ing in the rear of the army at an altitude of about 1300 feet. In the second ascent the enterprise being discovered by the enemy, a battery was brought to bear upon the balloon, but the aeronauts soon gained an elevation beyond the reach of the cannon. Another balloon, constructed by M. Conté, was attached to the army sent on the mem and carried them to a greater elevation than they had previously attained. They soon after descended safely in the forest of Guiennes. The King of France presented M. Blanchard with 12,000 livres, and granted him a pension of 1200 livres a year. Blanchard was the first who constructed parachutes, and annexed them to the balloons with the object of effecting escape in case of accident to the bal-orable expedition to Egypt. After the capitulaloon. During his ascent from Strasburg he dropped a dog, connected with a parachute, from the height of 6000 feet. A whirlwind, however, interrupted its descent, and bore it above the clouds. M. Blanchard afterwards met the parachute, when the dog, recognizing his master, began to bark; and just as M. Blanchard was going to seize him, another whirlwind suddenly carried the parachute beyond his reach. Having passed over Zell, he terminated his voyage; the parachute, still waving in the air, came down twelve minutes afterwards. In a daring experiment, which M. Blanchard had the courage to make on himself, he was less successful; for on hazarding a descent by a parachute at Basle, he unfortunately broke his leg. The more disastrous fate of Mr. Cocking, who was killed in 1837, by a descent from a parachute, which he detached from a balloon at the height of about 5000 feet, will be in the recollection of many readers. tion of Cairo, it was brought back with the remains of the army to France, and subsequently employed by M. Biot and Gay-Lussac in their scientific ascent, when the latter attained the enormous elevation of 23,040 feet above the level of the sea, and satisfactorily demonstrated that the air at that height contains exactly the same proportions as that collected near the surface of the earth. The use of balloons by the French in war soon created a panic among the English alarmists. It was reported that England would be invaded by clouds of aërial monsters, which would burn the cities and destroy the crops. Among the balloon prints before us, is one displaying a number of balloons on their way to England, under which is written :-"Oh, dis be de grande invention. Dis will immortalize my king, my country, and myself. We will declare de war against our enemi. We will make de English quake. We will inspect his camps; we will intercept their fleet; we will set fire to their dockyards; and we will take de Gibraltar in de air balloon; and when we have conquered de English, den we will conquer other contries, and make dem all colonies of de Grand Monarque." But, like the subsequent threatened invasion by Napoleon, whose flotillas were to land innumerable troops on our shores, and did not-so no favoring breezes bore dreaded aerial machines across the channel. Ancient dames once more slept in security, and farmers gathered their crops unap The success attending the ascent of balloons, soon led to sanguine hopes being entertained of the highest benefits resulting to mankind from the practice of aeronautics. The French instituted an academy at Meudon, for the express purpose of improving the art of aeronautics. The proceedings were conducted with the utmost secrecy. The management of the institution was committed to men of eminent reputation, and was under the direction of M. Conté. There was a corps of fifty aëronauts, trained to the service; and a spher-prehensive of danger. ical balloon, thirty-two feet in diameter, was kept The science of aerostation was not, however, constantly prepared for exercising, and fastened to the great terrace of the lodge in the open air. In favorable weather it was liberated, and with the car, which contained the colonel of the corps and a pupil, was allowed to ascend from 160 to 240 yards; but was still restrained by a cord fastened from below. Balloons were prepared in this establishment for the service of the different armies. They were named with all the form of christening a man of war, and we read of the Entreprenant, for the army of the north; the Céleste, for that of the Sambre and Meuse; the Hercule, for the army of the Rhine; and the Intrépide, for that of the Moselle. The decisive victory which General Jourdon gained in 1794, over the Austrian forces in the plains of Fleurus, has been ascribed principally to the accurate information of the enemy's movements before and during the battle, communicated by telegraphic signals from a balloon, which was elevated to a moderate height. The aeronauts, at the head of whom was the celebrated chemist, Guyton-Morveau, mounted twice in the course