1 68 Presidentship of Sir Joseph Banks 1784 



fonder of the airgonauts than of the toys themselves. Lun- 

 ardi, the Neapolitan secretary, is said to have bought 

 three or four thousand pounds in the stocks by exhibiting 

 his person, his balloon, and his dog and his cat, at the 

 ' Pantheon/ for a shilling each visitor. Blanchard, a 

 Frenchman, is his rival, and I expect that they will soon 

 have an air-fight in the clouds, like a stork and a kite." 



These words of the owner of Strawberry Hill enforce the 

 contrast between the London of his day and the London 

 of ours. The citizens of the great metropolis are again 

 keenly interested in the navigation of the air. But it is 

 no longer in mere " innocent amusement." The " philoso- 

 phical playthings " at which Walpole smiled have been 

 succeeded by vessels of war that can be guided through the 

 air as easily as ships can be piloted on the sea aeroplanes, 

 airships, Zeppelins and the rest. The " air-fight," which he 

 half in jest predicted, is a daily feature of the vast war in which 

 the most powerful nations of Europe are engaged. Even 

 London has been visited by hostile aircraft, which have 

 dropped bombs upon it, with loss to life and property. 

 And from its streets some of the huge airships of the enemy, 

 attacked by British defenders, at heights of many thousand 

 feet, have been seen to descend in sheets of flame to earth or 

 sea. In Walpole's time it was a Frenchman who was looked 

 upon as the natural rival and enemy, but happily French 

 and English are now close allies, leagued together in battle 

 on land, sea and air against an empire which when Walpole 

 wrote had not yet come into existence. 



The description given by Faujas de Saint Fond of the 

 Club dinner at which he was present is of special interest 

 as it appears to be the only detailed account by a guest 

 which has survived of a dinner of the Royal Philosophers 

 in the eighteenth century. It may therefore be appro- 

 priately quoted here. As an introduction to the Frenchman's 

 narrative it will be of service to quote from the Dinner- 

 register the record which has been preserved there of the 

 Company and of the fare provided for them. The follow- 

 ing is an exact transcript of the page on which this record 



