120 HISTORY OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 



Although from what we had previously learned of Mr. Bates, we 

 deemed him a man addicted to controversy, prejudices, and crotchets, 

 his writings now show him actually to be such, for his biographer has 

 covered nothing of these foibles, although his compilations truthfully 

 illustrate him as of unexceptionable private character, and decided 

 moral worth. The crowning ambition of his life to breed and furnish 

 the world a herd of Short-horns that should exhibit to posterity his 

 skill as a breeder is fully developed. So much for the book. We 

 propose to give from this and other authorities a synopsis of Mr. 

 Bates' life and proceedings in all that is important to be known relat- 

 ing to him and his stock-breeding career, without either partiality or 

 prejudice, and if in the course of our remarks we sometimes touch 

 on his inconsistencies, or censure his assertions, it will only be in the 

 cause of truth and accuracy of historical facts. 



With all his partialities and prejudices, Mr. Bates was sound in 

 heart and morals ; he blurted out his opinions irrespective of whom 

 they pleased or offended, and if he sometimes made enemies, he had 

 also his warm, attached friends. He was rather tory in his politics, a 

 decided "protectionist," and an advocate of the "corn laws" in prin- 

 ciple ; a statesman to some extent, in his teachings, which his early 

 good education, together with his naturally broad and clear observa- 

 tion of the times, had helped him to become. He was kind to the 

 poor, liberal in his charities, both private and, public, a sound adhe- 

 rent of the established church rather of the " low " order a com- 

 panion and associate among the most intelligent classes of men, and 

 like others of generous sympathies, loved the distinction and honors 

 that were frequently conferred upon him. His personal habits were 

 abstemious and temperate ; his hospitality was open, genial, and lib- 

 eral, to peer, or peasant ; his hand ever free to the claims of distress ; 

 his conversation winning, and open-hearted, abounding in well-told 

 anecdote, and sparkles of wit ; his affections kindly, and although a 

 life-long bachelor, he loved children, whose companionship was always 

 a source of pleasure to him. In short, bating his minor eccentricities 

 of character, like very many Short-horn breeders of his own and the 

 present day, Mr. Bates was a GENTLEMAN with some oddities. 



Thomas Bates was born on one of the estates belonging to the 

 Dukedom of Northumberland, in the year 1775, in the valley of the 

 river Tyne, on a place called Tyneside, at Ovington Hall, of a respect- 

 able family, among the elder branches of which had been a Member 

 of Parliament, a Professor in the Colleges, and a Divine of the Church. 

 In his boyhood he was early sent to a grammar school ; afterwards 



