THOMAS BEWICK. 



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were also Agnes (born 1756?), Ann (born 1758?), and Sarah, born in 1766, 

 who was cut off in early maidenhood in 1782.* 



The house at Cherryburn where Bewick was born is to-day sadly different 

 from what it was in the engraver's youth ; yet the surrounding scenery still 

 possesses much of the character and beauty described in the Memoir written 

 by himself, and published in 1862. 



" At the south end of the premises was a spring-well, overhung by a large haw- 

 thorn bush, behind which was a holly-hedge, and further away was a little boggy 

 dean with underwood and trees of different kinds. Near the termination of this 

 dean, towards the river, were a good many remarkably tall ash-trees, and one of oak, 

 supposed to be one of the tallest and straightest in the kingdom. On the tops of these 

 was a rookery, the sable inhabitants of which, by their consultations and cawings, and 

 the bustle they made when building their nests, were among the first of the feathered 

 race to proclaim the approaching spring. The corn-fields and pastures to the east- 

 ward were surrounded by very large oak and ash trees To the westward, 



adjoining the house, lay the common or fell, which extended some few miles in 

 length, and was of various breadths. It was mostly fine green sward or pasturage, 

 broken or divided, indeed, with clumps of * blossom'd whins,' foxglove, fern, and 

 some junipers, and with heather in profusion, sufficient to scent the whole air. Near 

 the burns which guttered its sides were to be seen the remains of old oaks, hollowed 

 out by time, with alders, willows, and birch, which were often to be met with in the 

 same state." 



The cottage where Bewick was born still stands amidst trees and greenery, 

 and the Cherryburn still runs down the steep incline to the river, though the 

 water is less than it was in Bewick's time. The landscape, though not so 

 heavily wooded, is doubtless much the same as the young artist saw it ; 

 the river can be heard and seen in its course to the harbour of the Tyne ; 

 and the rooks still congregate in the neighbourhood, though their former 

 homes in the ash-trees have long since disappeared. 



* In the " Archseologia iEliana " the Rev. Anthony Hedley gives the derivation of the name Bewick, 

 which is applied to various places in the northern part of Northumberland. He says Bewick is " one of the 

 few Norman appellations in the county ; imposed, probably, by the monks of St. Albans, who, with the church 

 at Eglingham, had very early possession of the township and other lands in the same parish. It is composed of 

 beau, fine, pretty, and the Saxon -wick, in allusion to the happily chosen site of the village of Old Bewick." 



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