THOMAS BEWICK. 



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his writings, as the experience gained by it in an artistic way was incon- 

 siderable. It led him, however, to see nature in many forms, and gave him 

 leisure to observe the charms of the country through which he passed — a part 

 of England and Scotland now yearly haunted by hundreds of tourists. 

 Bewick remained at Ainstable, his uncle's residence, for about a week, and 

 then proceeded by Carlisle, Langholm, Hawick, Selkirk, and Dalkeith to the 

 capital of Scotland. "I had been," he says, "particularly charmed with the 

 Border scenery ; the road in places twined about the bottom of the hills which 

 were beautifully green like velvet, spotted over with white sheep, which 

 grazed on their sides, watched by the peaceful shepherd and his dog. I 

 could not help depicturing in my mind the change which had taken place, 

 and comparing it with the times of old that had passed away, and in inwardly 

 rejoicing at the happy reverse." 



From Edinburgh, where he was "lost in admiration of the grandeur 

 of its situation," Bewick walked to Glasgow in one day, a distance of 

 above forty miles ; thence, after some rest, to Dumbarton, and up the 

 side of Loch Lomond into the very heart of the Highlands. In his 

 wanderings he met with much kindness, which he never forgot. Fairs, 

 trysts, and other merry-makings he witnessed in the simplicity of the 

 time, and after a pleasant tour he left the Highlands with more than 

 ordinary regret, and arrived at the old key of the country, the ancient 

 town of Stirling. 



His excursion among the mountains was not altogether unprofitable, for 

 reflections of his thoughts during his residence there appear in after-years. 

 "While I was pursuing my ramblings in the Highlands," he says towards the 

 end of his Memoir, " and beheld with admiration the great projecting rocks 

 so often to be seen holding up their bare heads to the winds, it struck me that 

 it was a great pity they could not be converted to some use ; " his idea being 

 to fill up the bare places in the hills with names of the illustrious dead of the 

 locality. Other references he makes to this visit, but it is to be noted that 



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