64 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



he engaged himself to Allan Ramsay, the poet, 

 then a bookseller at the latter place, in whose 

 service he was both shopman and bookbinder. 

 From Edinburgh he came to Newcastle, and en- 

 gaged himself, I believe, to Mr. Slack as a 

 bookbinder, and as a faithful and careful inspector 

 of the books printed in that office. Mrs. Slack, 

 who was a woman of uncommon abilities and 

 great goodness of heart, did not overlook Gilbert, 

 and he was her right hand man as long as she 

 lived. He was afterwards employed in the same 

 way to the end of his life under Solomon Hodgson, 

 the successor to Thomas Slack. Gilbert had had 

 a liberal education bestowed upon him. He had 

 read a great deal, and had reflected upon what he 

 had read. This, with his retentive memory, 

 enabled him to be a pleasant and communicative 

 companion, but something of a prejudice against 

 priests stuck by him as long as he lived. I lived 

 in habits of intimacy with him to the end of his 

 life ; and, when he died, I, with others of his 

 friends, attended his remains to the grave at the 

 Ballast Hills.* 



In my attendance at the workshop of Gilbert, 

 I got acquainted with several young men who like 

 myself admired him, but one of the most singular 

 of these was Anthony Taylor, a glass maker. He 

 was a keen admirer of drawings and paintings, 

 but had no opportunity of showing his talents in 

 the arts otherwise than in his paintings and 

 enamellings upon glass, in which way, considering 



* He died on the I2th February, 1794, in the 86th year of his age. 

 [There is a little oval portrait of " Gilbert Gray, Mi 85," which was 

 done for private distribution. A copy of it is pasted in the MS. of 

 the "Memoir" at this place.] 



