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 Wilkins’s[1] 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.

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester in the reign of Charles II., was chiefly instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Society.  Among his works was a treatise to prove that “It is probable there may be another habitable world in the moon, with a discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither.”  Burnet ("Hist. of his Own Times,” Anno 1661) says of him, “He was a great observer and promoter of experimental philosophy, which was then a new thing.  He was naturally ambitious, but was the wisest clergyman I ever knew.”  He married Cromwell’s sister, and his daughter was the wife of Archbishop Tillotson.]

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 Wing-ate, 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 Tortoise snow, from Lapland; the Pet-en-l’air, from Versailles; the Dreadnought, from Mount Etna, Sir W. Hamilton, commander; the Tympany, Montgolfier; and the Mine-A-in-a-bandbox, from the Cape of Good Hope.  Foundered in a hurricane, the Bird of Paradise, from Mount Ararat.  The Bubble, Sheldon, took fire, and was burnt to her gallery; and the Phoenix is to be cut down to a second-rate.”