the congregation. These boards are now in the possession of the Duke
of Northumberland, by whom they were replaced; and when his chalk
was exhausted, he resorted to a pin or a nail as a substitute. In
consequence of this propensity to drawing, some liberal people, of whom
he says, there were many in Newcastle, got him bound apprentice to a Mr.
Bielby, an engraver on copper and brass. During this period he walked
most Sundays to Ovingham (ten miles,) to see his parents; and, if the
Tyne was low, crossed it on stilts; but, if high-flowing, hollaed across
to inquire their health, and returned. This infant genius (but it was
the infant Hercules struggling with the snakes) was bound down by his
master to cut clock-faces and door-knockers--ay, clock-faces and
door-knockers!--and he actually showed me several in the streets of
Newcastle he had cut. At this time he was employed by Bielby to cut
on wood the blocks for Dr. Hutton's great work on _Mensuration_.
Hutton was then a schoolmaster at Newcastle (1770.)

After his apprenticeship, he worked a short time for a person in Hatton
Garden; but he disliked London extremely, still panting for his native
home, to whose braes and bonny banks he joyously returned; where he was
occupied in cutting figures and ornaments for books; and now received
his first prize from the Society of Arts for the "Old Hound," in an
edition of Gay's _Fables_. A glance at this cut will show what a
low state wood-engraving was at, when a public society deemed it worthy
a reward; yet even in this are readily visible some lines and touches of
the future great master of this delicious art. He never omitted visiting
itinerant caravans of animals, from whose living looks and attitudes he
made spirited drawings. This led to his _History of Quadrupeds_,
1790; the first block, however, of which, he cut the very day of his
father's death, Nov. 15, 1785. From this work he obtained very
considerable celebrity; which led him shortly to draw and engrave the