of that day, and continued about four hours each time, hover allowed to slumber; numerous attempts were made to propel balloons by means of machinery moving colossal wings, and vanes. It would far exceed our limits were we merely to enumerate the schemes which were tried, all of which wholly failed to answer the desired objects. Among our prints is a representation of a huge horse, made of oiled silk, stretched over a whalebone frame, to whose body wings are attached, which were intended to be moved by the aeronaut seated on the horse's back. This was a French invention, and the description goes on to say— Son corps serviroit de récipient au gaz; sa queue servit le gouvernail; et les quatre pieds, dans l'attitude d'un cheval qui galoppe, chargés dans leurs extrémités d'un corps pesant, proportionné au reste de la machine, serviroient de lest. On devine aisement la place d'une soupape qui s'ouvrant à la volonté du navigateur, laisseroit échapper promptement, par le rapprochement de ses genoux, une portion du gaz, et tempéreroit la légèreté du cheval les nues. dans le cas, ou il vaudroit s'emporter par de-là When the marvellous power of steam was made to minister to the use of mankind as a moving | bolder, and ventured to ascend during the night. power, it was fondly hoped that the time had ar- The first nocturnal ascent was undertaken by M. rived for the fulfilment of that portion of Dr. Dar- Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar Garnerin, at eleven o'clock on the night of the 4th of August, 1807. He ascended from Tivoli at Paris, under the Russian flag, as a token of the peace that existed at that period be tween France and Russia. His balloon was illuminated by twenty lamps; and, to obviate all danger of communication between these and the hydrogen gas, which it might be necessary to dis Sir G. Cayley, and other gentlemen, wrote several ingenious papers, in which it was endeav-charge in the course of the voyage, the nearest of ored to show that steam might be successfully em- the lamps was fourteen feet from the balloon, and ployed to propel balloons; and much more attention conductors were contrived to carry the gas away was bestowed on this favorite subject than on that in an opposite direction. Forty minutes after he of applying steam to drive carriages. Many of ascended, he was at an elevation of 13,200 feet; our readers will doubtless remember the Aero- when, in consequence of the dilatation of the balnautical Society, which was puffed into a kind of loon, he was under the necessity of discharging a pseudo-existence a few years ago, and whose di- portion of gas. About midnight, when 3600 feet rectors promised to all who became members on from the earth, he heard the barking of dogs; duly paying two guineas annually, direct commu- about two o'clock in the morning he saw several nication by the society's aërial ship, the Eagle, meteors flying around him, but none of them with all the capitals of Europe. This airy phenom- so near as to create apprehension; at half-past enon-brother, doubtless, to the eagle rendered three, he beheld the sun emerging in brilliant forever famous by carrying Daniel O'Rourke to the majesty above an ocean of clouds; and the gas moon-was 160 feet long, 50 feet deep, and 40 feet wide; the balloon part was intended to float with the longer axis horizontal; and a car, with a caboose 75 feet long, for the passengers and crew, hung below from a net, enveloping the balloon. An internal balloon was fitted, for the purpose of ascending and descending at will; and the whole was intended to be propelled by four fins, or wings, or paddles on each side, and steered by a tail adjusted aloft. becoming expanded by the increased temperature, the balloon attained an elevation of 15,000 feet above the earth, when he felt the cold intense. At half-past six in the morning M. Garnerin descended safely near Loges, forty-five leagues distant from Paris. A second nocturnal ascent by M. Garnerin, which he made from Paris in September, 1807, exposed him to the most imminent danger. In consequence of the pressure of the populace, the What became of the Aeronautical Society we balloon was liberated before M. Garnerin had do not exactly know, but we have a faint remem- time to adjust the machinery of the valves; conbrance that it dissolved to airy nothingness; or it sequently, when he had risen to an enormous may be, that the whole establishment-council, height, the balloon became so dilated, that M. secretary, clerks, and the great brass plate which Garnerin was obliged to make a rent in the silk, bore the attractive name of the society-took a to permit the gas to escape. The unfortunate adflighty farewell of our land of fogs, in their good venturer was now subject to every caprice of the ship Eagle. But the society was not wholly use- whirlwind, and the balloon