Note 1104 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 6)
Reading edition
How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such entries as the following in Windham's Diary:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 (Letters, viii. 505):—'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (post, p. 368), 'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the year he had written:—'It is very seriously true that a subscription of £800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 345.