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THOMAS BEWICK. 



the people who seldom or never saw how pictures were made, the struggling 

 genius of the boy was in its results like the finished performances of a 

 trained artist. Their admiration was unbounded. They did what few north- 

 country people will do without some right good reason — they put their hands 

 in their pockets, and paid hard cash — not much, indeed, but still cash— 

 for the little drawings which he designed. 



The artistic labours of the boy were entirely the outcome of his innate 

 feeling. At this time he had never received a lesson, and it is doubtful 

 if he had ever heard of drawing with a pencil. In Northumberland, among 

 the villagers, Art was almost unknown. The only specimens of painting 

 with which they could be familiar were the glaring sign-boards of the inns 

 in the villages. At Ovingham, the nearest one to Bewick's home, there 

 were painted signs at the White Horse, the Salmon, the Black Bull, and 

 the Hounds and Hare, as well as the King's arms hung in the parish 

 church. These seem often to have haunted the boy's mind; yet from 

 them he could have formed little idea how to make drawings on paper 

 or stone. There were also views of battles, and portraits of the principal 

 leaders, hung round the room of the house at Ovingham where, as a boy, 

 Bewick left his dinner "poke" on his way to school. These, which were 

 also " common in every cottage and farmhouse throughout the country," 

 were the only rude representations he was familiar with in his early youth, 

 and it was from them, if from anything besides his own genius, that he 

 received his first ideas of the art of making designs. How little real 

 art they possessed let any one imagine who has seen the ordinary 

 village painter's performances. The sign of the Hounds and Hare seems 

 especially to have taken the lad's attention. It was much less ably painted 

 than the others in the village, and he arrived at the conclusion that he 

 might be able some day to produce a better hunting scene himself. 

 Subjects of this nature were those which pleased his rustic purchasers 

 best. In his productions, as he mentions, the huntsmen, horses, and dogs 



