504 THE CENTURY, 



it would be possible to write on paper laid on the 

 glass, in a totally dark room. Such a device might be 

 useful to an inexpert artist for making a tracing of any 

 drawing. 



77. 



How to make a man to fly ; which 

 I have tried with a little Boy of 

 ten years old in a Barn, from one 

 end to the other, on a Hay-mow. 



\A flying man. ] One feels disposed to believe, on 

 reading this article, that the Marquis, in multiplying 

 his experiments with fire and water, might have tried 

 in different ways the effects of heating air, and 

 actually gone far to anticipate Montgolfier in producing 

 a balloon. 



However, it was confidently believed in the 17th 

 century that flying was possible, provided proper 

 machinery could be invented. There is a curious little 

 work on this subject, &quot; De arte Volandi,&quot; by Frid. 

 Hermannus Flayder, small 12mo. 1627. 



Milton, in his &quot; History of Britain/ 1670, speaking of 

 the prognostications of Elmer, a monk of Malmsbury, 

 during the reign of Harold, mentions that &quot; He in his 

 youth strangely aspiring, had made and fitted wings to 

 his hands and feet ; with these on the top of a tower, 

 spread out to gather air, he flew more than a furlong ; 

 but the wind being too high, came fluttering down, to the 

 maiming of all his limbs ; yet so conceited of his art, 

 that he attributed the cause of his fall to the want of a 

 tail, as birds have, which he forgot to make to his 

 hinder parts/ See also Kennet s History of England, 

 1st vol. 1706, fol. 



In u Friar Bacon s discovery of the miracles of Art, 



