MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 63 
lie considered every thing else as subordinate. The 
success of his labours in this field he acknowledged, 
but was unconscious of it till made aware by the 
voluntary and unsought admiration of the world. 
When the admired preface to his Fables first ap- 
peared, letters from eminent men poured in upon 
him, particularly from the University of Cambridge, 
and one from the Bishop of Gloucester ; numerous 
letters of thanks for the benefits he conferred on 
the rising generation, from men of talent and 
literary eminence, who were total strangers to him, 
except through his works, but who admired his 
modesty, his genius, his benevolence, his wit, his 
ingenuity, and his genuine religious principles. 
“ Frequently, as I walked with him along the 
streets, it was gratifying to witness how much and 
how generally his character and talents ivere re- 
spected; particularly when many who bowed to 
him differed totally from him in opinions, on a 
subject that ought to conciliate, but far too often 
sets little minds at inveterate hostility with grea- 
ones. An amiable touch of character showed itsen 
in the many ragged children who followed him for 
halfpence, and would not leave him till he ban 
imparted the customary largess. He turned to them 
several times, while he was talking to me, saying, 
‘ Get awa’, bairns, get awa ; I hae none for ye 
the day.’ As they still kept dogging him, and 
pulling at his coat, he turned into a shop, and 
throwing down a tester, said, in his broad dialect 
("which he neither affected to conceal, nor pretended 
