aerial flight.
The balloon being filled at Comely Garden, he seated himself in the
basket, and the ropes being cut he ascended very high and descended
quite gradually on the road to Restalrig, about half a mile from the
place where he rose, to the great satisfaction of those spectators who
were present. Mr. Tytler went up without the furnace this morning; when
that is added he will be able to feed the balloon with inflammable air,
and continue his aerial excursions as long as he chooses.

"Mr. Tytler is now in high spirits, and in his turn laughs at those
infidels who ridiculed his scheme as visionary and impracticable. Mr.
Tytler is the first person in Great Britain who has navigated the air."

Referring to this exploit, Tytler, in a laudatory epistle addressed
to Lunardi, tells of the difficulties he had had to contend with, and
artlessly reveals the cool, confident courage he must have displayed.
No shelter being available for the inflation, and a strong wind blowing,
his first misfortune was the setting fire to his wicker gallery. The
next was the capsizing and damaging of his balloon, which he had lined
with paper. He now substituted a coat of varnish for the paper, and his
gallery being destroyed, so that he could no longer attempt to take up
a stove, he resolved to ascend without one. In the end the balloon was
successfully inflated, when he had the hardihood to entrust himself to
a small basket (used for carrying earthenware) slung below, and thus
to launch himself into the sky. He did so under the conviction that the
risk he ran was greater than it really was, for he argued that his craft
was now only like a projectile, and "must undoubtedly come to the ground
with the same velocity with which it ascended." On this occasion the
crowd tried for some time to hold him near the ground by one of the
restraining ropes, so that his flight was curtailed. In a second
experiment, however, he succeeded in rising some hundreds of feet, and
came to earth without mishap.

But little further information respecting Mr. Tytler is apparently
forthcoming, and therefore beyond recording the fact that he was the
first British aeronaut, and also that he was the first to achieve a
balloon ascent in Great Britain, we are unable to make further mention
of him in this history.

Of his illustrious contemporary already mentioned there is, on the
contrary, much to record, and we would desire to give full credit to his
admirable courage