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THOMAS BEWICK. 



he had to contend with, cannot be said to have done him much good. True, 

 it gave him a wholesome knowledge of what others were able to accomplish 

 — although he says he never was allowed to see the engravers actually at 

 work — but this could only incite him to labour more vigorously, and triumph 

 in the end more completely. He now knew the men amongst whom he had 

 to fight for fame, and we may believe he went back to his northern home 

 determined to conquer. It is well for people to see around them while they 

 are still youthful ; it is well for them to know that others are struggling 

 to achieve the same end as they ; it is well for the countryman to feel that 

 the townsman is striving hard for success, and it is also well for the towns- 

 man to know that a countryman, even though half despised, may snatch 

 the laurel before it reaches his expectant hands. Bewick left London with 

 expressed contempt for the " Cockneys," but in his heart he must have known 

 how small was his chance in contending against those with so many oppor- 

 tunities for study in their favour. But he shrank not from the contest ; he 

 was determined to succeed, and though success was still far off, he was able 

 ultimately to surprise and immeasurably excel those who returned his 

 unconcealed disregard with openly vented sneers. 



That Bewick did right in returning to Newcastle there cannot be any 

 doubt. In the metropolis he would have been a spoiled countryman, and 

 never a thorough Londoner. The eternal fitness of things declared that 

 Bewick should be an exponent of nature, and this at a time when Turner was 

 only an infant, and Mr. Ruskin and the pre-Raphaelites in the far-off future. 

 Bewick was forced to leave London ; none of his thoughts harmonized with 

 it, nor were his manners its manners. Nothing else could be done but leave, 

 so in the warm month of June, 1777, he bade the capital farewell, and on the 

 22nd of the same month he again arrived in Newcastle. He had been away 

 for nearly nine months, and he returned to his native place, not to leave it 

 for many a day. 