was tossed about from less, it set people thinking; and we well remem-current to current. When the storm impelled him ber the brilliant idea being propounded by some downwards, he was obliged to cast out his ballast man, centuries in advance of his age, to employ to restore the ascending tendency; and at length, eagles themselves to draw our balloons. This was his scheme. In advance of some dozen of eagles he proposed harnessing 100 pigeons, just out of reach of the eagles. The latter, animated by the one undivided and natural desire to fasten their talons in the plump breasts of the pigeons, would fly at eagle speed; and the pigeons, who can go the pace, anxious to save their lives, would cleave the air at a prodigious rate. With such a team it was argued that balloons would be propelled with a velocity sufficient to satisfy all those who are not ambitious to be fired out of a mortar. We imagine that the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number of eagles must be assigned as the cause of the above mode of propulsion not being carried into effect; certain it is that we go up and down in the old way in balloons, which are driven to and fro as the wind listeth. With practice and experience aëronauts became every resource being exhausted, no expedient was left to him to provide against future exigencies. In this forlorn condition, the balloon ascended through thick clouds, but afterwards sank; and the car, having violently struck against the ground, rebounded from it to a considerable altitude. The fury of the storm dashed him against the mountains; and, after many rude shocks, he was reduced to a state of temporary insensibility. On recovering from this perilous situation, he reached Mount Tonnerre in a storm of thunder. A very short time after his anchor locked in a tree; and in seven hours and a half from the time of his departure, he landed at the distance of 300 miles from Paris. Numerous nocturnal ascents have been made during late years; but by far the most important night-voyage was that undertaken by Mr. Green, Mr. Hollond, and Mr. Monck Mason, on the 7th of November, 1836, when they ascended from and has since made many ascents. Mr. Mason's account of this extraordinary voyage is most interesting. At fifty minutes after five the balloon had crossed the channel, and stood nearly over Calais. Preparations were now made for the night. A guide-rope, of about 1000 feet in length, was suspended from the car. A lamp was lighted, and ample justice was done to a most abundant supper. There was no moonlight. Nothing, in fact, (says Mr. Mason,) could exceed the density of night which prevailed. Not a single object of terrestrial nature could anywhere be distinguished; an unfathomable abyss of "darkness visible" seemed to encompass us at every side; and as we looked forward into its black obscurity in the direction in which we were proceeding, we could scarcely avoid the impression that we were cleaving our way through an interminable mass of black marble, in which we were imbedded, and which, solid only a few inches before us, seemed to soften as we approached, in order to admit us still further within the precincts of its cold and dark enclosure. Even the lights, which at times we lowered from the car, instead of dispelling, only tended to augment, the intensity of the surrounding darkness; and, as they descended deeper into its frozen bosom, appeared absolutely to melt their way onward by means of the heat which they generated in their course. A curious example was afforded of the impossibility of arriving at a correct idea of outward forms seen under the above circumstances: We cannot conclude this article without noticing a singular use to which a balloon was put lately in Paris. A candidate for a seat in the National Assembly for one of the departments of the Seine, caused several thousands of his address to the electors to be launched from the car of a balloon when suspended over the department; a happy idea, it must be allowed, of general publication. A DAY IN JUNE. AND what is so rare as a day in June? An instinct within it that reaches and towers, Thrilling back over hills and valleys; With the deluge of summer it receives; And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest- And whatever of life hath ebbed away For some time (observes Mr. Mason) our attention had been particularly directed to an appearance which, in the absence of any ground for suspecting Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; the contrary, we very naturally concluded to pro- Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, ceed from some object or other on the surface of the We are happy now because God so wills it; earth below. Seen through the thick gloom of the No matter how barren the past may have been, night, and extended alone in the black space that T is