the first thing after my arrival in newcastle was to see my old master, and the next to engage my old lodgings at hatfields, and to fit up a work bench there. i then set to work upon my wood cuts. this, however, was interrupted by other jobs; and the first of the kind was that of engraving a copper plate of the “theban harp,” for the rev. james murray, for some of his publications.[21] some of the silversmiths also began to press their jobs upon me. i had not, however, been long at work for myself till proposals were made to me to join in partnership with my late master; and this was brought about by a mutual friend (?) this proposal—which was to set me down at once in a well-established business—i did not relish so warmly as our mutual friend expected. i had formed a plan of working alone, without apprentices, or being interrupted by any one; and i am not certain, at this day, whether i would not have been happier in doing so than in the way i was led to pursue. i had often, in my lonely walks, debated this business over in my mind; but, whether it would have been for the better or the worse, i can now only conjecture. i tried the one plan, and not the other: perhaps each might have had advantages and disadvantages. i should not have experienced the envy and ingratitude of some of my pupils, neither should i, on the contrary, have felt the pride and the pleasure i derived from so many of them having received medals or premiums from the society for the encouragement of arts, and taken the lead, as engravers on wood, in the metropolis. notwithstanding this pride and this pleasure, i am inclined to think i should have had—balancing the good against the bad—more pleasure in working alone for myself.
during my absence in london, mr. beilby had taken an apprentice with a premium; and, to make us equal, i took my brother john as mine. with him i was extremely happy. he was constantly cheerful, lively, and very active, and my friends were his friends. mr. beilby was as well pleased with him as i could possibly be; for, besides his affable temper, he took every kind of work in hand so pleasantly, and so very soon learned to execute it well, that he could not miss giving satisfaction. this he continued to do as long as he was with us; but other parts of his conduct, when he arrived at manhood, was not so well, and gave me great uneasiness; for he got acquainted with companions whom i thought badly of, and my remonstrances respecting them proved in vain. he would not, as he called it, be dictated to by me; but this i persisted in till it made us often quarrel, which was distressing to me, for my regard for him was too deeply rooted ever to think of suffering him to tread in the paths which led to ruin, without endeavouring to prevent it. to the latest day of his life, he repented of having turned a deaf ear to my advice; and as bitterly and sincerely did he acknowledge the slighted obligations he owed me. he rued; and that is as painful a word as any in the english language.
as soon as i thought my brother might be able to work his way in the world,—he having been, i think, about five years with me,—i gave him his liberty, and he set off to london, where, being freed from his former associates, his conduct was all that could be desired, and he was highly respected and esteemed. he was as industrious in london as he had been with us, and had plenty of work to do. he was almost entirely employed by the publishers and booksellers in designing and cutting an endless variety of blocks for them. he was extremely quick at his work, and did it at a very low rate. his too close confinement, however, impaired his health. he revisited cherryburn, where he did not remain long till he thought himself quite recovered, and he then returned to london, where he continued a few years longer, and where the same kind of confinement affected his health as before. a similar visit to his native air was found necessary; his health was again restored to him; and again he returned to london. he, however, found that he could not pursue the same kind of close confinement, on which account he engaged to teach drawing at the hornsey academy, then kept by mr. nathaniel norton, which obliged him to keep a pony to ride backwards and forwards; thus dividing his time between his work-office in london and the school for some years, when his health began again to decline, and he finally left london early in the summer of 1795, and returned once more to the banks of the tyne. here he intended to follow the wood engraving for his london friends, and particularly for wm. bulmer, for whom he was engaged to execute a number of blocks for the “fabliaux” or “tales of le grand,” and for “somerville’s chace.” many of the former he had, i believe, finished in london, and had sketched others on the blocks, which he finished at cherryburn. he had also sketched the designs on the blocks for the “chace;” and to these i put the finishing hand, after his decease, which happened on the 5th of december, 1795, aged 35 years. the last thing i could do for him was putting up a stone to his memory at the west end of ovingham church, where i hope, when my “glass is run out,” to be laid down beside him.
while my brother was my apprentice, he frequently accompanied me on my weekly visits to cherryburn. he was then a clever, springy youth, and our bounding along together was often compared to the scamperings of a pair of wild colts. these journeys commenced while i was an apprentice. i then mostly went and returned on the same day; but, when i became my own master, for many years—in summer’s heat and winter’s freezing cold—i did not miss a single week. when i was an apprentice, i had a few holydays at easter and whitsuntide allowed me, according to promise; and these were wholly employed in angling; but, after the time came when i might do as i pleased, i mostly stopped, when the weather suited, in spring and summer, and spent the mondays in various streams, at this my favourite—and, indeed, only—diversion. in this i was accompanied by my cheerful associate, “jack roe,” with his flies and his tackle; and, when we had got a sufficient number, i returned to newcastle with my creel well filled with fish, which i divided amongst my friends. with an account of these hungry, stream-wading ramblings, and the days spent in angling, and with a description of the beautiful scenery of water-sides, and the renovating charms which these altogether inspired, a volume might be filled, in imitation of the patriarch of anglers, izaac walton: as might also one of a descriptive or sentimental journal of these my weekly visits to my parents. these visits continued regularly from 1777 till 1785, in which year my mother, my eldest sister, and my father, all died.
