Newcastle, in those days, was scarcely a third of its present size, and
the river Tyne, which is now a mere ditch, hemmed in on either side by
great manufactories, shipbuilding yards, and wharves, from its mouth to a
point above Newcastle, was then a fair and noble river, which watered
green meadows and swept past scenes of rural beauty. The house in which I
was born stood in Elswick Row, and in the year of my birth--1842--that
terrace of modest houses formed the boundary-line of the town on the
west. Beyond it was nothing but fields and open country. There was no
High Level Bridge in those days, spanning the river and forming a link in
the great iron highway between the English and Scotch capitals; nor had
so much as the first stone of the famous Elswick Ordnance and Engineering
Works been laid. The future Lord Armstrong, whom I met at dinner not long
ago, looking hardly older than when I first saw him, was then a
solicitor, whose office stood in Westgate Street, and whose dreams could
scarcely have foreshadowed his ultimate destiny. Richard Granger was just
completing that great reconstruction of the centre of the town which gave
Newcastle so noble and unprovincial an appearance; but the fine streets
he had constructed--finer than any others to be found in England at that
period--were still untenanted, and it was melancholy in walking along
Clayton Street to see nine houses out of ten mere empty shells without
doors or windows.

My earliest recollections start out of the void with great distinctness
on one particular day. It was my third birthday, and I can still recall
vividly the two boys--myself and my brother James--who were playing
together in the garden in front of the pleasant house we then occupied in
Summerhill Terrace, when I was called into the drawing-room to receive my
birthday gifts.