mous surface of the balloon, to drag the car along the ground, as if it were drawn by fiery and ungovernable horses. Now arrived a moment of difficulty and danger, which also had been foreseen and provided for by M. Barral. If either of the voyagers had singly leaped from the car, the balloon, lightened of so much weight, would dart up again into the air. Neither voyager would consent, then, to purchase his own safety at the risk of the other. M. Barral, therefore, threw his body half down from the car, laying hold of the vine-stakes, as he was dragged along, and directing M. Bixio to hold fast to his feet. In this way the two voyagers, by their united bodies, formed a sort of anchor, the arms of M. Barral playing the part of the fluke, and the body of M. Bixio that of the cable.

In this way M. Barral was dragged over a portion of the vineyard rapidly, without any other injury than a scratch or contusion of the face, produced by one of the vine-stakes.

The labourers just referred to meanwhile collected, and pursued the balloon, and finally succeeded in securing it, and in liberating the voyagers, whom they afterwards thanked for the bottles of excellent wine which, as they supposed, had fallen from the heavens, and which, wonderful to relate, had not been broken from the fall, although, as has been stated, they had been discharged above the clouds. The astonishment and perplexity of the rustics can be imagined on seeing these bottles drop in the vineyard.

This fact also shows how perpendicularly the balloon must have dropped, since the bottles, dismissed from such a height, fell in the same field where, in a minute afterwards, the balloon also dropped.

The entire descent from the altitude of twenty thousand feet was effected in seven minutes, being at the average rate of fifty feet per second.

In fine, we have to report that these adventurous partisans of science, nothing discouraged by the catastrophe which has occurred, have resolved to renew the experiment under, as may be hoped, less inauspicious circumstances; and we trust that on the next occasion they will not disdain to avail themselves of the co-operation and presence of some one of those persons, who having hitherto practised ærial navi. gation for the mere purposes of amuse.

ment, will, doubtless, be too happy to invest one at least of their labours with a more useful and more noble character.

Our limits warn us that this article, which has already exceeded customary bounds, must come to a close. We must, therefore, leave to others to pursue the consequences of the inventions which we have in these pages hastily indicated. What social, commercial, and political changes may not be looked for, when all the great centres of population, industry, and commerce have been brought into intellectual contact ! when persons and things are carried over the surface of the land at a mile a minute, and intelligence at the rate of a couple of hundred thousand miles per second!!

The author of some of the most popular fictions of the day has affirmed, that in adapting to his purpose the results of his personal observation on men and manners, he had found himself compelled to mitigate the real in order to bring it within the limits of the probable. No attentive and contemplative observer of the progress of the arts of life, at the present time, can fail to be struck with the prevalence of the same character in their results as that which compelled the writer alluded to to suppress the most wonderful of what had fallen under his eye, in order to bring his descriptions within the bounds of credibility.

Many are old enough to remember the time when persons, correspondence, and merchandise were transported from place to place in this country by stage. coaches, vans, and wagons.

In those days the fast-coach, with its team of spanking blood-horses, and its bluff driver, with broad-brimmed hat and drab box-coat, from which a dozen capes were pendant, who “handled the ribbons" with such consummate art, could pick a fly from the ear of the off-leader, and turn into the gateway of Charing-Cross with the precision of a geometrician, were the topics of the unbounded admiration of the traveller. Certain coaches obtained a special celebrity and favour with the public.

We cannot forget how the eye of the traveller glistened when he mentioned the Brighton "Age," the Glasgow "Mail," the Shrewsbury "Wonder," or the Exeter "Defiance,"-the Age,

which made its trip in five hours, and the Defiance, which acquired its fame by completing the journey between London and Exeter in less than thirty hours.

The rapid circulation of intelligence was also the boast of those times. With what pride was it not announced that the news of each afternoon formed a topic of conversation at tea-tables the same evening, twenty miles from London, and that the morning Journals, still damp from the press, were served at breakfast within a radius of thirty miles, as early as the frequenters of the London clubs received them.

