8 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



had more scope. Pen and ink, and the juice of 

 the brambleberry, made a grand change. These 

 were succeeded by a camel-hair pencil and shells of 

 colours ; and, thus supplied, I became completely 

 set up; but of patterns, or drawings, I had none. 

 The beasts and birds which enlivened the beautiful 

 scenery of woods and wilds surrounding my native 

 hamlet, furnished me with an endless supply of 

 subjects. I now, in the estimation of my rustic 

 neighbours, became an eminent painter, and the 

 walls of their houses were ornamented with an 

 abundance of my rude productions, at a very cheap 

 rate. This chiefly consisted of particular hunting 

 scenes, in which the portraits of the hunters, the 

 horses, and of every dog in the pack, were, in their 

 opinion, as well as my own, faithfully delineated. 

 But while I was proceeding in this way, I was at 

 the same time deeply engaged in matters nearly 

 allied to this propensity for drawing ; for I early 

 became acquainted, not only with the history and 

 the character of the domestic animals, but also with 

 those which roamed at large. 



The conversations of the Nimrods of that day, in 

 which the instincts and peculiar properties of the 

 various wild animals were described in glowing 

 terms, attracted my keenest attention ; and to their 

 rude and lengthened narratives I listened with 

 extreme delight. With me they made a winter's 

 evening fly fast away. At holiday times, and at 

 other times when prevented by the floods of the 

 Tyne from getting across it to school,* I was 



[* " During storms and floods, those living on the south side of 

 the river can neither attend the church, nor, as it sometimes happens, 

 bring their dead to be buried." (Mackenzie's " Northumberland," 

 1825, ii, 362.) A bridge has now (1886) taken the place of the old 

 ferry between Prudhoe and Ovingham.] 



