ON AIR-BALLOONS. 11 



were received on their first appearance with disdainful 

 indifference. Political and military events exclusively 

 enjoy the privilege of exciting the public. There have 

 been, however, two exceptions to this rule. You will all 

 know by this hint, that I allude to America and air-bal- 

 loons, Christopher Columbus and Montgolfier. The dis- 

 coveries of these two men of genius, so different hitherto 

 in their results, had, at their birth, similar fortunes. 

 Gather, in fact, from the Historia del Almirante the 

 marks of the general enthusiasm which the discovery of 

 certain islands excited amongst the Andalusians, the 

 Catalonians, the Arragonese, and the Castilians ; read 

 the account of the unheard-of honours which they hast- 

 ened to render, as well in the largest cities as in the 

 smallest hamlets, not only to the leader of the enterprise, 

 but even to the very sailors of the caravels La Santa 

 Maria, La Pinta, and La Nina, which were the first to 

 reach the western shores of the Atlantic ; you may then 

 save yourselves the trouble of searching in the writings 

 of the period what sort of sensation air-balloons pro- 

 duced amongst our compatriots : the processions at Se- 

 ville and Barcelona were faithful representations of the 

 fetes which took place at Lyons and Paris. In 1783, 

 just as it happened two centuries before, warm imagina- 

 tions were not at the trouble of confining themselves to 

 the limits of facts or of probabilities. In the one instance, 

 there was not a Spaniard who did not wish, after the ex- 

 ample of Columbus, himself also to tread lands where, 

 in a few days, he might collect as great a quantity of 

 gold and precious stones as was formerly the possession 

 of the richest potentates. In France each individual, 

 following the favourite direction of his ideas, made dif- 

 ferent but charming applications of the new faculty I 



