270 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



rye bread, to which last article I did not prevent 

 him from helping himself. He had not been kept 

 to this kind of temperate or pinched regimen 

 above two months, till such an alteration for the 

 better took place in his looks as seemed surpris- 

 ing, so much so that his mother, when she called 

 to see him held up her hands in astonishment at 

 seeing this change from a pale, pasty, sickly look 

 to that of his having cheeks blushed with health 

 like a rose, and this same plan was pursued while 

 he remained under my roof.* The methods I took 

 to learn him his business w r as also of a piece with 

 his mode of living. I did not keep him so long at 

 work as to tire him, with whatever job he might be 

 put to do, especially in drawing, but then whatever 

 I gave him to copy was to be done perfectly 

 correct, and he dreaded to show me work that was 

 not so, although I never scolded him, but only, if I 

 was not pleased, I put the drawing away from me 

 without saying a word. Sometimes I remember 

 saying O fie ! and in this way of treatment he 

 attained to great accuracy. The next thing I put 

 him to was that of colouring, chiefly my own 

 designs, and these occasioned me much time and 

 labour, for I made it a point of drawing these with 

 great accuracy, and with a very delicately pencilled 

 outline. The practical knowledge I had attained in 

 colouring was imparted to him, and he saved me a 

 great deal of what I considered a loss of my time 

 in being taken up in this way, and besides he soon 

 coloured them in a style superior to my hasty 



* Another of my plans was to make growing boys exercise with 

 dumb-bells half an hour or so before bed time. I believe were 

 this practiced by the sedentary of both sexes, it would go a great 

 way to banish consumption. 



