Mr. B olden s Herd. 385 



his father, who, like Mr. John Colling of Whitehouse, 

 and Mr. Lax of Ravensworth, caught his inspiration 

 from the Brothers Colling. He died in 1855, at Hyn- 

 ing, near Lancaster. No man was fuller of shorthorn 

 lore, intermixed with the quaint sayings and the doings 

 of the old Durham and Yorkshire worthies. He kept 

 a herd for many years, always sticking to the old- 

 fashioned, roomy, heavy-fleshed cows ; and hired Leo- 

 nidas, Leander, and Royal Buck, and other bulls, from 

 the Booths, in days when a man who gave only sixty 

 guineas for a season was considered quite an intrepid 

 character, and when Warlaby females could be had 

 for money. 



Four of these then " Veiled Prophetesses," Fame, 

 Rachel, Bridget, and Vivacity, were purchased by 

 Mr. Bolden soon after he commenced breeding, in 

 1849 5 an d along with cows of the Duchess, Cambridge 

 Rose, and Waterloo tribes, from Kirklevington ; the 

 Cherry tribe from Colonel Cradock, and the descen- 

 dants of No. 25 at the Chilton sale, they gradually 

 formed the herd."* 



* The late Mr. Bates, when he published the portrait of the Duke of 

 Northumberland in 1839, did not fail to improve the opportunity by 

 giving an abstract of the title-deeds of the Duchess tribe. Through 

 that document we trace them back to 1784, when Charles Colling 

 purchased from the agent of the Duke of Northumberland the original 

 cow, whose ancestors had for two centuries peacefully cropped the 

 Stanwick herbage, or been driven off by the mailed mosstrooper in 

 many a border foray. Hence it was that he rechristened the cow 

 Dtichess "after that family, because they are justly entitled to be held 

 in commemoration for having possessed a tribe of cattle, which Mr. 

 Charles Colling assured me was the best he ez<er had or ever saw, and 

 that he was never able to improve upon her, although put to his best 

 bulls." There is quite a Hebrew grandeur in the pastoral simplicity of 

 the old Kirklevington enthusiast, as he spurns the nine hundred armorial 

 ensigns of the blood royal of England and the chivalry of France, 

 commingled in the Percy banner ; and calmly paints in the old red and 

 white cow grazing. 



Still, write as he might about their glories, his deep partiality for 

 them had nearly been their ruin, and although they had been in his 

 hands for five-and-forty years, they were reduced to a very low ebb 



C C 



