Note 293 — Chapter XVIII · Friends of Boulton and Watt—The Lunar Society.

Dr. Darwin to Boulton, April 5, 1778. When the Doctor removed to Derby in 1782, he wrote,—“I am here cut off from the milk of science, which flows in such redundant streams from your learned Lunatics, and which, I can assure you, is a very great regret to me.” In another letter he said,—“I hope philosophy and fire-engines continue to go on well. You heard we sent your Society an air-balloon, which was calculated to have fallen in your garden at Soho; but the wicked wind carried it to Sir Edward Littleton’s. Pray give my compliments to your learned Society.” In another letter he wrote,—“I hope Behemoth has strength in his loins. Belial and Ashtaroth are two other devils of consequence, and good names for engines of Fire.” When he heard of the Albion Mill being burnt down, the Doctor wrote,—“The conflagration of the Albion Mill grieved me sincerely, both as it was a grand and successful effort of human art, and also because I fear you were a considerable sufferer by it. I well remember poor old Mr. Seward comparing the Immortality of the Soul (in a devout sermon) to a fire-engine. He might now have made it a type of the mortality of this world, and the conflagration of all things.”