yo MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



mornings and evenings, late and early. This 

 too intense application to books, together with 

 my sedentary employment, and being placed at 

 a very low work bench, took away my healthy 

 appearance, and I put on a more delicate look, 

 and became poorly in health. When my master 

 saw this, he sent for medical aid, and Nathaniel 

 Bailes,* surgeon, was consulted. But, before he 

 uttered a word as to my ailment, he took me 

 to his own house, and there he stripped and 

 examined me, and, looking me in the face, told 

 me " I was as strong as a horse/ 5 He then 

 made up some medicine to cause expectoration. 

 This was all soon done, but not so the lecture 

 he gave my master, whom he addressed in terms 

 which I thought both long and rude. "What!" 

 said he, "have you no more sense than to set 

 a growing, country lad to work, doubled up at a 

 low bench, which will inevitably destroy him?" 



* He was commonly called Dr. Bailes. He was a Newcastle 

 worthy, and was accounted a man of great skill in his profession, as 

 well as eminent for his learning and other attainments. He was 

 called the "Eloquent Sword-bearer." He headed the committee 

 of the Burgesses, in I7[73], who tried and beat the magistrates of 

 'Newcastle respecting their exclusive claim to the Town Moor; and 

 he was active in everything relative to the good of the town. He 

 was ingenious and enterprising, a tolerably good engraver, and a 

 good mechanic. He invented a harpoon for killing whales, for which 

 he got a patent. It was of a triangular shape, or like three razors, 

 back to back, and brought to a sharp point, and it was strongly 

 barbed at its termination, towards the socket. By its use, lines and 

 cords were saved. The price was three guineas, which, being 

 deemed too high, was probably the cause of a confederacy of harpoon 

 makers, sea-captains, and others (who knew not how to appreciate 

 its value) to set their faces against using it. The Doctor, who did 

 not like to be kept debating with ignorance and prejudice, and was 

 not actuated by pecuniary motives, suffered the business to go to 

 neglect. He died i6th July, 1791, aged 74, and was buried in St. 

 Nicholas's Church, Newcastle. 



