MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 145 



company separated at ten o'clock. George Carlton 

 was perpetual President, and in that office always 

 conducted himself in a pleasant and gentlemanly 

 manner. William Preston, the printer, was 

 Secretary and Treasurer, and always acquitted 

 himself in the same agreeable way the president 

 had done. Conversations amongst the friends 

 thus associated, consisting of merchants, or 

 respectable tradesmen, were carried on without 

 restraint, and only interrupted for the moment 

 while the president claimed attention to any par- 

 ticular news of the day that might be worth notice. 

 Such a place of meeting proved convenient and 

 pleasant to many a stranger who visited the town, 

 and the expense was as nothing. It may seem 

 strange that, out of a fourpenny club like this, 

 there was commonly an overplus left, to give away 

 at Christmas and Easter to some charitable 

 purpose. I went to this club when I had time to 

 spare in an evening, and seldom missed a week 

 to an end. This happy society was at length 

 broken up, at the time when war on behalf of 

 despotism was raging, and the spy system was 

 set afloat. Some spies, and others of the same 

 stamp, contrived to get themselves introduced, 

 and to broach political questions, for the purpose 

 of exciting debates, and feeling the pulse of the 

 members, who before this had very seldom touched 

 upon subjects of that kind. 



Besides being kept busy with the routine business 

 of our work-office, I was often engaged in executing 

 wood cuts for publishers and printers, at various 

 times from about the year 1788 to 1790. The 

 first of any importance was the wood cuts of 



Roman altars, and the arms of the Bishops of 



T 



