44 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



hoped he was a good boy. I had not long passed 

 him, till I was rather struck with the coincident 

 recollection of his grandfather's grandfather (above 

 named) so long before having passed me in the 

 same way. 



To these I must add another description of men 

 scattered about the neighbourhood, with whose 

 histories and narratives I at that time felt greatly 

 interested. Their minute account of the battles 

 they had been engaged in, with the hardships 

 they had endured, and their hairbreadth escapes, 

 told with so much enthusiasm and exultation, 

 imparted the same kind of feeling to me. This 

 was long before I had reasoned myself into a 

 detestation of war, its cruelty, its horrors, and the 

 superlative wickedness of the authors of it. I had 

 not pictured to my mind the thousands and tens 

 of thousands of men in their prime being pitted 

 against a like number of others towards whom 

 they could have no enmity to murder each other! ! 

 for what ? It is foreign to my purpose to enlarge 

 upon this subject: I must leave that to others; and 

 there is an abundant scope to dilate upon, and to 

 depicture, the horrors of war in their true colours. 

 The old soldiers, above alluded to, were mostly the 

 descendants of the Borderers, whose propensity for 

 war might, perhaps, be innate. I think however 

 that the breed is thinned, from the numbers that 

 have been killed off in our wars. One of these a 

 near relative \vould describe how he had had his 

 knapsack, as well as his coat laps and the cocks 

 of his hat, shot through and through, and yet 

 had escaped unhurt. Others of them would give 

 similar descriptive accounts; and, when a party of 

 them met over their ale, it is not easy to depicture 



