barge, find three or four lighters, and two or
three sloops from Lloyds; and they all
backed sail with astonishment as they seen the
beautifullest sloop in the Royal Navy, alooking
as spick and span as if that moment out of dock.
And then she hoisted a signal—Good morrow,
gentlemen—and bore quietly out of the narrow
into the wide sea. Some of the disappointed
salvors went ashore, and gave the telegraph
men as good a licking as ever they had in
their lives. Well, sir, Nero was tried for the
accident, and received a slight reprimand;
with such a high compliment for his zeal and
activity in getting his ship off again that he
got his promotion in a month or two, and
took command of a frigate of forty-four guns."

Other stories were told me by Harry
Sparks, all tending to the same result;
namely, that there really was a MAN on whom
the country can rely, with courage and discretion
equally mixed. The heat, the tobacco, the
grog, the excitement, the glaring eyes of Mr.
Sparks, his prodigious mouth, his yellow
teeth, his bullety head, all conspired to put
me into the highest state of satisfaction with
this ruined, weakened, disgraced, and powerless
England.

"Sparks," I said, "I was born in an inland
county, sir; but, far from the dash of the
wild sea I heard the music of Britannia's
thunder, and felt that if all the world were to
combine against us, we should still our
footsteps insupportably advance, and Britons
never never never shall be slaves!—
hurrah!"

Mr. Sparks entered fully into my feelings,
though perhaps he did not understand the
grandeur of my language, which was also
rather obscure to myself; and the last thing
I remember was his scratching his oakum
locks for a minute, and then engulphing his
head in the tumbler, after saying, "The same
to you, sir, and many happy returns!"

THE ROYAL BALLOON.

BLUEBEARD'S wife is a faithful type of our
common human nature, male as well as
female. The secret chamber is the room
we all want to penetrate into. One unburnt
book from the Alexandrian library would
be more attractive to bibliomaniacs than
a whole college-full of learned folios that
stand ready-ranged on their dusty shelves.
The last volume, spared by the Sibyl, only
increased the longing after those that were
irrevocably gone. Who would not give a
trifle for a peep at some of the treatises which
those who used curious arts in the early days
of Christianity, brought together and burned
before all men? Dr. Young, since grown old,
found more pleasure in contemplating an
obelisk-side of hieroglyphics, than in running
through the London Gazette; doubtless for
the simple reason that he could read the one
and could not read the other. Herschell's
delight was to hunt after stars, invisible or dimly
seen, which seemed to dive deeper into distant
space the harder he tried to get a peep at
them. We can easily fancy the intense
delight of the great modern interpreter of
Ninevite literature, when he believes he has
inserted the wedge of a lucky guess into a
cuneiform inscription, and has a chance of
splitting it up into sentences and words. The
higher the wall that surrounds a garden, the
sweeter, longing mouths and noses suspect,
are the fruit and flowers inclosed within.
The thick morning mist that veils a landscape
makes us the more eager to discover its
beauties. The clouds, the glaciers, and the
treacherous snow, which ought to render the
mountain-top inaccessible, only serve to invite
the adventurous spirit to plant his foot where
prudence and practicability forbid. What we
cannot have, we resolve to have; what we
cannot know, we insist upon knowing.

From this craving after forbidden lore I
pretend to be no more exempt than my
neighbours. A wayside monument has had
the same effect upon me, haunting my dreams
and fancies by night, and intruding on my
waking thoughts by day. It has intrigued
me, to borrow a French expression, beyond
all bearing.

The churchyard of the village of Wimille,
about four miles north of Boulogne-sur-Mer,
skirts the imperial road to Calais. Just
at the middle of the boundary-wall a stone
tablet rises, inscribed with small capitals,
and surmounted at the top with something
which is very like a petrified cauliflower.
It is meant to represent a balloon on fire.
The inscription (in French) runs to the
following effect:—"In this cemetery are
interred Francois Pilâtre de Rosier and Pierre
Ange Romain, who, desiring to pass over to
England in an air-balloon, in which they had
combined the agency of fire and of inflammable
air, by an accident whose veritable
cause will always remain unknown, the fire
having caught the upper part of the balloon,
they fell from the height of more than five
thousand feet between Wimereux and the sea."
The inscription is repeated in a Latin duplicate,
for the benefit of travelling strangers
who do not understand French. The said
travellers are also apostrophised:—"Passersby,
mourn their lot, and pray God for the
repose of their souls!" Annual masses for
their soul's repose, at the date corresponding
to their rapid descent, were founded in the
parish church of Wimille; whether or not the
'ninety-three revolution swept away the
masses I cannot say. The Curé would give
an answer to those who wish to know. Their
lot was mournful; but even stronger than
our pity is the feeling which urges us to find
out how the deuce it happened. I resolved
to try what could be done to that effect, and
at last made out a theory which may, or may
not, be the true one.

The churchyard memorial was not the only
one that was raised to mark the horrible