S. Donato, which he laid last week as a prothalmial offering at the feet of his beautiful fiancée, the Princesse Matilde de Montfort, daughter of Jerome Buonaparte, the ex-king of Westphalia. If ever any one had cause to rejoice in a dazzlingly bright and radiant prospect of felicity, Count Demidoff is the man, for his bride is as good as she is beautiful; and that she may be blessed with the perfect happiness which the Almighty vouchsafes to the pure and guileless in spirit, is the earnest prayer of AN ENGLISH TURFITE IN ITALY.

BUBBLES ON BALLOONING.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

"Here we go up-up-up."-Tom Thumb.

"Restat iter cælo, cœlo tentabimus ire.

Da veniam cœpto, Jupiter alte, meo."—OVID.

MONK MASON, in his interesting work on ballooning (or, to use a more classical phrase, aerostation), states, "that to Mr. C. Green the world are indebted for the entire results of all that is beneficial in the practice, or novel in the theory, of this the most delightful and sublime of sublunary enjoyments;" and the ever-Green aeronaut has proved himself worthy of the panegyric, having accomplished more than any other "sailor in the air" (as the Greek word describes it), in nearly three hundred ascents that he has made. He is one of those who regard not the perils of the sea, and who look upon the Atlantic as no more than a simple canal, of which three days and nights might suffice to effect the passage. Nay, some have been found sanguine enough to assert that, transported by the trade winds, they do not despair of accomplishing the circle of the earth in fifteen days!

If the great desideratum can be attained, that of steering the machine, we venture to predict Mr. Green will overcome the difficulty. Hitherto, the only practical account to which acrostation has been turned was the survey of the field of battle at Fleurus from a balloon, by which means the French prevented a surprise.

For balloons formed on a large scale we are indebted to France, where two brothers, Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, paper-makers at Annondy, distinguished themselves in 1782, by exhibiting the first aerostatic machines, which have since excited so much attention. On the 27th March, 1783, a balloon, constructed of lutestring, and rendered impervious to the enclosed air by caoutchouc dissolved in spirit, was exhibited in the Champ de Mars at Paris, and went up before a numerous concourse of people. After floating among the clouds for nearly three quarters of an hour, it descended in a field about fifteen miles distant, to the surprise and astonishment of the peasants. The next experiment was made by Monsieur Montgolfier before the king,

VOL. IV.

2 Y

queen, the court, and all the beau monde of Paris at Versailles. The balloon consisted of cloth made of linen and cotton thread. Its height was nearly sixty feet, its diameter about forty-three feet. It ascended with the first living aeronauts on record- -a sheep, a cock, and a duck, (many a goose has since followed), rose to the height of 1440 feet, and fell about 10,200 feet from the place of ascent. The success of this attempt induced the intrepid and philosophical M. Pilatre de Rozier to offer himself as the first aerial adventurer; and on the 15th of October he ascended in a balloon constructed by Montgolfier. It was of an oval shape, about seventy-four feet in height and forty-eight feet in diameter. To the aperture at the bottom was attached a wicker car or basket, about three feet broad, with a balustrade about three feet high. From the centre of the aperture an iron brazier was suspended by chains, in which a fire was lighted for inflating the machine. On the balloon being inflated, De Rozier placed himself in the car, and, to the astonishment of a multitude of spectators, ascended to the height of eighty-four feet, and there kept the machine floating by repeatedly throwing straw and wood upon the fire. This experiment was repeated on the 17th and 19th, on which occasions Monsieur Giraude de Villiette and the Marquis d'Arlandes ascended with Rozier. The Academy of Sciences voted the annual prize to the Messrs. Montgolfier. In the above-recited experiments the machine was secured by ropes. The first unconfined (ballon libre) aerial ascent took place in the Bois de Boulogne, in November, when M. de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes ascended in the above-mentioned balloon. The aeronauts are supposed to have soared to an elevation of above 3000 feet. They were driven horizontally over Paris, crossing the Seine below the barrier of La Conférence, and passing thence between the Ecole Militaire and the Hôtel des Invalides. On attempting to descend they found that the wind was carrying them upon the houses of the Rue de Sévre, faubourg St. Germain. With the utmost presence of mind they increased the fire (not an Englishman's idea of a pleasant fire-side), and making another rise in the world continued their course until they had completely crossed Paris, when they descended very gently on the plains near the new Boulevard, having been in the air upwards of twenty-five minutes. Strange to say, D'Arlandes, who evinced so much intrepidity, was broken for cowardice in his military capacity at the commencement of the French revolution.

