40 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



I think it is to be regretted that they are not 

 better known to some of the unthinking Great ; as 

 it might serve to take off the hauteur, which is 

 too often shown towards them. 



Another of these uncultivated, singular charac- 

 ters, which exhibit human nature left to the 

 guidance of its uncontrolled will, but which, 

 sometimes, may be found from the force of 

 innate natural pride to soar above every mean- 

 ness, was John Chapman. This man, though 

 clothed in rags, was noticed for his honour and 

 integrity ; and his word was considered to be as 

 good as a thousand pounds bond. He was one 

 of my father's workmen, either as a pitman, a 

 labourer, or a sinker, and was of so strong a 

 constitution that he thought it no hardship, on 

 a cold, frosty morning, to be let down to the 

 bottom of a sinking pit, where he was to be up 

 to the middle, or perhaps to the breast, in water, 

 w r hich he was to lave into buckets, to be drawn 

 up to the top. He endured the labour of every 

 job he undertook without grumbling or thinking 

 it hard. His living was of the poorest kind. 

 Bread, potatoes, and oatmeal, was the only pro- 

 vender he kept by him ; and with milk or water 

 he finished his repasts. When, by this mode of 

 living, he had saved the overplus money of his 

 wages for a month or six weeks, he then posted 

 off to Newcastle to spend it in beer ; and this he 

 called "lowsening his skin." I was at this time 

 located in Newcastle, and when the misguided 

 man had spent all his money, he commonly bor- 

 rowed two shillings of me to set him home again. 

 In this irrational way of life he continued for 

 many years. On one occasion, when changing 



