ON AIR-BALLOONS. il 
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 Nifia, 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 
fétes 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 
