ROMANCE OF THE DUKES AND DUCHESSES 107 



Leicester to LORD FITZHARDINGE at $5,750 and 

 $4,500 respectively, and EARL BECTIVE paid $7,525 

 for the Duchess of Leicester. And about this date 

 the 8th Duke of Tregunter, that had been exported 

 to Australia, changed hands in that land of illimit- 

 able pastures at $20,000. But the bloom was fad- 

 ing. The primal excellence of CHARLES GOLLING'S 

 Stanwick cow of 1783, the excellence of the first 

 Duchess bought by Mr. BATES, to say nothing of the 

 really grand specimens that came with the use of 

 Belvidere, had been largely lost through reckless in- 

 and-in breeding, directed, not by the master mind of 

 THOMAS BATES, but for the most part by amateurs 

 who were little less than gamblers, faithless alto- 

 gether to the high ideals of the creator of the type 

 and loyal only to the god of gold. 



The story needs no written moral; but what a 

 tribute to the genius of him who rests yonder 

 across the sea in the little churchyard of Kirklev- 

 ington! Verily this narrative of the belated apprecia- 

 tion of the work of THOMAS BATES, and the fierce 

 struggle for the possession of his legacy to the bovine 

 world that occurred so many years after his decease, 

 recalls the fate of the creator of the tale of Troy: 



"Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, 

 Through which the living Homer begged his bread." 