Now let us imagine that some profound thinker, deeply versed in the resources of Science and Art at that epoch, were to have gravely and pub. licly predicted that the generation existing then and there would live to see all these admirable performances become obsolete, and consigned to the history of the past; that they would live to regard such vehicles as the Age and Defiance the clumsy expedients of past times, and their celerity such as to satisfy those alone who were in a backward state of civilisation!

Let us imagine that such a person were to affirm that his contemporaries would live to see a coach like the Exeter Defiance making its trip, not in thirty, but in five hours, and drawn, not by two hundred blood horses, but by a moderate-sized stove and four bushels of coals!

Let us further imagine the same sagacious individual to declare that his contemporaries would live to see a building erected in the centre of London, in the cellars of which machinery would be provided for the fabrication of artificial lightning, which

should be supplied to order, at a fixed price, in any quantity required, and of any prescribed force; that conductors would be carried from this building to all parts of the country, by which such lightning should be sent at will; that in the attics of this same building would be provided certain small instruments like barrel-organs or pianofortes, played on by boys; that by means of these instruments, the aforesaid lightning should, at the will and pleasure of the said boys, deliver messages at any part of Europe, from Petersburgh to Naples; and in fine, that answers to such messages should be received instantaneously, and by like means: that in this same building offices should be provided, where any lady or gentleman might enter, at any hour, and for a few shillings send a message by lightning to Paris or Vienna, and by waiting for a few moments, receive an answer!

If such predictions had been hazarded by any individual, however eminent might be his reputation, and great his acquirements, he would be inevitably set down as a fitter occupant of Bedlam than any other place of abode. Yet most of these things have come to pass, and the rest only wait the completion of the mechanism necessary to execute them. Such things have become so interwoven with our daily habits, that familiarity has blunted the edge of wonder.

Compared with all such realities, the illusions of Oriental romance grow pale; fact stands higher than fiction in the scale of the marvellous; the feats of Aladdin are tame and dull; and the Genius of the Lamp yields precedence to the Spirits which preside over the Battery and the Boiler.

PARTINGS are rarely otherwise than sad; even the schoolboy has his little grief when starting for the holidays. It may be for a boy-friend, a tree, a flower, a pet, the young housemaid, or the old housekeeper; it is sad, indeed, to part from what we like or love; the last shake of hands, the last look, the last kiss tears the heart. But by how much sadder is it to neither press the hand nor kiss the lips which we have often pressed and kissed with fervent warmth, when parting, at the most, for four and twenty hours, to say farewell in an affected tone of carelessness, feeling one is watched, suspected, when months must intervene before we kiss those lips again, if ever.

There are such trying scenes in life, and we remember one.

Brandon, to his horror, was ushered into a crowded drawing-room. Though no skilled man of the world, the youth had still sufficient power with his lips to work them into one of those everyday smiles in common use; and though he had not seen, he guessed the presence of two soft blue eyes, which, guarded as they were, still looked on no one half so kindly as on him, and seemed to feel and know the cause why they had been as yet unnoticed by the new arrival.

"You leave us to-day, Reginald," said the hostess, mother of Blue-eyes; and being also an old friend of Brandon's, used his Christian name.

"Yes, I leave to-day."

"We'll all miss you very much."
"You're very kind to say so."
"Tom, especially."

"I wish to Jove," said the gentleman alluded to, "I was going with you, but here I'm stuck."

"I wish it too, Tom;" while Brandon's heart added, "but alone, Tom, and in my place."

"You have not looked, or bowed to Mary (Blue-eyes) yet," remarked the hostess. "She has been trying all she

can to get a bow from you; I suppose you have thrown away your manners to travel more at ease and lightly."

Blue-eyes looked up. Brandon met them, and expressed a thousand pardons for not having bowed before, but he really had not seen her, her side face was turned-as if he didn't know Blue-eye's profile, nor ever touched it with his lips. Well, well, if lies can be excused, they must be love's red lies, that publish their disgrace in blushes, and publicly atone, as Bran don's cheeks did on the moment, for the errors of his lips.

