MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 169 



ing powers I had not tried ; and, for this purpose, 

 when a boy, I cut two thin slices of meat and 

 plastered the insides with mustard, and then threw 

 it to one of my father's dogs. This, he being very 

 apt at "kepping" caught in his mouth, and, as 

 quickly as he could, got quit of it again ; and, from 

 that time, he would rather run the risk of losing it 

 than "kep" any more. To prove how far selfish- 

 ness and malignity would operate upon him, I 

 placed twp basins filled with very hot, fat broth, 

 at a distance from each other, when he ran from 

 one to the other to prevent a beautiful spaniel 

 bitch from partaking of either of them. His at- 

 tention was taken up with thus watching and 

 preventing her, till at length his patience was 

 exhausted, by going so often from one basin to 

 the other, and then, with the utmost vengeance, 

 he seized her, and tore away his mouthful of skin 

 from her side. 



On my return from Wycliffe, being thoroughly 

 drenched with an incessant rain, I called upon an 

 old and much-esteemed schoolfellow, John Forster, 

 at Bishop Auckland, and spent a day or two with 

 him, in busy converse about our former transac- 

 tions at school, &c. Perhaps few have passed 

 through life without experiencing the pleasure that 

 a retrospect of the times gone by thus afford to 

 old cronies, in talking over the recollections of 

 youthful frolics, and even of the discipline which 

 followed in consequence of them. 



As soon as I arrived in Newcastle, I immediately 

 began to engrave from the drawings of the birds 

 I had made at Wycliffe ; but I had not been long 

 thus engaged till I found the very great difference 



between preserved specimens and those from 



w 



