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BALLOONS.

I HAVE read that the greatest height to which any balloon has ever ascended is twenty-three thousand, one hundred feet, which is the elevation reached by Guy Lussac in 1804. This is greatly above the highest mountains in the world, excepting the extreme peak of one of the Himmalayahs, which is twenty-eight thousand feet high. Man, winged only by his intellectual faculties, has out-soared the most ambitious of the feathered tribe. The highest flight of the Condor, is said to be about twenty thousand feet above the level of the sea.

I recollect looking down from the top of the monument on Fish-street hill, and wondering at the littleness of man and beast. The Duke of Wellington happened to be passing at the very moment, and the hero looked any thing but heroic. It was a vision of Lilliput. What a sight it would have been for the sarcastic Swift, had he ascended in a balloon, and looked down upon this" dim spot, which men call earth." tade of Richard the third

"But I was born so high !--

The proud rhodomon

Our eyrie buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun"

must seem a very modest metaphor to our modern voyagers through the sky. Probably to their minds, even the gallant Hotspur's aspirations are tamely reasonable

"By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap,

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon !"

What a creature of circumstance is man! His opinions are as variable as the colours of the chameleon, and change with every change of position. "The great globe itself, with all that it inherits," seems to sink into insignificance if we are lifted but a

mile from it. To follow up the illustration from Swift's admirable satire, how pitifully insignificant was a man six feet high in the land of Brobdignag. As we read of his standing upon the uplifted hands of a child, we do not wonder at the people splitting their sides with laughter when Gulliver, attempting to look big, drew his sword, and talked of his wounded honor. Gulliver's nice sense of his own moral dignity, in such a situation, seems a mockery of man; and yet thought and passion are not matters of length and breadth. What a world of gigantic and god-like imaginings reside in that little globe, the human skull; and yet within its diminutive limits, there is " ample room, and verge enough for more." The "thoughts that wander through eternity" had spacious cradles in the head of Milton.

The very idea of the seat in the car makes one giddy. It looks awfully open and insecure. An inexperienced aeronaut would hardly dare to look towards the earth, "lest the deficient sight topple down headlong."

There is something inexpressibly sublime in the objects presented to the imagination in these glorious excursions into the upper regions. I recollect reading somewhere an account of an aërial ascent, in which, though the aeronaut left the earth considerably after sunset, the sun again became visible to him as he rose high into the air. The solitary wanderer must have felt a

vivid consciousness that he had left the exterior surface of this earthly globe, and was sailing through illimitable realms. What mighty thoughts would have passed through the brain of Milton, had the sublime bard been placed in such a position. The experiments that have been made with small birds, such as linnets and pigeons, let loose from the parachute at a dreadful height, are extremely interesting. They have generally trembled and fluttered awhile on the edge of the machine, then timidly plunged into the vast ocean of air, and at last, as if bewildered at the endless prospect of cloud upon cloud, have returned to the balloon.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

1.

OH! sweet departed Saint!

If aught of earth could reach thine ear,
Love's fevered sigh, and sorrow's ceaseless plaint,
Might wake thy tenderest tear !

H.

Not that my saddened heart

Would stain thee now with kindred woe,

Or bid thy spirit's sinless dreams impart

A less ethereal glow!

III.

But, still, the thought of pain,

That we, so true, shall meet no more,

Hath agonized a breast whose griefs disdain

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Oh! desolate and cold!

Hope's lingering beam is quenched at last,—

The trusting mind futurity controlled

Now dwells but on the past!

O'er this deserted scene,

V.

Where'er my wandering eye may turn,

Rise long-remembered spots where thou hast been,

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VI.

The fragrant noon-tide grove

The moon-light's lone and silent bowers, The sweet haunts once of ecstacy and love, But breathe of happier hours!

I seek thine early tomb

VII.

With sad and unavailing tears,

While echo wakes amid the cheerless gloom,
The voice of other years!

SONNET-A STORM.

(WRITTEN IN INDIA.)

THE strife is hushed,—yet lingering shadows lower
Around the rising sun! The distant hill

Lies hid in mist,-the tempest-swollen rill
O'erflows the vale,—this antique, hoary tower
Austerely frowns above the stricken bower,
Where droops the wet-winged minah, cold and still.
Yon prostrate tree the gazer's breast doth fill
With thoughts of death's inevitable hour.

The mighty spirit of the midnight storm
Passed where for ages rose the greenwood's pride,
And what availed its glory? Its vast form,
Stretched on the groaning earth, but serves to hide
The serpent's dwelling; and decay's dull worm
Soon in its mouldering bosom shall abide !

MASSINGER.

WHEN We reflect upon the personal history of Massinger, and the sad obscurity of his career, it is gratifying to observe that the justice which was refused to him in his life-time, and for more than a century after, has been awarded to him in the present age. His name and his writings are at this day familiar to every student of English Literature, though when Johnson wrote his Lives of the Poets, he knew so little of one of our greatest dramatic authors, that he seems to have been ignorant that the Fair Penitent of Rowe was a plagiarism from the Fatal Dowry of Massinger. It is now well-known that Rowe had prepared an edition of the entire works of Massinger, of whose genius, at that period so rarely recognized, he appears to have been a warm admirer. When, however, his own avarice of distinction led him to covet the gold and jewels that adorned his idol, he determined to leave him in that obscurity from which alone he could hope for the concealment of his own sacrilegious theft. About the middle of the seventeenth century appeared an edition of Massinger prepared by Coxeter. This was an attempt, but a very unsuccessful one, to correct the numerous blunders of the old editions. It was followed soon after by an equally incorrect edition published by Mr. Davies, and to this succeeded that of Mason. None, however, of these reprints did any essential service to the poet's reputation, and it was not till Mr. Gifford produced his very careful and excellent edition in 1805, that the works of Massinger were generally read and justly appreciated. The only drawback from the gratification that every student of English poetry has received from this edition, is the excessive arrogance

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