enough for us now that the leaves are green, wrapped every other object from our view, it bore We sit in the warm shade and feel right well the aspect of a long narrow avenue of feeble light, How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; starting off in a straight line towards the horizon, We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help from some point or source at some distance underneath us. What it could be, we fruitlessly endeav-That skies are clear and grass is growing; knowing ored to determine. In vain we looked forward out The breeze comes whispering in our ear, of the car into the deep intensity of the surrounding That dandelions are blossoming near, night, concentrating all our powers of vision on the one spot, that we might catch some clearer view to determine our conjectures. The more we looked, the more uncertain appeared the result of our speculations; nor was it until after a considerable lapse of time, induced by observing its long-continued presence in the same position, that we became finally aware that it was only one of the stay-ropes attached to the summit of the balloon, which, hanging down at a distance of five-and-twenty feet from the car, and being, in fact, the only material object within our sight, had partially reflected the rays of light from our lamp and assumed the aspect described. The balloon in which this voyage was made was christened at Weilburg, by the daughter of the Baron de Bibra, the Great Nassau Balloon, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flow- And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; Everything is upward striving; From the Art Journal. EDGEWORTHSTOWN. MEMORIES OF MARIA EDGEWORTH. BY MRS. S. C. HALL. This preparation is elysium compared with the terror which fills the heart when a dearly beloved object is so unexpectedly stricken by the hand of death, that it is hardly possible to realize the event which you are told it was only natural to calculate. Such is especially the case when the the treasure-house of our still green memory for the wealth created by the care, the protection, the unfathomable love of a dear parent, or alınost as dear a friend. And if perchance we rebel against God for that He is about to call HOME the aged I FEEL it a duty and a privilege to give some and true and faithful laborer in his vineyard, a reminiscences of the venerable lady, who long still small whisper comes to us in our lonely permitted me the honor of calling her my friend. watchings, in the quiet night season-reminding The opportunities I enjoyed of knowing Miss us that after a little more weariness we shall all Edgeworth in her own home, the generous confi-be united, "and there shall be one fold and one dence she reposed in me, and the correspondence shepherd;" the bitterness of sorrow passes, even I have held with her, will, I trust, justify me in as the harrow over the furrow, and we repeat, the desire to do honor to the memory of one I until the sweetness of consolation comes with the have so reverenced and loved. I have heard words: "Lord, not my will, but thine be done." from Mrs. Edgeworth, the widow of Miss Edgeworth's father, (and heard it with regret in which all will participate,) that Miss Edgeworth had left a letter," to be delivered after death," in which she requested that "no life might be written of her, and that none of her letters might be printed." | But Mrs. Edgeworth does not express a wish that friend has not been seen for a long season. my respectful attachment to Miss Edgeworth shall Miss Edgeworth's treasured letters came to me not be recorded; and I recur with much satisfac-as usual, and betrayed no symptoms of decay ; tion to a letter I received some five years ago from sometimes breathing a calm and Christian resig Miss Edgeworth, commenting upon the observations on Edgeworthstown and its inmates, necessarily introduced into our published work on Ireland, in which she says, there is "not a passage or a word she would desire to erase." I have therefore the belief, that to record a memory of this invaluable woman, as a beautiful example of domestic virtue, combined with the highest intellectual endowments, while it may gratify many and be useful to some, can be distasteful to no surviving member of a family, whose renown is a part of history, and who could have furnished the world, but for this interdict, with the most valuable correspondence of modern times. My readers will, I trust, pardon me if I am not always enabled to detach myself entirely from the theme concerning which I write; and that they will also permit me to follow, without studied order or arrangement, my thoughts and feelings just as they occur to me in treating this subject. How often do we feel while gazing on a face upon which Time's iron pen is rapidly, and severely, inscribing and deepening the