Thus I idle round to the Medway again, where it
is now flood tide; and I find the river evincing a
strong solicitude to force a way into the dry dock
where Achilles is waited on by the twelve
hundred bangers, with intent to bear the whole away
before they are ready.

To the last, the Yard puts a quiet face upon it;
for, I make my way to the gates through a little
quiet grove of trees, shading the quaintest of
Dutch landing-places, where the leaf-speckled
shadow of a shipwright just passing away at the
further end might be the shadow of Russian Peter
himself. So, the doors of the great patent safe
at last close upon me, and I take boat again:
somehow, thinking as the oars dip, of braggart
Pistol and his brood, and of the quiet monsters
of the Yard, with their " We don't particularly
want to do it; but if it must be done——!"
Scrunch.

KITES.

STRUTT, in his Sports and Pastimes of
England, states that the flying of kites was a very
ancient pastime in China. Even at this day,
one of the most popular amusements of the
Chinese is kite-flying, and they exhibit ingenuity
and skill in the construction of their kites. By
the use of round orifices in them, supplied with
vibrating cords, their kites produce a loud
humming noise, resembling that made by the
humming-top. The ninth day of the ninth
moon is a kite-flying festival; they repair to the
high hills in groups, and there indulge in active
rivalry as to the ascent and musical tones of
their several artistic productions; but, at the
close of the day's amusement, the aërial
travellers are cut adrift, to fly wherever the breeze
may bear them.

The artificial kite is supposed to imitate that
graceful but voracious hoverer the falcon kite
while aloft. It also, in a measure, illustrates
the theory of aërostation, a term traced to
two Greek words, which signify standing in
air; being the science explanatory of the equilibrium
of bodies raised above the earth, and
floating in the atmosphere: a study now more
commonly confined to balloons, a name
derived from the French word ballon—a small
ball.

The surmise of Strutt, that the flying kite
was not known in England until about the
commencement of the last century, would seem
to be correct. It is not mentioned or alluded
to by any early English author, and a serio-
comic poem, in three cantos, under the title
of the Artificial Kite, appeared in 1719, as if the
subject of it was then a novelty. It was published
anonymously; but, many years after, a clergyman
of the name of Bacon avowed the authorship,
and it was, both in conception and versification,
an obvious, and far from an unsuccessful,
attempt to imitate Pope's Rape of the Lock, then
highly popular. This essay in rhyme was
principally founded on the conceit that Cupid,
having designs upon Diana, invented the aërial
paper attraction to dazzle and captivate the
chaste divinity:

At Jove's command the royal eagle flies,
And bears his rolling thunder through the skies;
The gaudy peacock struts in plumy pride,
And stalks majestic by proud Juno's side;
And though mamma prefers her wanton dove,
Cupid shall have a better bird than Jove!

The amorous son of Venus, we are told,
employed one of his attendants as his artist:

One, whom long experience blest
With a mechanic head above the rest;
He formed the ruff in good Eliza's days,
And first confined the slender waist in stays;
He first with beauty-spots adorned the maid,
And bid her borrow lustre from their shade;
He knit the lovers' knot in times of old,
And formed the circle of the bridal gold;
He on the ear first hung the sparkling rings,
His was the tucker, his the kissing strings;
He first in canvas hoop enclosed the maid,
Turned the round coif, and raised the stiffened head.

The work being finished, the artificial bird
floated gracefully in air:

Where breathed the south, that falls in genial
       showers,
And gentle Zephyr crown'd with vernal flowers;
Where blew the East, that buttons breasts of beaux,
And over Cloe's neck the tippet throws.

Juno, jealous of the success, then gave her
command:

Go! swift through Æther let my Iris glide,
And hang my keenest scissors by her side;
For lo! where yonder glittering ray appears,
The urchin bird its airy journey steers;
There all his joy on one small thread depends,
That cut—at once his hope and empire ends!
She said—then Iris to her charge repairs—
She reached the string, and closed the fatal shears!

The artificial kite in after years became the
instrument of one of the most beautiful and
important discoveries in the history of science.
Benjamin Franklin, with the view of testing
his theory of thunder and lightning, and the
identity of the electric fluid with lightning,
constructed at Philadelphia, in 1752, a large
common kite, which he covered with silk instead
of paper, as less likely to be affected by rain. To
the upper, or perpendicular stick, was affixed an
iron point; the string was as usual of hemp,
except the lower end, where there was an insulating
cord of silk; and at the spot where the
hempen string terminated, an iron key was
fastened. With this very simple apparatus,
elevated in the midst of a thunder-storm, during
which a shower wetted the hempen string,
thereby increasing its conducting capacity,
Franklin raised electricity to the dignity of a
science. He observed the loose fibres of the
string to rise as if erect; applying his knuckle
to the key, he received a strong spark;
repeated sparks were then drawn from the key,
a phial was charged, a shock given, and all the