The
halfpence he got were always laid out in chalk or coarse pencils; with
which, when taken to church, he scrawled over the ledges of the bench
ludicrous caricatures of the parson, clerk, and the more prominent of
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.
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