466 History of the Author's 



As to the merit of their form in a picturesque view, I do not presume to decide ; 

 but I should scarcely expect to see it chosen for representation in any picture, 

 which was not expressly intended for agricultural illustration, except by that artist, 

 who, having always furnished the shoulders of his full-grown clowns with the heads 

 of children, fancied the composition beautiful. 



For what then is a perfect Leicester sheep fit ? On rich land, he is calculated, 

 at an early age, to produce, for eating, that which cannot be eaten, but which is good 

 for the manafacture of soap and candles. 



Is there then, it may be asked, no fitness, and therefore no beauty in that form, 

 which is now so generally recognized as perfect ? I think there is. 1 have allowed 

 that the abstract principle is well-founded ; but I deny that it is either universally 

 applicable, or that it is true in the extent to which it is carried in the New-Leicester 

 race of sheep. Every thing is fit, and therefore beautiful, only when in its proper 

 degree as well as place. A considerable length of lower limbs in -the human figure 

 is beautiful, as we see it in the paintings of Cipriani and Angelica KaufFman, but 

 is extravagant and disgusting in the excess to which it is sometimes carried in 

 the designs of Parmegiano. Every object which exists has various relations with 

 other objects; and is then most useful, when it has the greatest number of those 

 relations. That is a kind of insanity, which sees objects only in one light, or 

 under one connection ; and he, who, rivetted to a single train of ideas, regards a 

 Leicester sheep as a model of general fitness, and therefore of beauty, reminds me 

 of the huntsman, who, being interrogated by Lord Mansfield whether a certain dog. 

 kennel was a nuisance, declared, on his oath, that he liked the smell of it better 

 than that of a rose. 



In these points, which, when justly regulated, are doubtless excellent, it cannot 

 be denied that the pure Spanish breed is, in its own country, grossly deficient. But 

 at this we cannot wonder, when we attend to its history. We have seen that, in 

 Spain, it is merely a wool-bearing animal, in which figure is no more important 

 than in a silk-worm, or a cotton-plant ; that a great proportion of the rams are 

 killed as soon as yeaned ; that only a few wethers are made ; that the animal is 

 rarely eaten, except by the shepherds and other labourers, and then never fattened; 

 and that Madrid, near and through the gates of which myriads of this breed annu- 

 ally pass, actually depends on Barbary for its supply of mutton. 



Ifj indeed, the principle be admitted, that good forms cannot be obtained without 



