VISIT TO EUROPE: RESIDENCE IN LONDON. 149 



in Paris and Lyons, which my repulse at Antwerp prevented 

 me from delivering. Although his own field of fame had 

 been in poetry and belles-lettres, he appreciated science, and 

 kindly invited me to pass an evening at his lodgings in 

 Swallow Street, to meet Earl Stanhope and Robert Fulton, 

 two scientific stars. I went accordingly, but there is little 

 to record, except the pleasure of meeting men of renown. 

 The conversation turned chiefly on scientific subjects and 

 those connected with the arts. Mr. Fulton was silent 

 respecting his reputed projects for submarine explosions 

 in war for the destruction of an enemy's ships or flotillas. 

 There was, at that time, much conversation in London 

 regarding Mr. Fulton and his reputed invention, called 

 " kata maran" (beneath the sea), and no small amount of 

 asperity and ridicule was vented on the occasion. In table 

 talk, I heard it said that neither the French nor the Eng- 

 lish government favored the propositions of Mr. Fulton, to 

 explode the marine armaments of their respective enemies. 

 However this may have been, and whether true or not, it 

 was fortunate for mankind and for the fame of Mr. Fulton, 

 that his inventive mind, perhaps from disappointment, re- 

 ceived another direction, which resulted in placing the 

 Chancellor Livingston steamer triumphantly upon the Hud- 

 son, within two years after the time when I saw him. The 

 world is his debtor, and his country is preeminently so ; but 

 that country has been shamefully parsimonious to his family, 

 while untold millions alone can adequately represent the 

 amount of her gains, resulting from the only successful ap- 

 plication of steam to navigation. As to P^arl Stanhope, 

 omitting his gloomy political auguries, (for he was in the 

 opposition), I will mention only a very ingenious, but not 

 very important, invention which he named to me. There 

 was with the Earl at Mr. Barlow's, a German lady, possess- 

 ing both musical genius and musical taste and tact in so 

 high a degree, that upon the piano she would often throw 

 off extempore, from the ends of her fingers, the most de- 





