The Common Snipe. The " History of British Birds," Vol. II. 



CHAPTER I. 



BIRTH AND SCHOOL LIFE. 



HOMAS BEWICK, whose works in the art of engraving have been, from 



the time of their production, increasingly admired by every class, and 

 whose career it is proposed to trace in the succeeding pages, was born on the 

 1 2th of August, 1753, in a small cottage standing on a slope overlooking 

 the river Tyne, in the county of Northumberland. 



His father, John Bewick, who was born in 17 15, supported himself and 

 his family partly by the proceeds of a land-sale colliery which he rented, 

 and partly by farming. He married comparatively early in life, but his 

 wife dying childless, he was married again to Jane Wilson, the daughter 

 of a Cumberland farmer, who was born in 1727, and who became the mother 

 of the illustrious engraver. Cherryburn House, where they went to live, 

 is nearly twelve miles in a westerly direction from Newcastle, and close 



B 



