' 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
L800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.'
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345.
[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should
have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written
_stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL.
[1106]
'Micat inter omnes
Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.'
'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among,
Conspicuous shines the Julian star.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12.
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