EDINBURGH FIRE BALLOON. AIR balloons, the principle of which was known to Favorinus and the ancients, more than two thousand years since,— as we are told, by Aulus Gellius, lib. x. c. xii., that Archytas, a scholar of Pythagoras, made a wooden pigeon, that could fly, by means of air enclosed within,- were again brought into notice by Stephen Montgolfier, by the accidental circumstance of the paper cover of a conical sugar-loaf, which he had flung into the fire, becoming inflated with smoke, and remaining suspended in the chimney; which thus impelled in the ingenious Frenchman the first thought of the fire balloon, designated, from his name, the Montgolfiére. Etienne Montgolfier, the original discoverer, never ascended; at least, so as to come before the public in the character of a practical aeronaut. Joseph Montgolfier, his elder brother, Pilatre de Rozier, and five others, ascended in the Grand Montgolfiere, at Lyons, Jan. 19, 1784; but the immense machine took fire, and the aerial voyagers descended without injury, in about fifteen minutes: any further attempts by the Montgolfiers, as practical aeronauts, are not recorded.

In Scotland, some interest appears to have been excited by the popular rage respecting balloons; and the earliest attempts emanated from a chemist, at Edinburgh, named Scott, who, on Friday, March 12, 1784,† let off, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, from Heriot's Gardens, an air balloon, of about three feet and a half diameter; the colour, a light green. It took about six minutes and a half in ascending, before it disappeared altogether; and would have gone out of sight much sooner, had it not been for a black cloud, in the midst of which it appeared like a star, and was really taken for such, by some gentlemen at the Cross. The day was extremely favourable, the wind moderate, and at west a point north; so that the balloon went in the direction of east by south; and was taken up near Haddington, about twenty miles from Edinburgh. The crowd of spectators on the occasion was immense. On the 17th,

According to the information of M. de la Lande, editor of the Journal des Sçavans; but, according to others, by a rent, or burst, near the top of the balloon.

The celebrated Philip Astley, by a singular coincidence, on the same day, "launched an aerostatic globe [or balloon], in St. George's Fields, in presence of a greater number of spectators than were, perhaps, ever assembled together on any occasion." The writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, p. 228, who notices this fact, observes: "Many of the spectators will have reason to remember it; for a more ample harvest for the pickpockets never was presented. Some noblemen and gentlemen lost their watches, and many their purses. The balloon, launched about half-past one in the afternoon, was found at Feversham.'

hour.

The fame of the Grand Montgolfière inspired another adventurer, in the person of Mr. James Tytler, à chemist, also, in Edinburgh, who superintended the construction of a balloon on the Montgolfier principle, and appears to have exhibited it as the EDINBURGH FIRE BALLOON : the price of admission was three shillings.* An Edinburgh journal, for August, 1784, records

Its

"James Tytler, chemist, in Edinburgh, has been, for some time past, employed in the construction of a fire balloon. dimensions are about forty feet in height, and thirty in diameter. It was the intention of the projector to have ascended, with his balloon, about the beginning of this month, during the race-week; but things not being in that forwardness and the perfection he expected, he was obliged to postpone his aerial journey. On the morning of the 27th, however, he made a decisive experiment. About five o'clock, the balloon was inflated, and soon manifested a disposition to ascend. Mr. Tytler took his seat, and, with inexpressible satisfaction, felt himself raised, with great The machine power, from the earth. entangled itself among the branches of a tree, and by a rope belonging to the mast which raised it, so that its power of ascension was greatly weakened. However, when the obstacles were removed, it ascended, rapidly, to the height of three hundred and fifty feet, as measured by a line left hanging from the bottom of the basket. The morning was calm; and, as no furnace was taken up with it, the balloon, therefore, went but a small way; it soon descended to the earth, without any damage to the projector, who, in testimony of his security, returned, while in the air, the huzzas of the spectators; and, on his return, was overwhelmed with their congratulations.”

