SHEEP AND GOAT KIND. 



243 



preserved in all its former purity ; but in coun- 

 tries where a greater inequality of condition 

 prevails, the shepherd is generally some poor 

 wretch, wiio attends a flock from which he is 

 to derive no benefits, and only guards those 

 luxuries which he is not fated to share. 



It does not appear, from early writers, that 

 the sheep was bred in Britain ; and it was not 

 till several ages after this animal was cultivated, 

 that the woollen manufacture was carried on 

 among us. a That valuable branch of business 

 lay for a considerable time in foreign hands ; 

 and we were obliged to import the cloth manu- 

 factured from our own materials. There were, 

 notwithstanding, many unavailing efforts 

 among our kings to introduce and preserve 

 the manufacture at home. Henry the Second, 

 by a patent granted to the weavers in London, 

 directed, that if any cloth was found made of 

 a mixture of Spanish wool, it should be burn- 

 ed by the mayor. Such edicts, at length, al- 

 though but slowly, operated towards the estab- 

 lishing this trade among us. The Flemings, 

 who at the revival of arts possessed the art of 

 cloth-working in a superior degree, were in- 

 vited to settle here ; and soon after foreign 

 cloth was prohibited from being worn in Eng- 

 land. In the times of Queen Elizabeth this 

 manufacture received every encouragement ; 

 and many of the inhabitants of the Netherlands 

 being then forced, by the tyranny of Spain, to 

 take refuge in this country, they improved us 

 in those arts, in which we at present excel the 

 rest of the world. Every art, however, has its 

 rise, its meridian, and its decline ; and it is 

 supposed by many, that the woollen manufac- 

 ture has, for some time, been decaying amongst 

 us. The cloth now made is thought to be 

 much worse than that of some years past ; 

 being neither so firm nor fine ; neither so much 

 courted abroad, nor so serviceable at home. 



No country, however, produces such sheep 

 as England ; either with larger fleeces, or bet- 

 ter adapted for the business of clothing. Those 

 of Spain, indeed, are finer, and we generally 

 require some of their wool to work up with 

 our own : but the weight of a Spanish fleece 

 is no way comparable to one of Lincoln or 

 Warwickshire ; and, in those counties it is no 

 uncommon thing to give fifty guineas for a ram. 



a British Zoology, vol. i. p. 23. 

 * Lisle's Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 155. 



The sheep without horns are counted the 

 best sort, because a great part of the animal's 

 nourishment is supposed to go up into the 

 horns. 1 ' Sheep, like other ruminant animals, 

 want the upper fore-teeth ; but have eight in 

 the lower jaw : two of these drop, and are re- 

 placed at two years old ; four of them are 

 replaced at three years old ; and all at four. 

 The new teeth are easily known from the rest, 

 by their freshness and whiteness. There are 

 some breeds, however, in England, that never 

 change their teeth at all ; these the shepherds 

 call the leather- mouthed cattle; and, as their 

 teeth are thus long wearing, they are generally 

 supposed to grow old a year or two before the 

 rest. c The sheep brings forth one or two at a 

 time ; and sometimes three or four. The first 

 lamb of an ewe is generally pot-bellied, short 

 and thick, and of less value than those of a se- 

 cond or third production ; the third being sup- 

 posed the best of all. They bear their young five 

 months ; and, by being housed, they bring 

 forth at any time of the year. 



But this animal, in its domestic state, is too 

 well known to require a detail of its peculiar 

 habits, or of the arts which have been used to im- 

 prove the breed. Indeed, in the eye of an obser- 

 ver of nature, every art which tends to render 

 the creature more helpless and useless to itself, 

 may be considered rather as an injury than an 

 improvement ; and if we are to look for this 

 animal in its noblest state, we must seek for it 

 in the African desert, or the extensive plains 

 of Siberia. Among the degenerate descendants 

 of the wild sheep, there have been so many 

 changes wrought, as entirely to disguisfc the 

 kind, and often to mislead the observer. The 

 variety is so great, that scarcely any two coun- 

 tries have their sheep of the same kind ; but 

 there is found a manifest difference in all, either 

 in the size, the covering, the shape, or the horns. 



The woolly sheep, d as it is seen among us, 

 is found only in Europe, and some of the tem- 

 perate provinces of Asia. When transported 

 into warmer countries, either into Florida or 

 Guinea, it loses its wool, and assumes a cover- 

 ing fitted to the climate, becoming hairy and 

 rough ; it there also loses its fertility, and its 

 flesh no longer has the same flavour. In the 

 same manner, in the very cold countries, it 



c Lisle's Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 155. 

 '' Button, vol. xxiii. p. 168. 

 2S 



