42 



THOMAS BEWICK. 



the company agreeable. The associations there helped to foster the feeling 

 he had never lost, of love for birds and animals, and served as a link to 

 the time when he would achieve distinction in depicting them, and, no doubt, 

 they "had something to do with developing the naturalistic tastes of the 

 artist, which were so strongly brought out in future years." 



At this time Bewick acquired the wholesome experience of learning the 

 true value of money. North-country people are often credited with the 

 quality of knowing well how many shillings are in a pound, or, to express it 

 more nicely, how many pence are in a shilling, and Bewick seems to have 

 entered deeply into the spirit of this quality. In after-life he was ever good 

 at a bargain, though he never went very far into the region of niggardliness. 

 His wages from Beilby were, no doubt, small, and it is said he helped to 

 make the sum serve his wants by bringing a brown loaf every week from his 

 mother. He paid Hatfield only ninepence weekly for his lodging, and a 

 British Quarterly Reviewer (the Rev. Dr. Vaughan), in 1845, sa id that — 



" He actually tried the experiment of the minimum upon which he could contrive to 

 live. The sum he arrived at, as being necessary to existence, was very small, but it 

 afforded a calculus by means of which he could estimate what was really requisite to 

 a comfortable independence. Unlike many men of genius he was early prudent, 

 economical, and industrious. His mind was essentially homely, even amidst the 

 finest of its aspirations." 



Towards the end of Bewick's apprenticeship, Saint, the Newcastle pub- 

 lisher, gave to Beilby, and through him to Bewick, a commission to execute 

 the cuts for a volume he proposed to publish, " Fables by the late Mr. Gay ; " 

 being persuaded to do this, doubtless, on observing the growing capacity of 

 the apprentice to delineate subjects suitable for such compositions. The 

 Fables for which engravings were required were written by Gay about 1726, 

 at the suggestion, it is said, of the Princess of Wales, made when the poet 

 read his tragedy of the Captives to her Royal Highness in 1724. The Fables 

 had several times been illustrated. In 1746 they were published in, London, 