In addition to this very circumstantial account, there is extant a letter from one of the spectators, dated on the day of this

ascent :

In the very extensive collection of "tickets to places of public amusement," formed by Miss Banks, the sister of Sir Joseph Banks, and now deposited in the print-room of the British Museum, is a ticket of this exhibition, with the autograph of the exhibitor; and a manuscript memorandum on the card, that the balloon was "constructed by Mr. William Brodie." A portrait of the aeronaut, Tytler, is among the portraits etched by Andrew Kay, the quondam artistical-barber, at Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, August 27th, 1784. Mr. Tytler has made several improvements upon his fire balloon. The reason of its failure, formerly, was its being made of porous linen, through which the air made its escape. To remedy this defect, Mr. T. has got it covered with a varnish, to retain the inflammable* air, after the balloon is filled.

Early this morning, this bold adventurer took his first aerial flight: the balloon being filled at Comely Garden, he seated himself in the basket, and the ropes being cut, he ascended very high, and descended quite gradually on the road to Restalrig, about half a mile from the place where he rose, to the great satisfaction of the spectators. Mr. Tytler went up without the furnace this morning; when that is added, he will be able to feed the balloon with inflammable air, and continue his aerial excursions as long as he chooses.

Mr. Tytler is now in high spirits, and, in his turn, laughs at those infidels who ridiculed his scheme as visionary and impracticable. Mr. Tytler is the first person in Great Britain who has navigated the air.

Mr. Tytler, in accordance with the concluding portion of the letter, is entitled, as Mr. Monck Mason correctly states, to the triple distinction of being the first native of Great Britain who achieved an aerial ascent; of having accomplished the first aerial voyage in these realms; and, with the exception of a recent experiment,† the only person, upon the principle of the original inventor, in which the agent of the ascension was atmospheric air rari. fied by the application of artificial heat; and, notwithstanding the unquestionable testimony afforded in the above-quoted papers, this event has been disallowed or overlooked by all who, previously to Mr. Mason, had professed to chronicle the progress of aerostation. It is pitiable to observe with what obstinacy the several

* As Mr. Monck Mason observes, the application, here, of the term inflammable, is, evidently, an error of the writer, arising from an ignorance of the real meaning of the word, and an incorrect association between the material and the cause of its production.

Mr. Sneath ascended in a balloon of his own. construction, from Bleak-hill, near Mansfield, on the night of May 24, 1837, being the only instance on record, as Mr. Mason states, in which, with the exception of Mr. Tytler's from Edinburgh, such an expedient has succeeded in any part of the British dominions. After being in the air two hours, the balloon began to descend; and, at eleven, the grapnel took effect in a hedge, near the village of Spondon. Apprehensive of the escape of the balloon, should he quit it, and fear of allowing the fire to abate, lest, no longer able to support itself, the balloon might fall upon the furnace, and be consumed, he was compelled to continue in the car till half-past four on the following morning, when some workmen, passing by, came to his assistance, and relieved him from his dangerous situation.

writers upon the subject have perverted the admission of this ascent, and concur in ascribing to Lunardi the merit of having accomplished the first aerial voyage in this country; whereas he did not ascend till September 15th following. It may, probably, be urged, that Tytler's ascent was not attended with any of those astounding circumstances by which the exploits of the earlier aeronauts were generally signalized: neither was the distance run over, nor the rate at which it was accomplished, such as to entitle it to particular notice on the score of these attributes. To regulate the merits of an ascent according to such a scale, would, however, be most unjust; these are, in fact, matters wholly dependent on circumstances over which the individual can have no possible control; and many instances might be quoted of experiments, remarkable enough in other particulars, which, in these, might be considered as singularly deficient. Were such, in fact,

to be taken as the test of admission to the honours of aerostation, Pilatre de Rozier and Arlandes must relinquish the glory of the first aerial flight, whose utmost stretch did not exceed 5,000 toises; and the celebrated ascent of Joseph Montgolfier, in the Grand Montgolfière, at Lyons, must be erased from the list; as, in that, the distance accomplished was even inconsiderable to that achieved by the Edinburgh Fire Balloon. B.

We are indebted for the Drawing whence our wood-cut is derived, to Mr. Edward Spencer, jun., the eldest son of the distinguished aeronaut, Mr. Edward Spencer, so often the associate of Mr. Charles Green in his aerial expeditions.

Madame Thible, the first female aeronaut, and possibly the only woman who has ascended in a fire balloon, did so in a Montgolfiére, from Lyons, June 4, 1784, in company with M. Fleuraud, in the presence of the court, and of Gustavus, King of Sweden, then travelling under the fictitious name of Count Haga.

