[358] Among the curious characters of Vauxhall Gardens must be noticed a youth named Joseph Leeming, who called himself “the Aeriel” and “the Paragon of Perfection,” and offered himself for inspection to artists and surgeons as a model of bodily perfection. On 2 July, 1825, and on subsequent occasions he mingled with the other visitors at Vauxhall and created excitement by his extraordinary Spanish costume and by distributing three or four hundred “Challenges” to the people in front of the orchestra. One of these curious challenges is in my collection. It is a small card printed with the words “The Aeriel (_sic_) challenges the whole world to find a man that can in any way compete with him as such. No.--.” (cp. Hone’s _Every Day Book_, i. p. 1456, ff.). [359] An earlier balloon ascent from Vauxhall Gardens by Garnerin in 1802 may be noted. [360] A detailed account of the voyage is given in Monck Mason’s _Aeronautica_, London, 1838. [361] The publication came to an end on 23 August, 1841. It consisted of sixteen parts, sixpence each. A set of these is in my collection. Mr. H. A. Rogers, of Stroud Green, has recently undertaken an interesting facsimile reprint of this scarce little journal. [362] This part of Tyers Street was formerly called Brunel Street. [363] _Punch_ for 21 August, 1869, “The Lament of the Colonnade.” Transcriber’s Notes: 1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently. 2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original. 3. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r. or X^{xx}. 4. Italics are shown as _xxx_. 5. Bold print is shown as =xxx=.