still further to stimulate his natural bent.  In speaking of that period, in after life, he said to a
friend: " I recollect being allowed an occasional peep at a considerable pile of prints, such as were issued from the London shops, among which were Hogarth's illustrations of the careers of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices, which made a strong impression upon my mind. These prints determined my destiny." We can imagine the eager boy bending over these masterpieces, and following out each line and curve, with the close attention of the true artist.

He was not content, however, with merely studying the pictures to which he had access, but often amused himself by copying them, employing for that Purpose a brush and India ink, and faithfully reproducing every line. He was ignorant of the means employed in making the engravings, and it was only through the kindness of a schoolmate, who had seen a description of it in Chambers’s Cyclopedia, that he learned the process of production.  He immediately carried some large copper pennies to a silversmith, and had them rolled into thin plates, upon which be made his first engravings using as a graver the back-spring of a pocket-knife ground to a sharp point.  He was then only