MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 99 



embarrassment. I could mention the names of 

 many, but it might offend their delicacy. When 

 a man can get such a help-mate for life, his 

 happiness must be secured ; for such a one is 

 of inestimable value : " Her price is far above 

 rubies/ 3 



Having now been weaned from taking bread and 

 milk, I had learned by degrees to call for a pint 

 of porter, and often spent my evenings at the 

 " George," in Brook Street, kept by a person of 

 the name of Darby, whose wife, a very good- 

 looking woman, from Cumberland, claimed a 

 distant relationship to me. At this house, I met 

 with some very respectable and pleasant trades- 

 men. While I was there one evening, a stranger 

 to me joined us. I think he was a traveller. He 

 had, however, been in Scotland, and had a mighty 

 itch to speak very disrespectfully of that country, 

 and was vociferous in attempting to entertain the 

 company with his account of the filth and dirt he 

 had met with in it. This I could not bear: their 

 kindness was fresh in my memory; -and I felt re- 

 sentment rising in me. I, however, quashed that 

 feeling, and only told him that I believed I had 

 travelled on foot, perhaps about three hundred 

 miles through Scotland, and had met with no such 

 people there, nor such dirtiness as he described. 

 There might, indeed, be some such in every 

 country for aught I knew ; but I was confident 

 such might be found without going much beyond 

 the street we were in, and who, in addition to 

 their filthiness, were also the most wretched and 

 abandoned of the human race. Some of them, 

 indeed, appeared to me to be scarcely human. I 

 concluded by observing that I was afraid he had 