"I assure you," added Brandon, “I had no intention of going away without taking leave of you, Mary, as well as of all my kind friends here." Manly and outspoken in words, but only a throwing of dust into honest people's eyes; he had devotedly hoped and prayed to find, and yes, why should not it be written down?-and kiss, Blue-eyes alone within that very drawing-room, the hostess and his other friends being out.

"I am very sure," said Blue-eyes, "you would not do any thing so rude." This was perfectly true; he was incapable of it.

The conversation flagged, rallied; flagged again; some visiters went off, fresh came in ; Blue-eyes and Brandon so placed as not even to talk commonplace, with which skilled hands can sometimes baffle a whole company, and interchange their thoughts.

An hour passed. In one hour more Brandon had to start. Brandon felt sick at heart, and then grew desperate. Blue-eyes trembled, looked to Brandon, paled, blushed, and while her lips made answer to common-place remarks, her heart throbbed tumultuously with love and with despair.

The clock upon the chimney strucka quarter gone from Brandon's hour; three quarters still remained to pack a trunk, catch a railway train, and bid adieu to all he cared for most in life.

It was lucky Brandon's residence was near his friends, and both were near the station, or Brandon might as well have given up his journey for that day, at all events.

"Do you know, Reginald," said Tom, "you had better not be late? its devilish near the time." This was a heartless vagabond, whose delights were luggage, and confusion, and seeing people off.

"I must show you," said Blue-eyes to a lady visiter, "the worsted pattern I am working for a stool."

"Do; that's a dear."

"You are a little in advance of railway time," answered Brandon to his friend.

"I am not so sure of that," rejoined young Tom.

Blue-eyes had risen for the pattern, and stood between the chair that Brandon sat on and the table in the drawer of which the pattern lay.

"I'll not be responsible, recollect, if you are late, Reginald," said Tom, after a moment's pause, in the tone of a man who has discharged his duty, and buttons his coat.

It was the very gentlest pressure in

the world, more touch than pressure, and yet it passed, like an electric shock, to Brandon's heart. Strange connexion that between a heart and a little hand that touched another hand.

"Do you know, Reginald,” said the hostess, who up to this had been engaged, nose to nose, with a leading lady scandal-speaker of the day, "I quite agree with Tom, it's getting very near the time."

"Well, I believe I must at length bid you all good bye," and Brandon

rose.

The worsted pattern fell, and Mary stooped, and Brandon too, to pick it up; and on his cheek he felt dear Blueeye's warm breath beating, and clus. tering light brown ringlets fall, and heard the whispered Saxon word "farewell," and that was all; they picked the worsted pattern up.

"Come, now, bolt," whispered Tom, who was deep-seeing, and humane at heart, "don't mind the rest."

"Mother, Reginald hasn't time to shake hands with you all, so he won't make any jealous, but bids you all good bye through me;" and Tom pushed and bustled off with Reginald Brandon.

THAT night a girl knelt in prayer by her bedside. The sin must truly have been great, the crime of darkest dye, which the apparent fervour and deep sorrow of that prayer and girl would not have blotted out for ever in the sight of heaven. The recording angel, as he noted down that broken, irregular appeal, may have dropped tears for secret grief seeking relief from heaven; but they were not tears that blotted out; they served to register for ever a girl's heartfelt prayer for him she loved.

The prayer, perchance, might not have been considered orthodox, judged by a bench of modern bishops; there were such words, and vows, and wishes breathed, as one but rarely meets with in church rubricrons and rituals; for instance, there were phrases of this nature uttered: "Oh! may we meet again"-" Never to separate"-Preserve him from all ill, from debt, from wine, from cards"-" And, oh! from

smoking, too-they say it leads to bad, besides 'twould spoil his lovely teeth; he always shows them when he smiles; and, oh! preserve him, too" (here there were tears and sobs), "from loving any one but me." And so the prayer went on; a strange medley, it is true, of vanities and sinful aspirations. Condemnable it may be in the eyes of stern critics; but recollect, good friends, that you must take our heroine as you find her; and she's not an angel-never tried to pass for such, but just a fair, very fair, weak-perhaps, too, some might call it very weak-kind, loving sister, woman.

