120 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



nearly all over with her ; and she described to 

 me how she had got her death. She had been 

 called up, on a severe frosty night, to see a young 

 woman in the hamlet below, who was taken ill ; 

 and, thinking the bog she had to pass through, 

 might be frozen hard enough to bear her, she 

 " slumped" deep into it, and, before she had waded 

 through it, she got very wet and a "perishment" 

 of cold ; and, in that state, she went to give her 

 advice as to what was best to be done with her 

 patient. I employed my friend, Dr. Bailes, to 

 visit her; and I ran up from Newcastle two or 

 three times a week with his medicines for her ; 

 but all would not do : she died on the 2oth 

 February, 1785, aged 58 years.* She was pos- 

 sessed of great innate powers of mind, which 

 had been cultivated by a good education, as well 

 as by her own endeavours. For these, and for 

 her benevolent, humane disposition, and good 

 sense, she was greatly respected, and, indeed, 

 revered by the whole neighbourhood. My eldest 

 sister, Hannah Chambers, who was down from 

 London on a visit to her home, at the time of 

 my mother's illness and death, by her over- 

 exertion and anxiety, brought on an illness ; and, 

 for the convenience of medical aid, and better 

 nursing, I brought her to my hitherto little happy 

 cot, at the Forth, where she died on the 24th June, 

 1785, aged 30 years. These were gloomy days to 

 me ! Some short time before my sister died, upon 

 her requesting me, and my promising her, that I 



[* This date appears upon a little memorial stone which serves as 

 the tailpiece to the "Ass and Lion Hunting" in the " Fables of 

 AZsop." Another stone at p. 176 bears the date of the death of 

 Bewick's father, recorded on the following page.] 



