nothing cd. induce him to lay aside, his mechanic experiments. but on holydays, & all the time, the boys had allow'd for play, he spent it in cutting, sawing, & knocking in his lodging room: pursuing that strong bent of his inclination. & this not only in things serious, but sometime ludicrous too; inventing such things as the rest of the schoolboys took part in the pleasure.
he was particularly ingenious at improving all thir usual diversions. for instance, in the fabrick of thir paper kites; in finding out thir proportions, figure, the best point of fastning the string, in how many places, the length of the tail, & the like. & as an omen of the sublimity of his discoverys, he invented the trick of a paper lanthorn with a candle in it, ty'd to the tail of a kite. this wonderfully affrighted all the neighboring inhabitants for some time, & causd not a little discourse on market days, among the country people, when over thir mugs of ale.
the paper lanthorn too was an invention of his own, made of crimpled paper, which he used to light himself with, to school in dark winter mornings: then flattening it, so as that he could put it into his pocket. but the affair of fastning this lighted lanthorn to the tail of a kite, gave a handle
