and Extension of the Merino Breed of Sheep. 391 



the different counties. That of Salop was in the highest class. It was probably 

 then the best clothing wool ; and that of the Morfe common is still the finest in 

 England. The wool of Lincoln was, however, of equal value; and no one will 

 pretend to affirm that the breed inhabiting the deep pastures of that county was 

 then essentially different from what it now is, a breed affording the very best 

 combing wool in this kingdom. The Cotswold sheep, to which is assigned the 

 honour of having established the Merino succession in Spain, produced wool of 

 only a third rate in price. At this time, they hold a sort of middle place between 

 the long and the short woolled breeds; and their wool, which is rather coarse in the 

 filament, is, by itself, for the most part, too long for clothing. That this breed was 

 exactly of the same kind two centuries ago, we have the evidence of the Poet 

 Drayton, who, in his Polyolbion, published in 1612, thus describes it: 



" And now tliat everything may in the proper place 



" Most aptly be contriv'd, the sheep our wold doth breed> 



" The simplest tho' it seem, shall our description need ; 



" And shepherd like, the Muse thus of that kind doth speak. 



" No brown nor sullied black the face, or legs doth streak, 



" Like those of Moreland, Cank, or of the Cambrian Hills, 



" That lightly laden are: but Cotswold wisely fills 



" Her's with the whitest kind ; wh/Se brows so woolly be, 



" As men in her fair sheep no emptiness should see. 



" The staple deep and thick, through to the very grain,. 



" Most strongly keepeth out the violentest rain. 



" A body long and large, the buttocks equal broad; 



" As fit to undergo the full and weighty load. 



" And of the fleecy face, the flank doth nothing lack, 



• ' But every where is stor'd ; the belly as the back. 



'« The fair and goodly flock, the shepherd's only pride 



" As white as winter's snow, when from the rivers side 



" He drives his new wa^h'd sheep."* 



Though Drayton published his poem in 1612, he was born in 1563; and 

 being the son of a butcher, must probably have been conversant with sheep in his 

 early youth, more than thirty years before he wrote, His description agrees very 

 minutely with that of our present Cotswold breed; but no one in this countrjt 



♦ Polyolbion ; fourteenth song, 



