THOMAS BEWICK. 



7 



axe, the fact only further displays his strength of character in the early 

 choice he made of the high pursuits of an artist-engraver. 



As the boy's years became greater he was sent to school : not so much 

 that he should learn, but that he might be kept from mischief. Doubtless, 

 as the family increased, the parents were glad to have their restless " laddie " 

 sent even for half the day, when they could be free from anxiety concerning 

 him. The teacher appreciated the circumstances, and did not press his young 

 scholar at first with many lessons, and Bewick was some time at school 

 before he mastered his alphabet, not to mention words even of the smallest 

 size. The teacher, though thus discreet at first, did not very long allow 

 his pupil so much freedom ; he was a pedagogue of the old school, and 

 thoroughly believed in the use of the birch. Soon after, Bewick was 

 made to feel the "delicate persuasiveness" of the instrument, and, as he 

 relates, the master frequently beat him unjustly for not learning what he 

 was not advanced enough to comprehend. The master, in short, was a 

 cross-grained and rather ignorant old man, without sufficient capacity to 

 teach, and without enough cunning to rule, the boys. After a tremendous 

 struggle one day between him and Bewick, in which the master's shins suf- 

 fered severely from the iron-hooped clogs of the scholar, the spirited boy ran 

 away, and did not make his appearance at school again until another teacher 

 had been appointed. He "played the truant every day," he says, and in 

 a little burn or rivulet not far off he entertained himself by making dams 

 and swimming boats, probably very much in the manner shown in the 

 frontispiece to Volume II. of the " History of British Birds." When a new 

 schoolmaster was installed Bewick was sent to see how he would succeed 

 with him, and as the new-comer proved to be a man as naturally suited 

 for his post as the former one was unfitted, the boy soon made friends with 

 him, and mastered his lessons as quickly and as happily as his parents could 

 desire. Between the time of his breaking the shins of the old master and 

 his return to school, young Bewick had been frequently subjected to 



