the Revolution. The balloon was at first
exhibited in the church, but was afterwards
transferred to the Hotel de Ville. The
principal inhabitants of Guînes voted the erection
of a stone column to mark the spot in the
forest where the balloon fell. It was
inaugurated with great pomp by the civil and
military authorities of Calais and Guînes, and
bore a Latin inscription, recording the fact in
due form, and usual unintelligibility. The
inscription is now gone; the Revolution,
which swept so many things away, having
made free with that likewise. The column
still remains, and serves as an admirable
point of rendezvous for the schoolboys of
Guînes, when they get a day's holiday.

From London, Blanchard went to Holland,
where he made several ascents. Passing
through Calais to go to Paris, he was
conducted in procession to Guînes, on the twenty-
third of July. There, on beholding the
monument erected to commemorate his aerial
transit, he exclaimed, in the enthusiasm of
his gratitude, as he addressed the inhabitants
of Guînes, "Thanks to God, and to you,
Messieurs, I no longer fear either ridicule or
calumny. It would require fifty thousand
reams of libels heaped together, to hide this
column on every side!"

James Jefferies was born at London. He
died there in one thousand seven hundred
and eighty-eight, of a pulmonary complaint,
at the age of twenty-nine. Jean Pierre
Blanchard was born at Petit-Andely in
Normandy, in one thousand seven hundred and
fifty-three. He applied himself to mechanics
at an early age, and had always been haunted
with the idea of mounting in the atmosphere.
After having made many different kinds of
apparatus which were unsuccessful, he
attached himself to Montgolfier's system,
flattering himself that he should be able to guide
his balloons at pleasure. His first attempts
were made with a balloon to which he had
fitted wings. Although his efforts were
unavailing, he still persisted in his idea. He
modified his machinery in all kinds of ways,
remaining, after all, as unlucky as ever. By
the advice of Blanchard and Carnot, the
Ecole des Aérostiers was established at
Meudon, in one thousand seven hundred and
ninety-three, under the direction of Conté;
and on the field of battle of Fleurus, in one
thousand seven hundred and ninety-four,
ballooning was first applied to military purposes.
A balloon, from which the movements of the
enemy were watched, hovered over the two
armies, and decided the victory in favour of
the French. Sous-chef de brigade Coutel, and
the engineer Bureau de Pussy, were in the car.

Blanchard made balloon ascents in France,
England, America, Germany, and Holland.
His most extraordinary one was performed at
Rouen, where, on the fifteenth of August,
seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, he
ascended, taking sixteen persons with him. In
February, eighteen hundred and eight, having
made his sixty-sixth ascent near the Hague,
he fell from a considerable height. By the
orders of Louis Bonaparte, then King of
Holland, he received every attention which
his condition demanded. The care bestowed
on him temporarily restored him; but, on
reaching France, he fell into a hopeless state,
and died at Paris, on the seventh of March,
eighteen hundred and nine, leaving nothing
but debts behind him, after having received
immense sums of money. In seventeen
hundred and ninety-eight he made a claim upon
the Council of Five Hundred for the arrears
of the pension which had been granted him
by the old Government; but his demand was
ineffectual. He was then obliged to have
recourse to his friends for the means of living.
He was an unscientific and illiterate man,
speaking his own language incorrectly, and
ignorant of orthography. He left no
documents except a few prospectuses, and an
account, in twelve pages quarto, of his ascent
at Nantes in eighteen hundred. In this work
he assumes the titles of "Adoptive Citizen of
the principal towns in the two worlds,"
"Honorary member of many foreign Academies,"
and "Aerial pensioner of the French
Republic."

Blanchard married, in seventeen hundred
and ninety-five, Marie-Madeleine-Sophie
Arnaut, born at Trois-Canons, near La
Rochelle, who became as famous an aeronaut
as her husband himself. Her deplorable end
is well known. She ascended from the Tivoli
Gardens on the sixth of July, eighteen hundred
and nineteen, at ten o'clock at night, in an
illuminated car, from which fireworks were
suspended. The balloon caught fire, and the
unfortunate creature was precipitated from
an immense height upon the roof of a house.
Every assistance was rendered her, but she
died ten minutes afterwards. It was the
sixty-seventh ascent Madame Blanchard had
made. The jug goes often to the well, but
is pretty sure to get cracked at last.

SIR JOHN BARLEYCORN AT HOME.

"How long, O scribe!" I expect to hear
an indignant public in a Catilinian manner
exclaim, when the subject matter of this
article is palpable to its gaze—"how long,
O writer, is our propriety to be offended, our
sensibility shocked, our gentility disregarded
by your irreverent and incorrigible recurrence
to the vulgar subject of beer? Have you
no shame—no reticence, no sense of decorum,
no respect for your superiors? If you had
lived a hundred years ago and in Grub Street,
you would have starved; unless, indeed,
you had secured the friendship of Mr. Thrale.
If you were a Chinese literato, His Celestiality
would bamboo you to death; if you had
been one of Tippoo Saib's moonshees, he
would have decapitated you; one of Sultan.
Mahmoud's poets, you would have been
bowstrung. Be grateful then that you live