BAKEWELL 113 



banks of the Trent, about a mile from Burton. 

 He prided himself much in them, and they 

 deserved the care which he took in improving 

 them and keeping the breed pure ; but a disease, 

 which defied all remedial measures then known, 

 broke out and carried off the greater part of them, 

 thus half ruining Welby, and putting a final stop 

 to his speculations. 



" Soon after this Mr. Webster, of Canley, 

 near Coventry, distinguished himself as a breeder. 

 He too worked upon Sir Thomas Gresley's stock, 

 some of whose cows .he brought with him when 

 he first settled at Canley. He was at consider- 

 able trouble in procuring bulls from Lancashire 

 and Westmoreland, and he is said to have had 

 the best stock of cattle then known. One of his 

 admirers says that ' he possessed the best stock, 

 especially of beace, that ever were, or ever will be 

 bred in the kingdom/ . . . Little more is known 

 of Mr. Webster than that he established the 

 Canley breed, some portion of whose blood flowed 

 in every improved long-horn beast. 



" The bull, Bloxedge, the Hubback of the long- 

 horns, and, like him, indebted to an accident for 

 the discovery of his value, was out of a three- 

 year-old heifer of Mr. Webster's, by a Lancashire 

 bull, belonging to a neighbour." 



Now came Bakewell. He was born, " early 

 in the year 1726, at the Grange, Dishley, two 

 miles north of Loughborough, in the county of 



