MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 45 



the warmth with which they greeted each other, 

 and prided themselves on the battles they had 

 won. One of these, during a walk, in which I fell 

 in with him, from Newcastle to Ovingham, 

 described the minute particulars of the battle 

 of Minden; and how, in the absence of Lord 

 Sackville, they shook hands the whole length of 

 the line, vowing to stand by each other without 

 flinching. This tall, stout man, John Cowie, 

 though old, appeared to be in all the vigour of 

 youth. He lived at Ovington. His associate, 

 Ben Garlick, of Prudhoe, appeared as if his 

 constitution had been broken down. They had 

 served in a corps called Napier's Grenadiers. 

 Cowie appeared occasionally in his old military 

 coat, &c. After he died, this coat, which had been 

 shot at at Minden and elsewhere, was at last hung 

 up on a stake on the corn rigs as a scare-crow.* 



The ferocious people from whom, as I have 

 intimated, the above individuals were probably 

 descended, bore nearly the same names on both 

 sides of the Border; their character seemed to 

 have been distinct from both their English and 

 Scottish neighbours; and war and rapine had 

 long been their almost constant employment. 

 Many of these the retainers of the chieftains of 

 old, whose feet were swift to shed blood were 

 called by names which were descriptive of their 



[* Cowie's old coat figures in vol. i. of the Birds, 1847. (See 

 vol. i. p. 80, of this edition). A couple of these veterans of 

 Minden were admirably depicted ad vivum by one of Bewick's 

 contemporaries, T. S. Good of Berwick, in a picture which at 

 present belongs to Mr. F. Locker-Lampson. It is understood 

 that Mr. J. W. Barnes, F.S.A., of Durham, who has a large and 

 an unique collection of Good's paintings and drawings, is con- 

 templating a critical memoir of this too-little-known artist.] 



