MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 269 



employed in drawing and making pictures, which 

 were regularly shewn my father and mother and 

 through them to myself, he thus came very early 

 into practice. As soon as he attained somewhere 

 about his i3th year friends began to act upon the 

 scheme so long projected, of putting these inten- 

 tions in force, and in this business my father and 

 mother stood foremost as the warm friends of the 

 boy, and begged I would always shew the same 

 disposition towards him, and to take him under my 

 fostering care. He was about a year too young 

 to be bound as an apprentice; but I took him into 

 the house till the proper time arrived, when he was 

 bound to my partner and myself for seven years. 

 He was mostly employed at drawing, and was also 

 at intervals practising himself in the use of the 

 graver, and in etching on copper; but being very 

 delicate in his health we were careful not to confine 

 himself too closely at anything. It may perhaps 

 be useful to artists to know how I thought it best 

 to order and manage such a tender and pampered 

 boy. The system I began upon was that of rigid 

 temperance he got no medicine from me. My 

 sister Ann, at that time, kept my house, and to 

 get her to second me in my plans I experienced 

 great difficulty, chiefly from her fears "that folks 

 would raise a report that we hungered him;" but 

 I resolutely persisted in my plan, and would not 

 allow her to put in her word against it. I began 

 by cutting off for him almost every thing he had 

 given to him to eat. The animal food with which 

 I helped his plate at dinner, did not exceed in 

 bulk the size of three of my fingers, to this was 

 added a portion of vegetables. For breakfast 

 and supper he got a pint of milk with leavened 



