nd reward.'

Johnson died in December of that same year; the balloon had made its
appearance just in time for his comments. Another critic, Horace
Walpole, was in two minds about balloons. Sometimes they seemed to him
'philosophic playthings'. He was growing old, and did not care to spend
his time in 'divining with what airy vehicles the atmosphere will be
peopled hereafter, or how much more expeditiously the east, west, or
south will be ravaged and butchered, than they have been by the old
clumsy method of navigation'. Yet in spite of his elegant indifference,
he could not help being interested; and some of his divinations come
very near to the truth. He pictures Salisbury Plain, Newmarket Heath,
and all downs, arising into dockyards for aerial vessels; and he
professes himself willing to go to Paris by air, 'if there is no air
sickness'. The best defence of the new invention was spoken by Benjamin
Franklin, who when he was asked in Paris, 'What is the use of balloons?'
replied by another question--'What is the use of a newborn infant?'

The infancy of the balloon lasted long; indeed, if lack of self-control
be the mark of infancy, the balloon was an infant during the whole of
the nineteenth century. In the early days, new achievements, in distance
or height, kept public expectation alive. Jean Pierre Blanchard, a
French aeronaut, and rival of Lunardi, succeeded, on the 7th of January
1785, in crossing the English Channel from Dover. Thereafter ascents
became so numerous that it is impossible to keep count of them.
Glaisher, writing about 1870, says that the most remarkable ascent of
the century was that fitted out by Robert Hollond, Esq., M.P. The
balloonist was Charles Green, and they were accompanied by Mr. Monck
Mason, who published an account of the voyage. In Mr. Green's balloon,
afterwards called the _Great Nassau_, they left Vauxhall Gardens on the
afternoon of Monday, the 7th of November 1836, with provisions to last a
fortnight. They were soon lost in the clouds, and after crossing the
sea, had no very clear idea of what country they were over. After
eighteen hours' journey, fearing that they had reached Poland or Russia,
they came to earth, and found that they had travelled five hundred
miles, to the neighbourhood of the town of Weilburg, in the duchy of
Nassau. Charles Green was the most experienced aeronaut of his time; he
was the first to use coal-gas in place of hydrogen, and he was the
inventor of the