140 
The Animal-Lore of Shalcspeare’s Time. 
under the plough; the cattle owners, to escape the statutes against 
sheep, held their flocks in the names of their sons or servants; the 
highways and the villages were covered in consequence with outcast 
families who were wholly reduced to beggary.” 
In a volume of reprints by the Percy Society is included 
an old ballad, anonymous, and without date. It was 
probably written in the reign of Henry VIII., and may 
well have reference to the great increase of sheep at that 
time, although the editor, Mr. James G-oodwin, considers 
it a satire against the orders of friars mendicant, the 
number of whom had increased to so enormous an extent 
that England may be said to have been almost over¬ 
run by them. The power and influence of the friars 
was checked by the dissolution of monasteries under 
Henry VIII. 
“ The blacke shepe is a perylous beast; 
Cuius contrarium falsum est. 
“ The leon of lyme ys large and long; 
The beare to fyght is stowte and strong; 
But of all beastes that go or crepe, 
The mightiest ys the horned shepe. 
The blacke shepe, &c. 
“ The shepe ys off a monstruous myght, 
What thyng soever his homes on lyght, 
He bearyth downe bothe castell and towre, 
None is him like in marciall powre. 
The blacke shepe, &c. 
“ Syx hundreth howsys with cart and plowgh 
I have earst knowen, where nowght ys now 
But grene moll-hilles, they are layde playne; 
This cruell beast over all dothe rayne. 
The blacke shepe, &c. 
“ This shepe he is a wycked wyght, 
Man, woman, and chylde he devowreth quite; 
No hold, no howse can him wythstande, 
He swallowth up both see and lande. 
The blacke shepe, &c. 
