MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 105 



Richmond's Gallery ; and he strenuously urged 

 me to change my mind. I told him that no 

 temptation of gain, of honour, or of anything else, 

 however great, could ever have any weight with 

 me ; and that I would even enlist for a soldier, or 

 go and herd sheep at five shillings per week, as 

 long as I lived, rather than be tied to ' live in 

 London.* I told him how sensible I was of his 

 uncommon kindness to me, and thanked him for 

 it. My kind friend left me in the pet, and I 

 never saw him more. He afterwards, when an 

 old man, visited Newcastle, but left it again 

 without my knowing it till after he was gone. 

 At this I felt much grieved and disappointed. 

 I do not remember haw long he lived after 



[* Bewick seems to have been perfectly consistent in his antipathy 

 to the metropolis. " For my Part," he says in a letter to Christopher 

 Gregson, dated April 1803, " I am still of the same mind that I was 

 in when in London, and that is, I would rather be herding sheep on 

 Mickley bank top than remain in London, although for doing so I 

 was to be made the Premier of England." " Bewick" says a writer 

 who knew him within the last ten years of his life "often dwelt 

 upon his trip to London, and, with facetious wit tt&d great drollery, 

 was wont to dilate upon his uncomfortable feelings during this 

 sojourn from his own calf-yard. ' I was,' said he, 'quite overpowered 

 by the coldness and selfishness of everything I witnessed. In every 

 direction there was a hurry-scurry ; and all the softer and more 

 amiable feelings of man's nature seemed to me to be obliterated from 

 the scene. I felt my personal pride humbled. I was nothing in the 

 great mass of moving humanity. The whole affair was contrary to 

 everything I had felt or thought previously. I never saw a single 

 recognition of acquaintanceship or friendship in the streets ; every 

 single unit of humanity was moving in rapid succession as if it had 

 no connection with anything around it. How different from what I 

 had all my life been accustomed to ! Why, in Newcastle, I could not 

 get from my own door to Mr. Charnley's shop in Bigg Market with- 

 out having twenty enquiries made by friends in my route, about my 

 health and comfort of my household. But in London life is cheap ; 

 the hearts of even good men get hardened ; and that mutual regard 

 and sympathy, which are the real balsams of life, are seldom tasted. 

 I was delighted beyond measure when I turned my back on the 

 place.' " ("Memoirs of Dr. Robert Blakey," 1879.)] 



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