briety, and decorum. Steuart, especially, was my insepar-able companion. I well remember it was at his house thatin 1804 I first had the pleasure of dining in company withMr. Henry Brougham, who had been the school-fellow and“ chum ” of Steuart, both in Scotland and at Harrow-on-the-Hill . Both Steuart and myself were very fond of swim-ming. Besides passing an hour in diving every day, weoften spent the whole of a summer Sunday in thewater, about the small islands and ancient ruins of the“ school of Virgil,” at Posilipo point, or at Baja, Puzzoli,&c. We could both swim and dive as well as almost any ofI the Neapolitans, so famous for those exercises. Amongstother ideas and experiments, I constructed a kite of cotton,j ten feet high. Along the main string I attached small rings| at intervals of three yards, through which I passed two other| strings, each of which was attached to the corners of the; kite ; the other ends were in my hand, along with the main| one, which, of course, was the strongest. Steuart and I,
I: accompanied by Dixon, George Noble, and a dozen other] friends, took two boats out into the bay, at the strongest of! the sea breeze. Holding the kite up in one boat, the otherwith the string being rowed away, the kite arose mostcleverly. When about six miles from shore, I fastened thestrings to a belt round my waist and leapt into the water.I found that by extending myself on the water, the kite: drew me along with great rapidity. By turning my feettowards the kite more or less, its course was checked.By pulling one or other of the side stays I could give an ob-liquity to the position of the kite, so as to obtain a coursealmost at right angles to the wind. The only error in myarrangement was, that my kite was too large for the pur-pose I applied it to, as I was dragged along on the surface ofthe water without sufficient control over my servant. Wetherefore attached it to a boat, which it drew along at the