The numerous aerostatic attempts during the year 1784, occasioned the following amusing lines, entitled

The Air Balloon.

By land let them travel, as many as list,
And by sea, those who like the hard fare;
In an airy balloon whilst I sit at my ease,
And pleasantly glide through the air!
Round this globe, the farthest they ever can reach,
Let them travel night, morning, and noon;
Such excursions as these are but mere bagatelles,
When compared with a trip to the moon!
In my chariot aerial, how pleasant to go,
To see all my friends in the stars:
Take a breakfast with Mercury, and dine, if I please,
With Jupiter, Saturn, or Mars!

And should I fatigued or wearisome prove, When from planet to planet I'm dodging; With Venus I'm welcome to stay all the night; Where on earth can you find such a lodging?

ENOUGH!

ENOUGH? How wide a word! To one, how little-to another, how large! Its signification changes with every moon; its realization becomes more difficult with every step made, apparently, in advance towards it.

"A little will content me," Ardens had said, ten years before: "I want simply enough. Let me own but a score of acres, and I shall have no desires ungratified.' The score is now a hundred, and still Ardens, with reproach and complaint, asks, simply, for enough: as yet he has not found it. With every gain came selfcreated wants; with every conquest, greater aspirings. As in the natural world, by ascending a mountain, the horizon expands, and becomes more distant, so, in the artificial world, the bounds of man's wants and wishes are enlarged by the very acquirement of that which was previously the limit.

"If thou wouldst make Pithocles truly rich," wrote Epicurus to Idomeneus, "thou must not amplify his wealth, but lessen his desires; "-a sentence which should be written in letters of gold, on tablets of marble, and inculcated ever: for, as the same philosopher elsewhere writes, "to many, the possession of riches is not the end, but the change, of their misery."

Certain it is, that it is not possessing little, but requiring much, that makes a poor man. He, for example, who, gaining eight, can live happily on seven, is surely a richer man than he who, owning eighty, has learnt to think a hundred insufficient for his necessities. Let us, therefore, so school ourselves, that, by wanting little of Fortune, we may be independent of her caprices, and careless of her smiles; that we make not our happiness to depend on the possession of superfluities, but rest contented with just what is.

And yet would we not become apa thetic, or remove motive for high desires, -for in this schooling we set up an object for attainment, the Enough of which is distant from the worldly mind as earth's high places from unaided poverty. We mean the purification of the mind, and the possession of WISDOM. All feel anxious, even if they do not feel able, to obtain to something better,—something beyond: "The high-born soul

Disdains to rest her heav'n-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry:"

the endeavour. Let wisdom, then, become our striving point. Let the mind's advance, not the body's welfare, be the object cared for, whereto we need never say, Enough!

"For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks thro' the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit." And speaking thus, we mean not learning, (intimate communion with the mighty dead :)-we mean not simply knowledge, (acquaintance with all the mysteries of science, or the events of past times,)—but wisdom in its highest sense; and which, although it should result from these, is yet quite different, and not incompatible with the greatest book-ignorance.

Wisdom! who giveth riches to her follower when she sheweth them to be superfluous; who elevateth her disciple by proving the cares of dominion and the mutability of powers, and placeth him far above anxiety for the present, and deadeneth the sting of sorrow, by pointing to a radiant and enduring home," where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt."

G. GODWIN, Jun.

SCRAPS FROM JEAN PAUL. THE DEWDROPS.-A child, one too wise and good for this world, saw, on a summer's morning, that the dewdrops did not lie and glitter upon the flowers, for the angry sun came in its might, and dried them up, and they were seen no more. Soon a rainbow was seen in the clouds; and his father told him: "There are the dewdrops, over which thou didst grieve, and they now shine in splendour in heaven, and no foot shall crush them; and remember, my child, if thou vanishest soon from earth, it will be to shine in heaven.”

MISFORTUNE. -Oh, be assured, a real, great misfortune, which visits thy fellowmen, as well as thyself, comes but seldom. The sun is seldom fully eclipsed, often as it is obscured by clouds. We are never surprised at the rising of any pleasure, but only at its ever setting; on the other hand, when in sorrow, we are astonished at its commencement, and think its termination the most natural thing in the world. What strange astronomy our hearts have learned !

