IQ4 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



It will seem a wonder to future ages how the 

 British people could so long- have supported the 

 squandered expenditure of the government ; still 

 they were not like the long-worn-down subjects 

 of continental despots ; for what the latter can get 

 from their subjects is like clippings from the back 

 and sides of swine, while the ingenuity, the indus- 

 try, and the energy of the British people furnish 

 the well-grown fleeces of sheep. Pity it is that 

 they should have been so often wickedly shorn 

 to the bare skin. 



The state of temporary prosperity, to which I 

 have alluded, incited to agricultural improvements; 

 and societies for the promotion, and premiums for 

 the encouragement, of various desiderata blazed 

 forth over a great part of the kingdom. Cattle, 

 sheep, horses, and swine, all of which were called 

 "live stock," occupied a great deal of attention, 

 and in the improvement of the various breeds 

 agriculturalists succeeded to a certain, and in 

 some cases, perhaps, to a great extent. And yet 

 I cannot help thinking that they often suffered 

 their whimsies to overshoot the mark, and in many 

 instances to lead them on to the ridiculous. 



After all, these enquiries having opened the 

 eyes of the landlords to their own interests, it is 

 not unlikely that the man of industry, the plain, 

 plodding farmer will, without receiving any reward, 

 have to pay for these improvements. My kind, my 

 intimate friend, John Bailey, Esq.,* of Chilling- 

 ham, in conjunction with another friend of mine, 



* John Bailey, Esq. died 3 June, 1819, aged 68, and was buried at 

 Chillingham. [A note by Miss Bewick in the Bewick MSS. says 

 that he was a celebrated agriculturist, steward to Lord Tankerville, 

 and afterwaids a banker at Berwick-upon-Tweed. (See chap, xii.)] 



