervernal mildness came over the air, with moistening showers of rain ; less sparkling to the intermittent sun than April usually is, but also, at least by contrast, warmer than the ca- pricious month. The days have been in character more like the gravest days of summer. It does not appear that the late and steadfast frost has done much harm, if any ; the vegetation had previously advanced too little. And now these warm rains are fostering the vegetation like mother's milk. To the poor the change is one from pinched hardship, when the starving frame shivers in an iron strait-waistcoat of rigour, to easy comfort : fuel is now "no object " ; fires are luxuries, not necessities; and life can get on fairly—except in the factories—without coals. But although the temperature is so genial, and the equinoctial gales are rather behind tune, they have not altogether forgotten to visit these shores : the deplorable wreck of the Adelaide, with the loss of two hundred souls, is only the most signal among the many disasters at sea ; and fresh reports arrive daily.