SUDDEN ELEVATION.-I never blame a man who has risen unexpectedly in the world for having a good opinion of himself; for he is very often taken by surprise, and is naturally uplifted when he finds himself a greater character than he supposed he was. Such men remind me of the villages round London, which are gra

and then, forgetting they were once dirty little hamlets, take upon themselves airs, as being a part of the metropolis.

PRAISE. Praise is usually exaggerated where it is least deserved, and there only. The Greeks allowed him who had conquered once at the Olympic Games to have his statues made of colossal dimensions; and it was necessary to win three prizes before being allowed to have the statue made of the size of life. If a man does anything remarkable once, it excites notice; if he repeats it, we soon grow indifferent. If a man sneezes, we say God bless him; but if he repeats it half a dozen times, we don't say anything.

SELF-LOVE. The warmest love cannot stand against wounded self-love; and the greatest generosity does not make amends for the slightest cavil. Even the best men will be content with others' good fortune, even if undeserved, but never with their unmerited praise. We feel a wound to our fame or good esteem keenly; but it soon heals, and we are, in our own selfconceit, at least, as strong as ever; like the deities in Walhalla, who cut each other to pieces every day, and get up the next morning sound and fresh.

PRAYER.-People sometimes find fault with what they call unreasonable or extravagant petitions; and we smile when we read that Lavater, when a boy, used to pray God to help him do his tasks; and Lichtenberg to write down questions, and expect an answer from Heaven. But, to the mind of the Almighty, a prayer for a world, and a prayer for a crust of bread, differ only in the vanity of the suppliant; for are not both alike to Him?

STATESMEN.-Statesmen can never understand the difference between mechanical and organic action in governments. In the midst of the soft, tender peach is formed the hard kernel; and this is cloven not by force from without, but by the gentle upward growth of the young shoot within: and in like manner does public opinion gently harden into a mass, which preserves the shoots of the future, and which cannot be broken.

OLD MEN.-Old men, like old trees, have a rough bark. They give you their recollections as they do liquids, with a trembling hand, that spills half.

ANOTHER. It is natural that old age should be indifferent and forgetful. As the hour-glass runs out, the upper part becomes more and more empty, and the thoughts are fixed on the heap below, which is the grave. In advanced life, we live, as it were, under the pole, where no star rises, and none sets, and the polarstar of the world to come shines steadfastly over our head.

BUSINESS.-I wish there were not quite so many important matters to be done in this poor life of ours; so that we might omit a million or two of them, and take our comfort sometimes. But what a crowd of deep, engrossing anxieties we have!-revolutions, battles, lawsuits, neighbours, sales and purchases, newspapers, new coats, and what not.

IMAGINATION.-Men of lively imagination reverse the old proverb, and to them two birds in the bush are worth a great deal more than one in the hand. And, after all, what are the few square yards of the present, compared to the boundless extent of the future, over which the imagination is sole ruler?

WOMEN.-The female sex contains all kinds of poetry. A woman in love is a romance; an amazon, an epic; a reasoning woman, a didactic poem; a domestic one, an idyl; a lively woman, an epigram; a prim one, a sonnet; and so forth.

DAY AND NIGHT.-Day and night are an emblem of married people in high life. We cannot tell whether they are following or flying each other, but we never see them together.

GOODNESS.-The union of goodness and beauty is like that of the vine with a fruittree, or the brilliancy of a jewel with its healing virtue.

CHILDHOOD.-Remember to begin early. One drop of warm rain may cause the tender shoot to swell and flourish; while a whole shower does but little good to the tree.

DEATH.-HOW brief is death compared to life! yet it is its very shortness that makes it so all-important.

PEDIGREES.

Pedigrees resemble the integral calculus of mathematicians, in which the computation is made by ciphers.

LANGUAGE. Of modern languages, the German is the organ, French the fife, and English either a trumpet or boatswain's whistle.

SOLITUDE.-How precious is a friend, when we are solitary and alone! It is not surprising that we have as little love for each other as wasps or spiders, when we consider that a man in a country town has some five or ten thousand people to love, and in a large city, ten or twenty times as many; but if you want a trial, keep a light-house for a month.

GRIEF AND JOY.-It is easier to conceal great grief than great joy; though our acquaintance sympathize more with the former than with the latter.

GOOD AND ILL FORTUNE.-Good fortune is the ordeal by fire, misfortune the ordeal by water.

