'An Appropriate Text!', satirical ballooning sketch, c 1842.

Hand-coloured engraving showing a man preaching a sermon while Green's balloon ascent takes place in the background. The preacher, quoting from a pasage in Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 9, asks: 'What came ye out for to see?', and the response given is: 'Why you lubber, the balloon, to be sure'. The english aeronaut Charles Green (1785-1870) made his first balloon ascent from St James' Park in London on 19 July 1821. He built the 'Nasau' balloon, in which he succesfully completed the world's longest flight from Vauxhall Gardens in London to Weilburg, Nasau, in Germany, in 1836. He also invented the guide-rope, and made a total of 526 ascents between 1821and 1852.