12 
Robert Bakewell. 
down below, for be wastes bis pains, because be bas started with 
tbe assertion that Bakewell’s declaration is unworthy of trust. 
Tbe case stands thus : Mr. Berry bad declared against close 
in-breeding. Mr. Bakewell bad declared in favour of in-breed- 
ing, and bad referred to tbe in-breeding practised by bimself. 
Mr. Berry does not call that, as stated, the degree of in-breeding 
to which be objected ; and if be bad kept bis bands off the 
reputation of Mr. Bakewell, who bad died many years prior to 
Berry’s controversy upon the subject, bis position would have 
been a strong one. His argument stands or falls according 
to our faith in, or doubt of, Mr. Bakewell’s word. 
Of tbe justice, or unintended injustice, of Sir John Sebright’s 
remark we can judge only from balance of evidence. Primd 
facie, it seems probable that if Mr. Bakewell desired, as Sir 
John says, “ to mislead the public,” be would have put bis 
declaration of practice and bis declaration of opinion, in perfect 
harmony, upon one common level of falsehood. If Sir John 
bad confined bimself to a single and specific charge against 
Mr. Bakewell, tbe answer would have been less obvious than it 
is. But bis all-round charge of duplicity is too much. It dies 
of plethora. It affects tbe whole character of the man, of whom 
we have a very different account from bis most trustworthy con- 
temporaries. 
There was one early writer, however, by whose statements, 
possibly, Sir John’s estimate of Bake well’s character may have 
been unfavourably influenced. Tbe author of tbe memoir of 
Bakewell in Necrology (before quoted ; see note, page 3) thus 
writes : — 
A sort of monopoly was created among the fraternity of improvers, who 
adopted all the arts, and put in practice all the tricks, of jockeys and horse- 
dealers. Sham contracts were made by purchasers at wonderfully high 
prices ; puffers were regularly engaged to spirit up the buyers at auctions ; 
and a young lord or gentleman, with his pockets well lined and his senses 
intoxicated by the fumes of improvement., was as sure to be imposed upon 
by these as by the gentry at Newmarket. The pens of itinerant agricultu- 
rists, whose knowledge of live-stock originated merely iu their writings 
about it, now took up the cause and blazoned forth the transcendent 
qualities of the “ New Leicesters.” Tn consequence of this the country 
began to consider these oracular decisions as orthodox. Not so the town. 
The sages of Smithfield, before whom the fatted animals of all counties pas3 
in hebdomadal review, and who try the merits of all by the unerring stan- 
dard of the balance, although they were compelled to purchase the com- 
modity, never approved the barrel shape, or the Dishley improvements. 
They pretend at this hour that the original breed was more advantageous 
in point of public utility than the new one ; and that the Lincoln, a branch 
of the ancient family of Teeswater, is, in respect of form, superior to all. 
They do not even scruple to assert that the feeding of Dishley sheep hf^ 
qever fairly repaid the cultivator, 
