matters, much as he might feel the possible
benefit to society contingent upon a Balloon
Congress of Sovereigns. But Mr. Green
himself! That was quite another matter. Good-
natured Mr. Green came, and was received
with honour; but, as it happened that he had
just at that time a hobby for bee-keeping,
instead of talking Balloons he talked Bees all the
evening. I think the fact that Mr. Green
thought bees interesting, may have had its
weight with Mr. Cocking. I am sure that no
child disappointed of a sweetmeat, ever went to
bed so good as Mr. Cocking did that night—
without his balloon talk.

Mr. Cocking's house stood in a little garden
in one of the side roads between Kennington
and Stockwell. Either from Vauxhall or the
Surrey Gardens, balloons were continually going
up during the season; and from Mr. Cocking's
garden all the balloons that went up, were
affectionately watched. When in the warm summer
evenings our drawing-lessons were transferred
from the upper sanctum to the room down stairs
opening on this garden, we had, now and then,
very short measure of instruction. Sensitive to
the faintest whisper of "bal-loon!" our friend
was out through the window, on the instant when
he found that a balloon was visible. Once out,
there he would stand fixed on the grass-plot,
with his chin up. While there remained the
tiniest suspicion of an ink-blot up aloft to gaze
at, there he remained at gaze. There is
fascination, we all know, for many thousands who
are not balloon-mad in the long look after a man
who has floated far, far up into the sky. For
Mr. Cocking, it was utter and irresistible. We
went on drawing, and knew that we must
consider our friend up in the balloon.

But in the old sanctum again, as winter drew
on, and after he had seen his last season of
scanty Christmas cheer, and when he was
enthusiastic with faith in his parachute and
expectation of a glorious descent in it; when his own
little working model of it, neat and faultless as
was all the work of his dexterous hands, was
being hung over, and talked over, and explained
again and again to us; the simplicity of his
devotion to his subject was most touching. If he
sought any fame it was to be remembered in the
history of aërostation. But on the labour of his
love he did not work conscious of a thirst for
fame, and I never heard him, in all his
panegyrics on his parachute, dwell for a minute on
the possible money-reward success would bring;
though it may well be that he cheered and
sustained the patience of his wife with that
suggestion. If he glorified himself, it was in,
not because of, the parachute. It was the
parachute of his fancy that he glorified and loved,
as unselfishly as ever poet loved the idol of
his dream. His faith in it never wavered. It
resisted every attack, met every question, and
backed as it was by what appeared to be good
evidence, conquered all opposition to his resolve
to prove, at "really not the least risk to his
life," this parachute to be that for which the
ages had been waiting.

Its shape was that of the inverted shade of a
reading lamp, the car being dependent by
attached ropes from the smaller opening. Years
before, as a young man, he had witnessed the
safe descent of M. Garnerin in a parachute of
directly opposite design. There was then great
oscillation at the moment of separation, with
risk both to the aëronaut in the balloon, if it had
carried one, and to the parachute, of which also
the descent was exceedingly unsteady. Mr.
Cocking at that time, a quarter of a century
before his death, had scientific associates and
tastes, and had already so decided a turn for
balloons that he delivered a lecture on
aërostation at the theatre of his friend Mr. Tatham, in
Dorset-street, and with Mr. Tatham and Mr.
Charles Green, then known, and afterwards
famous, as an aëronaut, set on foot his first
experiment. Two parachutes of some size were
made: one upon Garnerin's principle, the other
according to Mr. Cocking's suggestion; and one
fine morning, Mr. Green being absent, Messrs.
Cocking and Tatham took their parachutes to
Hampstead Heath, with a paper balloon and
means of inflation. The paper balloon was
sent up with a cross stick hung from it, the two
parachutes depending from each end of the stick
to be set free by the burning of touch-paper.
The apparatus answered its purpose, and the
parachutes came down. Garnerin's fell swiftly
with oscillation; Cooking's slowly and smoothly,
travelling also a much greater distance in its
descent. For a quarter of a century the coming
down himself in such a parachute, had been the
poor fellow's dream of hope.

He argued out his principle. Again, before
his own descent was permitted, he sent down a
model on the scale of an inch to a foot, from the
top of the Monument, and that too, perversely
and unhappily, descended in a faultless manner.
A little gust of a malicious wind might have
saved a life. But here was demonstration upon
demonstration joined to argument and the
enthusiasm of a monomaniac impelling all to the
desired end.

It was argued that although the theory was
good, safety required an increase of resisting
power, consequently of weight, in the parachute,
out of proportion to its capacity. Cocking again
made calculations, and pointed to his
experiments, on the scale of one-twelfth. Even the
fatal result that destroyed the inventor, did not,
perhaps, disprove his case. His parachute was
fastened to the car of the balloon by a rope so
attached that it was instantly to be set free
upon the pulling, from the parachute car, of a
cord attached to a trigger: the trigger being, of
course, fixed to the balloon. It was, from what
little he could observe at the moment of
disengagement, the opinion of his friend, Mr. Green,
who incurred some risk himself by piloting the
"Nassau Balloon" on the occasion, that Cocking
at once disturbed the balance of his parachute
by failing to let go the cord (which passed
outside its rim to be made fast to the balloon) at
the moment when he pulled the trigger to which
it was attached. It was said, also, that there was