Lightning

The manner in which clouds acquire their positive or negative electricity is not determined, according to this, or any other theory, with sufficient certainty. Mr. Canton’s suggestion is, that the air resembles the tourmalin, and consequently, acquires its electricity by heating or cooling, but whether it gains or loses the electric fluid in either state must be determined by experiment.
— Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804), The History and Present State of Electricity, 1767. 

While you, great George, for knowledge hunt,

And sharp conductor change for blunt
The nation’s out of joint:
Franklin a wiser course pursues
And all your thunder useless views
By keeping to the point.
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) (attrib.)

Here lye two poor lovers,
who had the mishap,
Tho’ very chaste people,
to die of a Clap.
— Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744), an epitaph to two rustic lovers, killed by lightning. Pope sent it to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was not amused.

George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.
— Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875 – 1956), More Biography.

George the First was always reckon’d
Vile — but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
And when from earth the Fourth descended,
God be praised, the Georges ended.
— Walter Savage Landor.

Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars: (1) Giving light. (2) Color of the light. (3) Crooked direction. (4) Swift motion. (5) Being conducted by metals. (6) Crack or noise in exploding. (7) Subsisting in water or ice. (8) Rending bodies it passes through. (9) Destroying animals. (10) Melting metals. (11) Firing inflammable substances. (12) Sulphureous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable that they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be made.
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), writing in 1747 before flying his kite.

As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from the clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, etc., it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows:

Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach the corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended, tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite; which being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being of silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine, next to the hand, is to be tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of twine will stand out everyway, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when rain has wet the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial [a Leyden jar?] may be charged; and from the electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated.
— Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790), Letter to Peter Collinson, FRS, October 19, 1752.

This theory generally goes by the name of Dr. Franklin, and there is no doubt of his right to it; but justice requires that I mention the equal, and perhaps, prior claim of Dr. Watson … [who] showed a series of experiments to confirm the doctrine of plus and minus electricity to Martin Folkes, Esq., then president, and to a great number of fellows of the Royal Society, so early as the beginning of the year 1747, before it was known in England that Dr. Franklin had discovered the same thing in America.
— Joseph Priestley, The History and Present State of Electricity, 1767.

If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that? Franklin used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker or something of that sort if I am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than anybody else.
— Miss Betsey Trotwood in Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870), David Copperfield, chapter XIV.

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