1$10.] 
dated brother Edward with fine and 
short-woolied sheep, the latter royal 
shepherd might have obliged the former 
with a specimen of the produce of his 
country—the long and coarse-woolled, 
Tt was avery fair and obvious compli- 
ment. In the coinage, I think, of the 
late lord Sandwich, there was zecipro- 
city in the thing. 1 should not indeed 
wonder, if the staple adverted to by 
Stowe, at Bruges, was of the coarse- 
woolled kind; and that the Spaniards were 
emulous of excelling in that fabric like- 
wise, since they have ever had long 
and coarse as well as fine and. short- 
woolled sheep, the former most probably 
the indigenous sheep of their country ; 
and that it might, at that period, be de- 
sirable to improve their breed by an 
English cross, And this notion of mine, 
(as such merely I give it,) isin some sort 
confirmed by my old friend Gervase 
Markham, who flourished in the reign of 
Elizabeth ; and who represents the Cot. 
teswolde-hill sheep, in contradistinction 
to those of Herefordshire, bearing the 
Lempster ore, or fine fleece, as of better 
bone, shape, and burden, than the others, 
but with wool of a staple cuarser and 
-deeper. 
As to Mr, Rankin’s enquiry respecting 
the Cotteswold breed, nothing is more 
easy than to satisfy it: but he must pre- 
viously be apprised, that we farmers and 
stock-breeders change our breeds of cat- 
tle, sheep, atid pigs, from great to small, 
from small to great, from fine to coarse- 
woolled, from short to long-horned, from 
long and lop-eared to prick-eared and 
pug, and so on, in circles; uot quite so 
often indeed, but much upon the same 
principle on which the cut of a coat, or 
the cock of a hat, is changed in Bond- 
street. Thus old Gervase above quoted, 
and I think his cotemporary, Barnabe 
Goge (who, by the bye, also wrote very 
harmonious English verses, and perfectly 
correct as to measure), both found the 
Cotteswold-hill sheep a large and coarse- 
woolled breed. Yhenceforth, but my 
reading does not exten to the precise 
date, the Cotteswold farmers made a 
chop, generally adopting fine-woolled 
sheep: and such they have been within 
iny memory, a breed similar to the Ry- 
dands of Herefordshire; always, and at 
present, the finest native breed of Eng- 
Jand, and best adapted to the Spanish 
cross. Some thirty or forty years since, 
the Gloucester breeders made another 
chop, tupping their fine-woolled ewes 
With large and long-woolled midland 
Origin of Spanish Marino Sheep. 235, 
country rams,.on the occasion probably - 
of improving in the quality of the food in 
their district. So they have at length 
returned to Markham’s large boney 
breed, with a deep-stapled, or long- 
woolled, fleece. As the learned Francis 
Moore said, omniwm rerum vicissitudo ; 
which will be farther exemplified as soon 
as the abovesaid shepherds shall come 
to the right or left about again, bythe 
adoption of the eld new-fashioned 
Spanish cross. 
Ihave taken the pains to write, or 
rather repeat, thus much, in order to 
check a report which seemed growing 
undeservedly into public favour, carrying - 
“a bit of prejudice with it. For, under 
favour be it spoken, we have perhaps 
enough already of those happy national 
prejudices, which have so generally pro- 
cured us the admiration and the love of 
all other nations; and it may not be 
politic to surfeit them with good things. 
And yet atter all, and notwithstanding 
my immense and humble respect for 
those sages of the ancient, and more 
especially of the modern school, who 
profess to find so much benefit to the 
moral world from the sly retention and 
cherishment of prejudices, I &m too. 
blind, or my brains are of too coarse- 
woolled a textures to perceive this mighty 
benefit, or any benefit whatever, Econ- 
trario, I opine, and must continue te 
opine, until the happy moment ef con- 
viction cometh, that false prejudices in 
the moral, as well as weeds in the agri- 
cultural world, ought to suffer a total and 
sweeping, if necessarily a gradual, era- 
dication. And asa certain honest old 
whig said of yore, he would not leave a 
tory dog, or a tory cat, to, pur and mew 
about the king; neither would [, who am 
neither whig nor tory, leave a single 
erroneous prejudice, to humbug and 
mislead besotted man. My creed, ree 
higious and moral, will admit of but one 
prejudice—in favour of truth, and no mate 
ter how strong that be. As to what and 
where truth is—seek and ye shall find. 
Tn conclusion, with a suitable gravity, 
I say to those who venture into the pro- 
found and erudite subjects above agitated, 
“Drink deep, or taste not, the ducolic spring.” 
Somers Town, Joun Lawrence, 
March 18. 
P.S. I wish to add a few words on the 
Fiorin Grass. Mr. Farey says correctly, that 
the Jate Mr. Davis supposed the Orcheston 
and long grass of Wiltshire, to be the same 
species as the fiorin ; the correctness of which 
opinion appears te mie a subject of deubt. JT 
have not for many years seen either of these 
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