A memoir of Thomas Bewick

Front matter

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BEWICK

Preface

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Fishes ; an arrangement which it is hoped may meet with general approbation — more particularly as, by that means, the cuts and the vignettes* engraved for the History of Fishes will thus go together. Much additional matter respecting the Fishes, which had occupied so much time and attention, would doubtless have found a place in the pages of the Memoir, had not the hand of Death so suddenly arrested the labours of the Author. From the ample materials which exist, the Appendix might have been greatly extended, but it is now felt to he desirable to bring the publication to a termination as speedily as possible.

J. B.

Gateshead- on- Tyne, May, 1862.

* The vignette placed at page 286 — a view of Cherryburn, with Mickley Bank in the distance, and a funeral procession descending the sloping pasture towards the boat, waiting to convey it across the Tyne to the last resting-place of the family at Ovingham— appears, from the date attached, to be the last vignette ever executed by Thomas Bewick.

It is at this period when the full value of a wellspent life will shine with full effulgence upon the mind, and spread over it a self- approbation of more worth than all the riches of the world. An ill-spent life, on the contrary, will bring forward its recollections, and send the guilty and polluted body unregretted to the grave, and the degraded soul to the Giver of it, to be disposed of, in the justice and mercy it will be found to deserve. — Loose Note.

T. lb h

Chapter I

Iutroductory — Parentage — Birth, 1753 — Mickley School — Ovingham School — First attempts at drawing — Hunting parties — Sheep — Shelter for sheep in snow storms — Birds — Border songs and laments — Earl of Derwentwater — Whins food for cattle 1 — 13

Chapter II

Employments in spring— Angling — Mischievous pranks — Floggings at school— Ghosts and Boggles — Change in the mind — Man-fights, dog-fights, cock-fights — Fear of ghosts entertained by the bulk of the people — Meet the Devil going a-guising — Miss Gregson’s reproof — Mr. Gregson’s lecture — Birds and their nests — Ants — Bees ...... 14 — 31