me merit at not having been exceedingly intoxicated
with my situation.

'The interest which the spectators took in my voyage was so great, that
the things I threw down were divided and preserved as our people would
relicks of the most celebrated saints. And a gentlewoman, mistaking the
oar for my person, was so affected with my supposed destruction, that
she died in a few days.'

* * * * *

For many months after this the Flying Man was the chief topic of
conversation in the town. Even in the previous year reports of the
French ascents had produced a fever of excitement in London. 'Balloons',
said Horace Walpole, writing in December 1783, 'occupy senators,
philosophers, ladies, everybody.' All other interests yielded
precedence. Miss Burney's _Cecilia_ was the novel of the season, but it
had to give way. 'Next to the balloon,' said Mrs. Barbauld, in a letter
written in January 1784, 'Miss Burney is the object of public
curiosity.' A few weeks earlier, Dr. Johnson passed the day with three
friends, and boasted to Mrs. Thrale that no mention had been made by any
of them of the air balloon, 'which has taken full possession, with a
very good claim, of every philosophical mind and mouth'. Some days after
Lunardi's first ascent Johnson wrote to a friend, 'I had this day in
three letters three histories of the flying man in the great Ballon. I
am glad that we do as well as our neighbours.' Three letters were
enough, and on the same day Johnson wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Do
not write about the balloon, whatever else you may think proper to say'.
On the 29th of September 1784 Lunardi's balloon caught fire by accident,
and was burnt on the ground. Johnson's quiet and sensible comment is
conveyed in a letter to his friend Dr. Brocklesby, on the 6th of
October: 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament: to make new
balloons is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of mounting
into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The vehicles
can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify no
curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can reach
without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains, which we
have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its regions, to
the top of Teneriffe, and therefore, learn nothing from those who
navigate a balloon below the clouds. The first experiment, however, was
bold, and deserved applause a