In the third year of his residence, when not more than eighteen,
probably the only instance of a member of either university
constructing one. It "was magnificent in size, and splendid in its
decorations, and was constructed and manoeuvred, from first to last,
entirely by himself. It was the contrivance of many anxious thoughts,
and the labour of many weeks, to bring it to what he wished; and when,
at last, it was completed to his satisfaction, and had been suspended
for some days in the college hall, of which it occupied the whole
height, he announced a time for its ascension. There was nothing at
that period very new in balloons, or very curious in the species he
had adopted; but by some means he had contrived to disseminate, not
only within his own college, but throughout the whole university, a
prodigious curiosity respecting the fate of this experiment; and a
vast concourse of persons assembled, both within and without the
college walls; and the balloon having been brought to its station, the
grass-plot within the cloisters of Jesus' College, was happily
launched by himself, amidst the applause of all ranks and degrees of
gownsmen, the whole scene succeeding to his wish; nor is it very easy
to forget the delight which flashed from _his_ eye, and the triumphant
wave of _his_ cap, when the machine, with its little freight (a
kitten,) having cleared the college battlements, was seen floating in
full security over the towers of the great gate, followed in its
course by several persons on horseback, who had undertaken to recover
it; and all went home delighted with an exhibition upon which nobody
would have ventured, in such a place, but himself. But to gratify and
amuse others was ever the source of the greatest satisfaction to him."
This was one of those early displays of that spirit of enterprise
which was so gloriously developed in his subsequent wanderings through
the dreary regions of the north, over the classic shores of mouldering
Greece, of Egypt, and of Palestine, the scenes of which, and their
effects upon his vivid imagination and sanguine spirit, he has so
admirably depicted in his writings. This eminent traveller used to
say, that the old proverb,
"WITH TOO MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE SOME MUST BURN,"
"Was a lie." Use poker, tongs, shovel, and all,--only keep them all
stirring, was his creed. Few had the capacity of keeping them so
effectually stirring as he had. Nature seemed to have moulded him,
head and heart, to be in a degree a contradiction to the wise saws of
experience.
* * * * *