THE PHANTOM PORTRAIT ; OR, THE COUNT AND THE PEASANT-GIRL. A Sibyl's Sketch.

THE autumn wind swung the branches of the old trees in the avenue heavily to and fro, and howled amid the battlements -now, with a low moan, like that of deep grief; now, with a shrill shriek, like that of the sufferer whose frame is wrenched by sudden agony. It was one of those dreary gales which bring thoughts of shipwreck, telling of the tall vessel, with her brave crew, tossed on the midnight sea, her masts fallen, her sails riven, her guns thrown overboard, and the sailors holding a fierce revel, to shut out the presence of Death riding the black waves around them; or of a desolate cottage on some lone seabeach, a drifted boat on the rocks, and the bereaved widow weeping over the dead.

Lucy Ashton turned shivering from the casement. She had watched the stars, one by one, sink beneath the heavy cloud which, pall-like, had spread over the sky till it quenched even that last and lovely one with which, in a moment of maiden fantasy, she had linked her fate.

"For signs and for seasons are they," said the youthful watcher, as she closed the lattice. "My light will soon be hidden, my little hour soon past.'

She threw herself into the arm-chair be side the hearth, and the lamp fell upon her beautiful but delicate face, from which the rose had long since departed; the blue veins were singularly distinct on the clear temples, and in the eye was that uncertain brightness which owes not its lustre to health. Her pale golden hair was drawn up in a knot at the top of her small and graceful head, and the rich mass shone as we fancy shine the bright tresses of an angel. The room was large, lofty, and comfortless, with cornices of black carved oak; in the midst stood a huge purple velvet bed, having a heavy bunch of hearselike feathers at each corner: the walls were old; and the tapestry shook with every current of passing air, while the motion gave a mockery of life to its gaunt and faded group. The subject was mythological-the sacrifice of Niobe's children. There were the many shapes of death, from the young warrior to the laughing child; but all struck by the same inexorable fate. One figure in particular caught Lucy's eye; it was a youthful female, and she thought it resembled herself; the outline of the face certainly did, though "the gloss had dropped from the golden hair" of the pictured sufferer.

"And yet," murmured Lucy, "far happier than I! The shaft which struck her in youth did its work at once; but I bear

the arrow in my heart that destroys me not. Well, well, its time will come!"

The flickering light of an enormous chimney, whose hearth was piled with turf and wood, now flung its long and variable shadows round the chamber; and the figures on the tapestry seemed animate with strange and ghastly life. Lucy felt their eyes fix upon her, and the thought of death came cold and terrible. Ay; be resigned, be hopeful, be brave as we will, death is an awful thing! The nailing down in that close black coffin-the lowering into the darksome grave-the damp mould, with its fearful dwellers, the slimy worm and the loathsome reptile, to be trampled upon you-these are the realities of dread and disgust! And then to die in youth--life unknown, unenjoyed; no time to satiate of its pleasures, to weary of its troubles, to learn its wretchedness-to feel that you wish to live a little longer-that you could be happy!

"And," added the miserable girl, "to know that he loves me-that he will kneel in the agony of a last despair by my grave! But, no, no; they say he is vowed to another -a tall, dark, stately beauty:* what am I, that he should be true to me?"

She wrung her hands, but the paroxysm was transitory; and, fixing her eyes on the burning log, she sat listlessly watching the dancing flames that kept struggling through the smoke.

66

May I come in, Miss Ashton ?" said a voice at the door; and, without waiting for an answer, an old crone entered. She approached the hearth, placed in a warm nook a tankard of mulled wine, and a plate of spiced apples, drew a low and cushioned settle forwards, seated herself, and whispered, in a subdued, yet hissing tone, "I thought you would be lonely, so I came up for half an hour's chat: it is the very night for some of your favourite stories."

Lucy started from her recumbent position, cast a glance around, and seemed, for the first time, sensible of her companion's presence.

"Ah! is it you, Dame Alison? Sooth, it is but a dreary evening, and I am glad of a companion-these old rooms are so gloomy."

"You may well say so, for they have many a gloomy memory; the wife has wept for her husband, and the mother for her child; and the hand of the son has been against his father, and that of the father against his son. Why, look at yonder wainscot; see you no dark stains there? In this very room-"

"Not of this room; tell me nothing of this room," half screamed the girl, as she turned from the direction in which the