Childhood and Boyhood 65 



Grandfather Samuel Galton at Duddeston, where a large party was 

 asked to meet her. 



"She told ,ny 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 hiu,, 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 



he room where seeing so n.any people he hid his face on his mother's shoulder and 



h ook a httle box full of comfits out of her pocket, and held it out towards the child 

 but looking the otlier 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 a 

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



her"k„r't"k ^°^'^/*°°^,^y ':«-• '-'P-g himself. She then gently lifted him^pon 



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



Hi.s sister Adele's education, besides providing him with modern 

 i^nghsh 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 cro.^s-examination, and one day when the 

 usual questioning began, replied : " Pray, M.- Horner, look at the last 

 line jn the twelfth Book of the Odtjssey\" and ran off. 



So excited did he grow over the Ilmd, 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 Cohwehs to 

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

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

 witnessed by his sisters Adfele and Emma. From his fourth yelr a 

 laconic letter" has survived : 



• "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. 



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

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

 in blue paper; the first, .second and part of the third si.le 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 j;;om the Ware-house ? I think they are very clean." 



.9 



