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pleasure with which he heard me, that I ventured to quote
to him those beautiful lines of Shakespeare’s -
‘There’s a divinity doth hedge a king, Rough hew him
how we may;.’
but I was sorry I had done so afterwards, for I do not
think his Majesty admired the lines as much as I could have
wished.
There is no occasion for me to dwell further upon my ex-
perience of the court, but I ought perhaps to allude to one
of my conversations with the King, inasmuch as it was preg-
nant with the most important consequences.
He had been asking me about my watch, and enquir-
ing whether such dangerous inventions were tolerated in
the country from which I came. I owned with some confu-
sion that watches were not uncommon; but observing the
gravity which came over his Majesty’s face I presumed to
say that they were fast dying out, and that we had few if
any other mechanical contrivances of which he was likely
to disapprove. Upon his asking me to name some of our
most advanced machines, I did not dare to tell him of our
steam-engines and railroads and electric telegraphs, and
was puzzling my brains to think what I could say, when, of
all things in the world, balloons suggested themselves, and I
gave him an account of a very remarkable ascent which was
made some years ago. The King was too polite to contradict,
but I felt sure that he did not believe me, and from that day
forward though he always showed me the attention which
was due to my genius (for in this light was my complexion
regarded), he never questioned me about the manners and

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