se awful and splendid piles, which filled his eyes with wonder,
and his mind with instinctive reverence, were raised for other purposes
than those of becoming auxiliary to the ferocity of war. That genius and
taste, and toil and cost, had not thus expended their unrivalled powers,
and lavished their munificent resources, in erecting _gothic_ magazines
of gunpowder, and _saxon_ sheds for the accommodation of atheistic
fabricators of revolutionary cannon balls.

The young observer in private, and by stealth imbibed, from parental
precept or example, the sentiment of a national religion, suppressed,
not extinguished, or in the gloomy absence of all indications of it,
remained unsolicited by any rival mode of worship to bestow his apostacy
upon an alien creed. Thus the minds of the rising generation, who were
engaged in favour of the catholic persuasion, during the frightful
period of its long denunciation, by stolen, secluded and unfinished
displays of its spirit and form, contemplated its return with animated
elation, or beheld its approach, unimpressed with those doubts or
prejudices which religious, as well as secular competitions, very
frequently excite; in that auspicious hour, when the policy, if not the
piety of a powerful government, restored it to the French people. The
subject is highly interesting; but I must resign it to abler pens for
more ample discussion.

I was much gratified by being presented to the celebrated philosopher
Mons. Charles, by Madame S----. He has a suite of noble apartments in
the Louvre, which have been bestowed upon him by the government, as a
grateful reward for his having presented to the nation his magnificent
collection of philosophical apparatus. He has also, in consideration of
his ability and experience, been constituted the principal lecturer on
philosophy. In these rooms his valuable and costly donation is arranged.
In the centre of the dome of the first apartment, called the Hall of
Electricity, is suspended the car of the first balloon which was
inflated with inflammable air, in which he and his brother ascended in
the afternoon of the 1st of December, 1783, in which they continued in
the air for an hour and three quarters; and after they had descended,
Mons. C----rose alone to the astonishing height of 10,500 feet. In the
same room are immense electrical machines and batteries, some of which
had been presented to him by Madame S----.

In this room, amongst many other fanciful