1 8 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



side of the little river Liane, that feeds the harbour, 

 at which one of our schoolfellows, a gaunt, dyspeptic- 

 looking boy, performed the following feat to our 

 terror and admiration, as we crowded round him to see 

 it. He took a frog by its hind feet, opened his wide 

 mouth and dropped the frog's fore-feet on his tongue. 

 The frog struggled to get free, and at the critical 

 moment the hind legs were let go, and down went the 

 frog, head foremost, into his gullet. He was our hero 

 for the time ; none other dared to attempt the same 

 feat. He said that he felt the frog all the way as it 

 went down to his stomach, and in it. 



The school was hateful to me in many ways, and 

 lovable in none, so I was heartily glad to be taken 

 away from it in 1832. I thence returned to my family 

 party, who were newly settled in Leamington. It 

 then consisted of my father, mother, and three sisters ; 

 my brothers were away, and my other sister, Lucy, 

 who had married, was living near Birmingham. 

 My grandfather Galton had recently died, and the 

 consequent large accession to my father's income 

 justified his change of residence, whch gave him and 

 my sisters a wider social intercourse than they had at 

 the Larches. Leamington was at that time a little 

 place, attractive to many eminent invalids, who 

 drank the waters and consulted Dr. Jephson, then 

 becoming celebrated. 



I was next sent to a small private school at 

 Kenilworth, consisting of some half-dozen pupils, 

 where I received much kindness, and breathed the 

 air of unconstraint during three happy years. It was 

 kept by Mr. Attwood, the clergyman of the parish 

 (a near relative of the inventor of "Attwood's 



