THE subject proposed. Dedicatory address. Of pastures in general fit for sheep: for fine woolled sheep: for long woolled sheep. Defects of pastures, and their remedies. Of climates. The moisture of the English climate vindicated. Particular beauties of England. Different kinds of English sheep: the two common sorts of rams described Different kinds of foreign sheep. The several sorts of food. The distempers arising from thence, with their remedies. Sheep led by instinct to their proper food and physic. Of the shepherd's scrip, and its furniture. Care of sheep in tupping-time. Of the castration of lambs, and the folding of sheep. Various precepts relative to changes of weather and seasons. Particular care of new fallen lambs. The advantages and security of the English shepherd above those in hotter or colder climates, exemplified with respect to Lapland, Italy, Greece, and Arabia. Of sheep-shearing. Song on that occasion. Custom in Wales of sprinkling the rivers with flowers. Sheep shearing feast and merriments on the banks of the Severn.
THE care of sheep, the labours of the loom,
And arts of trade, I sing. Ye rural nymphs!
Ye swains, and princely merchants! aid the verse,
And ye, high trusted guardians of our isle,
Whom public voice approves, or lot of birth,
To the great charge assigns! ye good of all
Degrees, all sects! be present to my song.
So may distress, and wretchedness, and want,
The wide felicities of labour learn:
So may the proud attempts of restless Gaul
From our strong borders, like a broken wave,
In empty foam retire. But chiefly Thou,
The people's shepherd, eminently plac'd
Over the numerous swains of every vale,
With well-permitted power and watchful eye
On each gay field to shed beneficence,
Celestial office! Thou protect the song.
On spacious airy downs and gentle hills,
With grass and thyme o'erspread, and clover wild,
Where smiling Phoebus tempers every breeze,
The fairest flocks rejoice: they, nor of halt,
Hydropic tumours, nor of rot, complain,
Evils deform'd and foul; nor with hoarse cough
Disturb the music of the pastoral pipe;
But, crowding to the note, with silence soft
The close-woven carpet graze, where Nature blends
Flowerets and herbage of minutest size,
Innoxious luxury. Wide airy downs
Are Health's gay walks to shepherd and to sheep.
All arid soils, with sand or chalky flint,
Or shells deluvian mingled, and the turf
That mantles over rocks of brittle stone,
Be thy regard; and where low-tufted broom,
Or box, or berried juniper, arise;
Or the tall growth of glossy-rinded beech;
And where the burrowing rabbit turns the dust;
And where the dappled deer delights to bound.
Such are the downs of Banstead, edg'd with woods
And towering villas; such Dorcestrian fields,
Whose flocks innumerous whiten all the land:
Such those slow-climbing wilds that lead the step
Insensibly to Dover's windy cliff,
Tremendous height! and such the clover'd lawns
And sunny mounts of beauteous Normanton,*
Health's cheerful haunt, and the selected walk
Of Heathcote's leisure: such the spacious plain
Of Sarum, spread like Ocean's boundless round,
Where solitary Stonehenge, grey with moss,
Ruin of ages! nods; such, too the leas
And ruddy tilth which spiry Ross beholds,
From a green hillock o'er her lofty elms;
And Lemster's brooky track and airy Croft;†
And such Harleian Eywood's+ swelling turf,
Wav'd as the billows of a rolling sea;
And Shobden,§ for its lofty terrace fam'd,
Which from a mountain's ridge, elate o'er woods,
And girt with all Siluria,|| sees around
Regions on regions blended in the clouds.
Pleasant Siluria! land of various views,
Hills, rivers, woods, and lawns, and purple groves
Pomaceous, mingled with the curling growth
Of tendril hops, that flaunt upon their poles,
More airy wild than vines along the sides
Of treacherous Falernum, or that hill
Vesuvius, where the bowers of Bacchus rose,
And Herculanean and Pompeian domes.
• Normanton, a seat of Sir John Heathcote, in Rutlandshire. + Croft, a seat of Sir Archer Croft.
Eywood, a seat of the Earl of Oxford.
Shobden, a seat of Lord Bateman.
Siluria, the part of England which lies west of the Severn, viz. Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, &c
Treacherous Falernum: because part of the hills of Falernum was many years ago overturned by an eruption of fire, and is now an high and barren mount of cinders, called Monte Novo.
But if thy prudent care would cultivate Leicestrian fleeces, what the sinewy arm
Combs through the spiky steel in lengthen❜d flakes; Rich saponaceous loam, that slowly drinks
The blackening shower,and fattens with the draught,
Or marl with clay deep-mix'd, be then thy choice,
Of one consistence, one complexion, spread
Through all thy glebe; where no deceitful veins
Of envious gravel lurk beneath the turf,
To loose the creeping waters from their springs,
Tainting the pasturage: and let thy fields
In slopes descend and mount, that chilling rains
May trickle off, and hasten to the brooks.
Yet some defect in all on earth appears;
All seek for help, all press for social aid.
Too cold the grassy mantle of the marl,
In stormy winter's long and dreary nights,
For cumbent sheep: from broken slumber oft
They rise benumb'd, and vainly shift the couch;
Their wasted sides their evil plight declare :
Hence, tender in his care, the shepherd swain
Seeks each contrivance. Here it would avail,
At a meet distance from the upland ridge
To sink a trench, and on the hedge-long bank
Sow frequent sand, with lime, and dark manure,
Which to the liquid element will yield
A porous way, a passage to the foe.
Plough not such pastures; deep in spungy grass
The oldest carpet is the warmest lair,
And soundest in new herbage coughs are heard.
Nor love too frequent shelter; such as decks
The vale of Severn, Nature's garden wide,
By the blue steeps of distant Malvern* wall'd,
*Malvern, a high ridge of hills near Worcester.
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