Notwithstanding the rapid progress of aerostation in France, there is no authentic account of any experiments of this kind in England until about the close of the year 1783. The most promising attempt was made by Zambeccari, an Italian, whose excursions are detailed by Kotzebue, and whose balloon was launched from the Artillery Ground, London, in November; and after travelling at the rate of twenty miles an hour, was taken up near Petworth.

In 1784, aerial voyages became frequent. In April, Messrs. Morveau and Bertrand ascended from Dijon; they were in the air about an hour and a half, and traversed about eighteen miles. Sir E. Vernon went from London to Horsham, thirty-six miles, within the hour. In May, four ladies and two gentlemen ascended at Paris in a Montgolfier, a "ballon captif," as it was termed the machine being confined by ropes. Madame Thible ascended shortly after in a "bal

lon libre."

But our limits will not permit us to give the names of all the aspirants that ascended in France at this period. The Duke de Chartres, afterwards Duke of Orleans-better known as the Unfortunate Egalité-father of the present king, was, on one occasion, in imminent danger; he and his companions being compelled, when at a height of 5100 feet, to make holes in the balloon, for the purpose of discharging the inflammable air, and which caused them to descend most rapidly to the ground.

The first aerial voyage performed in England was in May 1784, by Vincent Lunardi, a native of Italy. His balloon was made of oiled silk, thirty-three feet in diameter; from a net, which went about twothirds over the balloon, a hoop was attached by cords, to which the car was fixed. This balloon was filled with inflammable air, produced from zinc by means of diluted vitriolic acid.

The second aerial voyage in England was performed by Monsieur Blanchard and Mr. Sheldon, Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy, and who was the first Englishman that ascended in an aerostatic machine. Monsieur Blanchard landed his friend at Chelsea; and travelling at the rate of twenty miles an hour, descended near Romsey. In October, Mr. Sadler made a successful trip from Oxford, with an inflammable air balloon of his own construction.

The catastrophe that befell Messieurs de Rozier and Romain, in 1785 (who ascended at Boulogne, with the intention of crossing to England), by their balloon catching fire at an altitude of three quarters of a mile, though deeply lamented, did not debar other aspiring heroes; for in July, Mr. Crosbie ascended in Dublin, with a view of crossing the Channel, but descended in the ocean, and was with some difficulty saved; and Major Money, in an ascent from Norwich, was driven out to sea, and after two hours' sky-larking, dropped into the water, and was taken up in a state of extreme debility by a revenue cutter, having been struggling with the waves for nearly seven hours. Nor were our French neighbours less enterprising, for Monsieur Blanchard, accompanied by the Chevalier de l'Epinard, ascended from Lisle, and traversed a distance of 300 miles before they descended; and in the course of that year, the former, as the Vauxhall bills would say, "made his thirty-second ascent."!!

We pass over the next seventeen years, during which a few uninteresting aerial voyages were made in different parts of the world; merely remarking, that within two years of the first discovery of the art of navigating the atmosphere, more than forty persons ascended without any great injury.

In our own days accidents have increased: In 1806, Carlo Brioschi, Astronomer Royal at Naples, ascended with Signor Andreani ; the balloon burst, its remnants checked the fall of the latter sufficiently to save his life but Brioschi died shortly afterwards from the effects of it.

In 1819, Madame Blanchard fell a victim from the ignition of her balloon by a spark of artificial fireworks. Her husband had "braved the breeze" thirty-six times.

In 1824, Windham Sadler (second son of the veteran aeronaut, who had made sixty successful voyages) was killed from a balloon.

In the same year, Lieutenant Harris, R.N., was killed in an ascent

from the Eagle Tavern, City Road; he was accompanied by Miss Stocks, who was fortunately saved, and which gave "the pickpockets," as Dr. Johnson called the punsters, an opportunity of exercising their wit on the sudden rise and fall of Stocks."

Jordaki Kuparinto, a Pole, had a narrow escape, his balloon having ignited; but he descended safely in a parachute.

In 1837, Mr. Cocking fell a victim to an imprudent attempt at making a descent in a parachute constructed on defective principles. Turn we now to the successful candidates for aerostatic fame. Parlons des femmes premièrement.

As far as we can ascertain, nearly forty ascents have been made by our own countrywomen; seventeen by our Continental neighbours, the French; three by the Germans; and only one from the Land of Song and clear Skies.