lines of age-how often do we feel that it would be a priceless privilege to lengthen a beloved life by the sacrifice of many of the years that seem promised to ourselves! nation to the "removals," which seemed all too rapidly to call from their domestic circle, many of those she loved; those sorrows she never dwelt upon, so that in general her letters were full to overflowing with life and hope, containing little hints as to the disposal of the future, mingled with glances at the past, in such loving harmony, that I never thought of the years the writer had numbered-or if I did, it was with pride, anticipating how many more it would still be given her to enjoy; I saw no change in the well-known writing, it was as straight and firm as ever; I heard of no failing; and in my letters I had hoped and planned for the future, and said that now the winter was gone, and the long days of summer at hand, we should meet again! How vain are all human arrangements! I had failed to note the march of time, and forgotten that age as certainly brings death, as that the sparks fly heavenward! The bitter grief which overwhelmed me when I heard of the death of one so honored and so dear as Miss Edgeworth had been to me from my youth up, cannot be considered as intrusive in these pages; thousands feel as I do, without having enjoyed the happiness of knowing her, as I have done; to such I may feel sure these brief Memories of a woman to whom the actual world owes so much, cannot fail to be interesting. This very feeling, agonizing though it be in its It was my custom to place upon my table her hopelessness, is a merciful preparation, enabling latest letter, so that I could often see it-just as a us all the better to endure a bereavement when it picture is hung to stamp a beauty on the mind, or comes; we note the decreasing strength, the flut-move to noble thoughts and actions-I never "put tering breath, and the increasing feebleness; and, by" a letter of Maria Edgeworth's, until I had it may be, perceive a small cloud over the mental received another, and this, which I look upon powers- —a forgetfulness of the present, while the through tears-now too surely her last letter-is memories of childhood continue fresh as ever; we as full of life as any of those with which I have observe these warnings with fears keenly awak-been honored during a period of nearly twenty ened; but they are observed; and observed with years. As a proof of how singularly alive she natural dread, although suggestive of gratitude for was to everything around her, how full of gener long years of past enjoyment, sending us back to ous sympathies, how enthusiastic in her admiration of whatever was excellent-from this letter, writ- | freshly as if only eighteen years had passed over ten but a few weeks before her death, and when her venerable head. She was full of vitality; in her eighty-third year, I may quote a passage which occurs in a postscript: I strangely forgot what was uppermost in my head when I sat down to thank you for what you tell me about Jenny Lind, and, oddly enough, and incredible as it must sound, the very last pages I wrote, in a story I am writing, were in praise of Jenny Lind! but not in such praise as you have given, fresh from the warm, eloquent, Irish heart. I shall beg leave to borrow the words from you, and I hereby return you my best thanks for the permission which I conclude you grant, as I never use a person's words without leave; no names mentioned, of course. unresting without being at all restless; she was tranquil, except when called into active thought or movement by somebody's want or whim; she was not too wise to minister even to the latter, and contrived not only to do everything it was necessary to do, but to do it at the exact time when it was most needed. To borrow a phrase of Lady Rachel Russell's, she was the most delicious friend" it was possible to have. She had abundance of sympathy, but it was tempered with a thoughtfulness that was sure to be of value to those who told her their wants and wishes; and her little impromptu lectures-half earnest, half playful-were positive blessings to those who knew the priceless integrity of her most truthful nature. I quote this passage because it is one of the many proofs I possess, of the enduring freshness and vigor of her mind-true to its old feelings, yet not only willing, but eager, to receive the imWhen stimulated by her example, which had pressions of new ones. Miss Edgeworth's mind, been a light to me, as well as to thousands, and from its first dawn to its earthly extinction, was, warmed by her enthusiasm, I ventured to creep as every one knows, more particularly directed into the path she had trodden so triumphantly betowards educational progress; thus it delighted fore my birth, and sent her, with an author's pride, me the more to find her so alive