Childhood and Boyhood 65 



Grandfather Samuel Galton at Duddeston, where a large party was 

 asked to meet her. 



" She told my mother," writes Mrs Wheler, " that she would like to see Francis, 

 then a year and a half old, as her youngest child was about the same age. My mother 

 said she would fetch him, but he was so shy, she feared, he would not make friends with 

 her. Mrs Fry said, ' Oh, never mind, I think he will.' My mother brought him into 

 the room, where seeing so many people he hid his face on his mother's shoulder and 

 would not look up. She sat down by Mrs Fry, who took no notice of him ; soon after 

 she took a little box full of comfits out of her pocket, and held it out towards the child 

 but looking the other way, and talking to the company. My mother whispered ' Look, 

 Francis,' and the child seeing no one observed him, sat on my mother's knee looking at 

 the comfits. By and bye, he slid down, seized a comfit and ran back ; Mrs Fry took 

 no notice, ijnd he soon stood by her helping himself. She then gently lifted him upon 

 her knee, taking no notice, when he soon began talking to her himself." 



His sister Adele's education, besides providing him with modern 

 English poetry, taught him to appreciate the Iliad and Odyssey. 

 Leonard Horner, paying a visit to Tertius Galton in 1828, would 

 frequently question the little Francis about points in Homer. At last 

 Francis grew weary of the cross-examination, and one day when the 

 usual questioning began, replied : " Pray, Mr Horner, look at the last 

 line in the twelfth Book of the Odyssey 1 ," and ran oft'. 



So excited did he grow over the Iliad, that as a partizan of the 

 Greeks he was known to burst into tears, when he came to the part 

 where Diomed is wounded by Paris. 



Probably apart from poetry his sister Adele a child herself 

 rather forced the pace. He knew his capital letters by 12, and both his 

 alphabets by 18, months of age. He could read a little book Cobwebs to 

 catch Flies when 2^ years old, and could sign his name before 3 years. 

 I have before me his actual signature on January 10, 1825, as 

 witnessed by his sisters Adele and Emma. From his fourth year a 

 laconic letter 2 has survived : 



1 " But why rehearse all this tale ? For even yesterday I told it to thee and to 

 thy noble wife in thy house: and it liketh me not twice to tell a plain-told tale." Butcher 

 and Lang's version, p. 206. 



2 A similar letter to his father, dated Sept. 26, 1826, thanks him for the gift of 

 a toy. There is also a quaint little paper book containing two paper pages stitched 

 in blue paper ; the first, second and part of the third side are occupied by two scripture 

 texts written by Francis when four years old, but the remainder of the third and fourth 

 side are filled in the same round hand with the remark : " Papa why do you call my 

 books dirty that come f om the Ware-house 1 I think they are very clean." 



P.O. 9 



