I 14 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



a volume might be filled, in imitation of the 

 patriarch of anglers, Izaak Walton : as might also 

 one of a descriptive or sentimental journal of these 

 my weekly visits to my parents. These visits 

 continued regularly from 1777 till 1785, in which 

 year my mother, my eldest sister, and my father, 

 all died. 



It will readily be believed that, if I had not felt 

 uncommon pleasure in these journeys, I would not 

 have persisted in them ; nor in facing the snow 

 storms, the floods, and the dark nights of so many 

 winters. This, to some, appeared like insanity, 

 but my stimulant, as well as my reward, was in 

 seeing my father and mother in their happy home. 

 I always reflected that this would have an end, 

 and that the time would come when I should 

 have no feelings of warm regard called up on 

 their account. Besides these gratifications, I felt 

 others in observing the weekly changes of the 

 long-lengthened and varied year, which, by being 

 so measured out, appeared like living double one's 

 time. The " Seasons," by the inimitable Thomson, 

 had charmed me greatly ; but, viewing nature thus 

 experimentally, pleased me much more. To be 

 placed in the midst of a wood in the night, in 

 whirlwinds of snow, while the tempest howled 

 above my head, was sublimity itself, and drew 

 forth aspirations to Omnipotence such as had not 

 warmed my imagination so highly before ; but, 

 indeed, without being supported by ecstacies of 

 this kind, the spirits, beset as they were, would 

 have flagged, and I should have sunk down. 



AS soon as the days began to lengthen, and the 

 sprouting herbage had covered the ground, I often 

 stopped with delight by the sides of woods, to 