it will readily be believed that, if i had not felt uncommon pleasure in these journeys, i would not have persisted in them; nor in facing the snow storms, the floods, and the dark nights of so many winters. this, to some, appeared like insanity, but my stimulant, as well as my reward, was in seeing my father and mother in their happy home. i always reflected that this would have an end, and that the time would come when i should have no feelings of warm regard called up on their account. besides these gratifications, i felt others in observing the weekly changes of the long-lengthened and varied year, which, by being so measured out, appeared like living double one’s time. the “seasons,” by the inimitable thomson, had charmed me greatly; but, viewing nature thus experimentally, pleased me much more. to be placed in the midst of a wood in the night, in whirlwinds of snow, while the tempest howled above my head, was sublimity itself, and drew forth aspirations to omnipotence such as had not warmed my imagination so highly before; but, indeed, without being supported by ecstacies of this kind, the spirits, beset as they were, would have flagged, and i should have sunk down.
as soon as the days began to lengthen, and the sprouting herbage had covered the ground, i often stopped with delight by the sides of woods, to admire the dangling woodbine and roses, and the grasses powdered or spangled with pearly drops of dew; and also, week after week, the continued succession of plants and wild flowers. the primrose, the wild hyacinth, the harebell, the daisy, the cowslip, &c.,—these, altogether, i thought no painter ever could imitate. i had not, at that time, ever heard the name of the great and good linn?us, and knew plants only by their common english names. while admiring these beautifully-enamelled spots on my way, i was also charmed with the equally beautiful little songsters, which were constantly pouring out their various notes to proclaim the spring. while this exhilarating season glided on by imperceptible degrees, unfolding its blossoms till they faded into summer, and as the days lengthened, my hours of rising became more and more early. i have often thought, that not one half of mankind knew anything of the beauty, the serenity, and the stillness of the summer mornings in the country, nor have ever witnessed the rising sun’s shining forth upon the new day.
i had often listened with great pleasure and attention to my father’s description of the morning, with his remarks upon the various wild quadrupeds and the strange birds he had seen or heard in these still hours throughout the year; for he left his bed very early in summer, and seldom later than four or five o’clock in the winter. the autumn i viewed as the most interesting season, and, in its appearance, the most beautiful. it is then that the yellow harvest of the fields, and the produce of the orchards, are gathered in, as the reward of the labours of the year; while the picturesque beauties and varying foliage of the fading woods, with their falling leaves, and the assembling in flocks of the small birds, put me in mind of the gloomy months with which the year is closed.
this is the short account of many years of uninterrupted health, bouyant spirits, and of great happiness to me. i had begun betimes, and by degrees, to habituate myself to temperance and exercise, which hardened the constitution to such a pitch that neither wet nor cold had any bad effect upon me. on setting out upon my weekly pedestrian “flights” up the tyne, i never looked out to see whether it was a good day or a bad one; the worst that ever fell from the skies never deterred me from undertaking my journey. on setting out, i always waded through the first pool i met with, and had sometimes the river to wade at the far end. i never changed my clothes, however they might be soaked with wet, or stiffened by the frost, on my returning home at night, till i went to bed. i had inured myself to this hardship, by always sleeping with my windows open, by which a thorough air, as well as the snow, blew through my room. in this way, i lay down, rolled in a blanket, upon a mattrass as hard as i could make it. notwithstanding this mode of treating myself, i never had any ailment, even in the shape of a cold, while i continued to live in this way; nor did i experience any difference until, when i married, i was obliged to alter my plans, and to live and behave like other folks. if persons brought up and habituated to the tender indulgences common in the world, and not trained by degrees to bear the mode of life i have been describing, were to try it, unprepared, the experiment would be at their peril. my travelling expenses for the day, were commonly only a penny or twopence for crossing the water. on the hottest day, i was never made violently to perspire, but only felt a dampness on my brow. i carried no useless weight of fat about me, and the muscular parts were as hard as it was possible to be on any human being. on being asked by a gentleman—an acquaintance whom i met at ovingham—what i got to drink on such hot days, on my road, my reply was—“nothing.” he had not been used to such doings himself; and was surprised, and could hardly believe me. he earnestly persuaded me to try the experiment of the amazing good a glass of brandy and water would do me in hot weather. this i took no notice of for some time: at length, however, on a thundery, hot day, on being scorched with heat, and in danger of being struck with lightning, which darted from a sky almost as black as ink, i stepped into a public house, and, for the first time in my life, called for a glass of brandy and water. i was then about 28 years old. this would not be worth noticing, but only on account of its being a beginning to me, and which i did not, when occasion pressed me, leave off for some years afterwards.
this life of rapturous enjoyment has its acids, and at length comes to an end; and so did my walks, and my reflections, or contemplations, which passed through the mind while engaged in them. these, at the time, were mostly communicated to a moralising, sensible, and religious friend, who waited my return on the sunday evenings, when, over our supper, he, in return, detailed to me the import of the sermons he had heard through the day.