In June 1820, Monsieur Garnerin, subsequently the hero of fifty aerial voyages, and Captain Sowden, ascended in a hydrogen gas balloon from Ranelagh Gardens, in the presence of thousands of spectators, and performed an aerial voyage of more than fifty miles in three quarters of an hour: they alighted near Colchester. In the following September, Garnerin made the experiment of ascending in a balloon and descending in a parachute. St. George's Parade, North Audley Street, was the scene of this exploit; and at six o'clock the adventurous Frenchman entered the basket, and ascended majestically amidst the acclamations of innumerable spectators. In about eight minutes, when the balloon was nearly out of sight, Garnerin cut the rope, — it was a moment of painful anxiety to the spectators, the balloon, separated from the parachute, ascended with the greatest rapidity; but the object of interest was the parachute, which, until it expanded, fell with the utmost velocity. Gradually opening, however, which it did in a few seconds, the descent became gentle; and though, "on landing" Monsieur Garnerin experienced some pretty severe shocks, he escaped without any material injury.

In our days, nothing has come up to the grand Nassau Balloon, as it was named, in compliment to the place of its descent. It ascended from Vauxhall Gardens on the 7th November, 1836; and, after an eighteen hours' trip, passing over parts of England, France, Belgium, Prussian-Germany, landed at two leagues from the town of Wielburg, in the duchy of Nassau. During its progress it passed over or near the following towns:- London, Rochester, Canterbury, Dover, Calais, Cassel, Ypres, Courtray, Lisle, Alt, Brussels, field of Waterloo, Namur, Liege, Spa, Coblentz the triumvirate who went this trip were Messrs. Green, Holland, and Monk Mason. The Vauxhall Balloon is a spheroid, sixty feet high, capable of containing 80,000 feet of gas, and of carrying nine persons: indeed, on one occasion we saw it fully freighted with live ballast.

:

Descend, ye nine!"

What an opening for an ode to the modern Dædaluses!

One of the great difficulties of aerostation, that of descending with safety, has been recently accomplished: for we find that during the late Birmingham music meeting, Mr. Gypson ascended and brought into operation his new safety-valve; so placed at the top of the balloon,

that on nearing the earth, after the ascent, the machine can be at once exhausted of the gas, and rendered stationary, without the risk of rebounding or dragging along the ground as formerly. So confidently did the aeronaut rely upon the valve, that he dispensed with the grappling-irons and cables as unnecessary incumbrances, and made a descent with the utmost facility, from an elevation of half a mile. But we must put an end to our aerial flights, trusting that the rising generation will remember the fate of Icarus, and not fly at too high game, but rather follow the prudence and ingenuity of his parent Dædalus.

CHARNWOOD FOREST.

It was a saying of the late Mr. Cradock, whose judgment in every thing relating to fox-hunting was generally looked up to as an authority not to be questioned, that "Charnwood forest was the best nursery for foxes, and the best school for hounds; and that the removal of the Quorn hunt to Melton would be fatal to Leicestershire as a sporting county." The last few years proved that Mr. Cradock spoke with oracular certainty; for, till the late most fortunate change in the management, every thing seemed going the way to verify his prediction. Time was when Quorn numbered nearly all the titles in the peerage amongst its winter residents, and the civilities they shewed to the foresters insured protection and a willing welcome to sportsmen. Mr. Assheton Smith well knew the importance of the forest to the hunt, and Jones's "Diary" shews that many of the best runs in the hunt's best days were with forest foxes. Mr. Osbaldeston was not unmindful of the great value of Charnwood; and, save these, we have had no master at all alive to it.

Mr. Hodgson's long experience in fox-hunting soon led him to see that Quorn was the proper head-quarters, and the forest the natural training ground for the hunt. He saw, too, that it was an arena for sport. No matter what the prejudices against it in the minds of his supporters; equal to those prejudices was his determination to shew their groundlessness. His forest fixtures at first were barely attended by a dozen, and these chiefly farmers. What matter?—the master still persevered; and while those who would have been with him at any other fixture flew to the Belvoir, the Cottesmore, or the Northampton country, and, for lack of scent, scarely ever got a run, Mr. Hodgson had sport on Charnwood that really deserved the often-bandied epithet of "splendid." "It was sport, indeed," as a sporting friend truly observed, "only inferior to the deer-stalking of Glen Tilt." True, there is rough riding to be done over some parts of Charnwood. There are whins, and "horses' heads," and quags; there are steeps, and slopes, and stone walls. But what of all these? To many these things, as to the

Knight of Snowdon, are only fresh excitements.

"And if a path be dangerous known,

The danger's self is lure alone."