or immured in a cloiſter by a hard-hearted father, the lover has a ſtraight road before him: he may either follow her to the grave, purſue the robber and reſcue the prize, or break through the bars and bolts of the cloiſter-doors—but when ſhe flits away out of a window, who but your Pariſian aëronauts can pretend to purſue her? Unluckily the noble art of ſailing through the fields of æther could ſtand poor Friedbert in little ſtead, the diſcovery being reſerved for an happier and wiſer age. The dim-ſighted or envious wiſeacres of the Royal Society[1] may judge as ſlightingly as they pleaſe of the aëroſtatical projects of their neighbours, yet it is obvious, that a marechauſſée in the air, which ſhould rain down melted brimſtone and pitch, would more effectually check ſmuggling on the British coaſts, than all their
- ↑ I ſhall only inform the reader, that this paſſage ſtands exactly thus in the original, and leave him to make his own reflections upon it.T.
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