And still, in spite of all, that prayer was gentle, holy, true; and such, perchance, in spirit, too, as early Christians may have breathed, when prayer as yet was young, and clumsy, and homely, full many a day ago, in their own dear land of Syria.

For true it is-and pity that it should be true-in latter days, there

has crept among our churches, to a great extent, a certain cold, formular, sacerdotal slang, which, whether it be used for discourse or for prayer, is grating to the ear; and if it ever reach a heart at all, it must be one most regularly predisposed, and nothing of a rebel.

And, notwithstanding the increased erudition of the age, and with it, too, the proved abilities of many valued chiefs of the great Established Church in England, it may be fairly speculated whether, if the liturgy of that Church was lost, in manuscript and memory, and had to be re-written, we would not have a very different production

from that which now exists. Superior it might be in the show of learning, but in purity, universality, and, perchance too, in humility, three cen. turies behind.

The prayer that girl breathed to heaven, we must suppose was heard, unit though it was, amid the many prayers how many of a different sort -that rose from earth; for soon reliance came, and hope, with faith, too, in that hope. While, following them, came tears of gratitude, and gentle dreams of joyous meetings unobserved, with love, embraces, kisses given, and these were sealed with sleep.

We meet our hero on a different scene from that on which we left him. He is borne along with the armed populace, who mount the staircase of the grandest palace in Europe; the old master has flown through one portal, as the new masters have entered by the other. Their fathers did the same before them; it is an old chapter of French history reprinted— the rehearsal of a favourite play.

Reginald Brandon's head was addled; the clamour and fierce looks, with the wild laughter, and wilder greetings of the victors-their swords and sabres waving in the press like tails of game hounds. The joy was great, indeed; the fox had been unearthed at last.

His head, indeed, was addled-the scene was like a vivid dream-the day of Marie Antoinette again; but still he bore along through antechambers, galleries, grand apartments. Emotions force most men, at least the young, to join or to oppose. Reginald was not the straw to struggle with that stream, and so he yelped in with the savage pack, hurrah'd, yelled, and played his part right manfully in that wondrous carnival.

And they were hot upon that old king, too; the very logs were blazing still, and not half burnt on the hearth, where, hearing counsel from a motley cabinet of boys and women, and stray men, he lingered, for the last time, as a king.

Then in they broke, through cham

ber, bath, and boudoir, where even princes should have tapped most lovingly to be admitted; there the Bourbon women, freed from those eyes that do so love to pry into, and stare upon the great, might bathe, as Venus does, without restraint, and robe, unrobe, disport themselves as willed their humours and light whims.

Love gifts, pretty trifles, locks of braided hair, garters blue or red, sandals, robes for night and day; there they were strewed, torn, borne off in triumph. It was feeling, as it were, the glory of the thing, to roll about a royal bed, attired in a royal robe : it was a real democratic revel.

But life is everywhere made up of contrast; it is strange, it is true, Reginald had wandered at hap-hazard through the Palace of the Tuilleries, avoiding when he could the densely crowded chambers. At length he reached a little spiral staircase, thickly carpeted; he followed, and it led him to a room, whose door was closed, and on the panelling there was written in fresh ink, not yet well dried, the sentence: " Salon de lecture". "On ne doit pas y entrer"-" Vive la Republique, le 24 Fevrier." Our hero disobeyed the order, and went in; he found himself in presence of an old man, seated tranquilly in an easy chair, reading a book, from which he raised his eyes as Brandon entered. There was such a quiet in the room, so different from the scene below, and such