to the character and a young author's trembling, the first edition I had sketched of the Swedish lady, in a letter of "Sketches of Irish Character," I received, occupied by details relating to the various branches of the Governesses' Benevolent Institution. But there was no torpidity in her nature; her heart beat in unison with everything good; and in the note I have already quoted she says, reverting to my communication: within a week, an analysis of every" Sketch," accompanied by such full and hearty praise, mingled with invaluable criticism, urging me forward at the same time, and stimulating the desire I felt to make the Irish peasant more favorably known to England, while earnestly endeavoring to correct those faults in the Irish character, which I believed to be the result of unhappy circumstances, and careless, if not cruel, treatment. This QUEEN'S COLLEGE is a spick and span new affair; a prospectus was sent to me, and though I thought it very well written, and further, thought the Institution likely to be useful, yet I disliked the This correspondence led to our personal acname COLLEGE for ladies; and did not augur well of a certain air of pedantry, and display of knowl-quaintance, and it is a melancholy pleasure to edge and science, too grand and great for the purpose. And though I saw Mrs. Marcet's name, a host in itself, and to me a sanction, yet I could not bring myself to put forward my name; besides, I was very poor at the time, and had no subscription to give, as every farthing, and more than we had, was required for our starving and starved poor, for whom I earned a very small matter by Orlandino. We are now in a rather better condition, and I can, at least, afford a mite towards the endowment of an institution towards the education or support of governesses; pray put my name down-query, how much better late than never. My objection to the name of Queen's College was fastidious, and has been done away with, since the NAME has merged in the THING, and Queen's College is now only the title of a good and successful institution; you have quite charmed away all my prejudices, or evil spirit of objections. Her letters were usually long and diffuse; touching upon a new book, or a new flower, making inquiries about old friends and new authors,* as *I find in others of her letters such warm praise of some of our writers, that it is a pleasure to repeat it. Mrs. Gore's "Mrs. Armytage," was a novel she much admired; and she was so charmed with Dr. Walsh's "Residence at Constantinople," that, were it possible, it would have made me still more highly value one of the oldest and dearest friends I have in the world. "I think Doctor Walsh is a friend of yours," she writes. "I do not know when I have been so inuch interested and entertained as CCLXXIV. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 21 recall my first visit to her, at the house of her with his Residence at Constantinople.' It is written in such a lively and powerful manner, and contains so much that is new and interesting, that I wonder how he could for so many years refrain from publishing it. It is the writing of a man of real genius-nothing common-place, nothing traced to book-make, nor plated over. The reader admitting and requiring graphic genius to describe-to rejoices that so many striking events and circumstances, represent-fell to the luck of such a writer as Doctor Walsh. There was some man writing to the Irish Society years ago about an earthquake, who began with The Society,' &c. &c. I am sure the earthquake that had the earthquake that had the honor to be noticed by the Royal honor to be noticed by Doctor Walsh, if it could be personified, would or ought to say so to him. It is the most striking and interesting account of the feelings of a person in a danger quite new to them, and of so sublime plicity, and yet with such force and life." She continued a sort, I ever read; it is written with such truth and simlong in the same bright strain of praise, and then desired I would assure him of a warm welcome at Edgeworthstown; adding, "unless he likes being a LION, he shall never be called upon to be one, or made to roar. Sir Walter Scott, who was the best-natured of lions, had therein double merit, because nobody detested the thing more. I am glad Miss Porter is with Mrs. S if she likes it; but I am still more glad that my good dear Mrs. Hofland looks well, and is cheerful. Give my affectionate regards, and love and esteem to her." Miss Porter has survived both those friends. In the same letter, she asks, "Do you know who wrote Cecil? Does it deserve the high character given of it in the Edinburgh Review for July? I have not yet seen the book; it is in that review attributed to Mrs. Charles Gore. She is, indeed, a person of great talent; and I would get the novel directly, if I thought it was hers." |