John Cunningham, the pastoral poet, died September, 1773, aged 43 years, and was buried in St. John’s Church Yard, Newcastle.
The same kind persuasions were urged upon me by Mr. Hodgson, to remain in London, as had been used by Mr. Taylor, which ended in a similar way. The former, however, went further, and told me that, if I were determined upon leaving London, and would continue to work for him in Newcastle, he would furnish me with plenty of it; and that he would begin by giving me as much as would keep me employed for two years. This was particularly pleasing to me, because I could not bear the thoughts of beginning business in Newcastle in opposition to my old master, for whom I had the greatest respect.
Having spent the evening till a late hour with my friends at the “George,” in Brook Street, and in the morning taken leave of my landlord and landlady, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, and their family, in Wharton’s Court, Holborn, I then posted off to the Pool, and got on board a collier; and, after a very short passage, arrived in sight of St. Nicholas’ Church steeple, about the 22nd June, 1777.
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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.