SHEEP. 75 



dicular face of the rock, its tiny lamb in tow, as your 

 fruitless shot at the lightning-quick diver, by its 

 reverberation through the caverns of the Great 

 Orme's Head, has startled them from their con- 

 tracted patch of aromatic pasture. But however 

 the tubular, frilled Leicester, or the obese and 

 homely Cotswold sprung therefrom — or the heavy- 

 fleeced, thick-framed, lordly sheep of Lincoln — or, 

 above all, the lovely, oval, petted Goodwood South- 

 down — it is hard to imagine. Nevertheless, that it 

 is a fact we are taught by naturalists of eminence, 

 with whose opinion I should fear to fence. 



Something like an intermediate step you may see 

 on the Campagna. I remember turning a hundred 

 yards from our immediate line, in returning from the 

 Circus of Maxentius, with a bunch of bay-leaves 

 gathered on the very meta, to take stock of a 

 number (a long-legged, shallow-carcased sort they 

 were) feeding on a sickly pasture under the charge 

 of two Menalcas-like shepherds, who were leaning 

 against a low wall, picturesquely, in brigand hats, 

 with pipe and staff, in old classic attitude, with an 

 air exactly of 



" Meliboee Deus ! nobis Jisec otia fecit ; " 



yet with a lurking look, as we drew near, that 

 showed them probably not less sinister on occasion 

 than the wolf-dog crouched growling at their feet : 

 whether it might strike them to cut your luggage 

 from the carriage, or interrupt your meditations on 

 the adjoining Appian Way. The various English 

 varieties it is not my intention to dilate on, for you 



