night dances and the public show.

If one stays quietly in one's own house in the country, and cares for
nothing but oneself, scolds one's servants, condemns everything that is
new, and recollects how charming a thousand things were formerly that
were very disagreeable, one gets over the winters very well, and the
summers get over themselves.

[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]

As I was writing this, my servants called me away to see a balloon; I
suppose Blanchard's, that was to be let off from Chelsea this morning. I
saw it from the common field before the window of my round tower. It
appeared about a third of the size of the moon, or less, when setting,
something above the tops of the trees on the level horizon. It was then
descending; and, after rising and declining a little, it sunk slowly
behind the trees, I should think about or beyond Sunbury, at five
minutes after one. But you know I am a very inexact guesser at measures
and distances, and may be mistaken in many miles; and you know how
little I have attended to these _airgonauts_: only t'other night I
diverted myself with a sort of meditation on future _airgonation_,
supposing that it will not only be perfected, but will depose
navigation. I did not finish it, because I am not skilled, like the
gentleman that used to write political ship-news, in that style which I
wanted to perfect my essay; but in the prelude I observed how ignorant
the ancients were in supposing Icarus melted the wax of his wings by too
near access to the sun, whereas he would have been frozen to death
before he made the first post on that road. Next, I discovered an
alliance between Bishop Wilkin's art of flying and his plan of universal
language; the latter of which he no doubt calculated to prevent the want
of an interpreter when he should arrive at the moon.

But I chiefly amused myself with ideas of the change that would be made
in the world by the substitution of balloons to ships. I supposed our
seaports to become _deserted villages_; and Salisbury Plain, Newmarket
Heath (another canvass for alteration of ideas), and all downs (but
_the_ Downs) arising into dockyards for aerial vessels. Such a field
would be ample in furnishing new speculations. But to come to my
ship-news:

"The good balloon Daedalus, Captain Wingate, will fly in a few days for
China; he will stop at the top of the Monument to take in passengers.

"Arrived on Brand-sands, the Vulture, Captain Nabob; the Tortoisesn