COLIN. THE FLOWER-FESTIVAL OF WALES AT SHEARINGTIME. SABRINA, OR THE SEVERN PERSONIFIED; THE FIVE STREAMS OF PLYNLYMMON. But haste, begin the rites: see purple eve Shall bless our cares, when she by moonlight clear [roll. Mixed with the greens of burnet, mint, and thyme, Such custom holds along the irriguous vales FEAST OF SHEEP-SHEARING; WIT AND JOLLITY; THE REPAST The jolly cheer, Spread on a mossy bank, untouched abides, 1 Vaga, Ryddol, Ystwith, and Clevedoc rivers; the springs of which rise in the sides of Plynlymmon. Dolvoryn; a ruinous castle in Montgomeryshire, on the banks of the Severn. The legend relates that King Locrine (son of Brute, and grandson of Anchises, of Troy) incurred the rage of his wife Guendolen, by an amour with Estrildis, a beautiful captive, by whom he had a daughter Sabrina. Guendolen warred with and killed Locrine, and persecuted Sabrina, so that she threw herself or was thrown into the Severn, of which she became goddess. The story is told in Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, book 2; and it is used by Milton, in his Comus, line 824 and onward. BOOK II. ARGUMENT. Introduction. Recommendation of mercifulness to animals. Of the winding of wool. Diversity of wool in the fleece; skill in the assorting of it, particularly among the Dutch. The uses of each sort. Severe winters pernicious to the fleece. Directions to prevent their effects. Wool lightest in common-fields; inconveniences of common-fields. Vulgar errors concerning the wool of England; its real excellences, and directions in the choice. No good wool in cold or wet pastures; yet all pastures improvable ; exemplified in the drainage of Bedford Level. Britain in ancient times not esteemed for wool. Countries esteemed for wool, before the Argonautic expedition. Of that expedition, and its consequences. Countries afterwards esteemed for wool. The decay of arts and sciences in the barbarous ages; their revival, first at Venice. Countries noted for wool in the present times. Wool the best of all the various materials for clothing. The wool of our island peculiarly excellent is the combing wool. Methods to prevent its exportation. Apology of the author for treating this subject. Bishop Blaize, the inventor of wool-combing. Of the dyeing of wool. Few dyes the natural product of England. Necessity of trade for importing them. The advantages of trade, and its utility in the moral world; exemplified in the prosperity and ruin of the elder Tyre. SUBJECT; WOOL. DEDICATION TO WRAY AND ROYSTON. Now of the severed lock begin the song With various numbers, through the simple theme To win attention: this, ye shepherd swains! This is a labor. Yet, O Wray! if thou Cease not with skilful hand to point her way, The lark-winged Muse above the grassy vale, And hills, and woods, shall, singing, soar aloft; And he whom learning, wisdom, candor, grace, Who glows with all the virtues of his sire, Royston approve, and patronize the strain. USEFULNESS OF SHEEP; ANIMAL FOOD; CRUELTY AND KINDNESS. Through all the brute creation none as sheep All are not savage. Come, ye gentle swains! THE FLEECE; PICKING AND SORTING IT. Come, gentle swains! the bright unsullied locks Collect; alternate songs shall soothe your cares, And warbling music break from every spray. 1 David Wray, Esq., one of the Deputy Tellers of the Exchequer, who procured Dyer the living of Belchfond, in 1751. 2 Viscount Royston, afterward Earl of Hardwicke. Be faithful, and the genuine locks alone THE MOTH; FLOCK BEDS. Guard, too, from moisture, and the fretting moth Of slaughtering war or carnage: such apart To rest the stranger, or the gory chief WOOL COLLECTORS AND MERCHANTS; OPERATIVES. LEEDS, ETC. When many-colored evening sinks behind The purple woods and hills, and opposite Rises, full orbed, the silver harvest moon, To light the unwearied farmer, late afield His scattered sheaves collecting, then expect The artists, bent on speed, from populous Leeds, Norwich, or Froome; they traverse every plain And every dale where farm or cottage smokes : Reject them not; and let the season's price Win thy soft treasures: let the bulky wain Through dusty roads roll nodding; or the bark, That silently adown the cerule stream Glides with white sails, dispense the downy freight And spiry towns, where ready diligence, THE ASSORTING OF THE WOOL; THE BELGIANS; EMPLOYMENT OF THE POOR AND CHILDREN. In the same fleece diversity of wool Grows intermingled, and excites the care ⚫ Of curious skill to sort the several kinds. But in this subtle science none exceed The industrious Belgians, to the work who guide Each feeble hand of want their spacious domes, With boundless hospitality, receive Each nation's outcasts: there the tender eye And unrejected age: even childhood there 1 Urchinfield; the country about Ross, in Herefordshire. They sever lock from lock, and long, and short, And soft, and rigid, pile in several heaps. WOOLS FOR VARIOUS FABRICS; HATS, CLOTHS, HOSE; LONG STAPLE PRECARIOUS. This the dusk hatter asks; another shines, Tempting the clothier; that the hosier seeks; The long bright lock is apt for airy stuffs; But often it deceives the artist's care, Breaking unuseful in the steely comb : For this long spongy wool no more increase Receives, while winter petrifies the fields : The growth of Autumn stops; and what though Succeeds with rosy finger, and spins on [Spring The texture? yet in vain she strives to link The silver twine to that of Autumn's hand. HOW TO KEEP THE WOOL GROWING THROUGH WINTER; IMPORTANCE OF IT. Be then the swain advised to shield his flocks From winter's deadening frosts and whelming snows: Let the loud tempest rattle on the roof, While they, secure within, warm cribs enjoy, COMMON-FIELDS, PERNICIOUS; NEGLECTED, OF COURSE; THE PILFERER. But lightest wool is theirs who poorly toil Through a dull round, in unimproving farms Of common-fields. Enclose, enclose, ye swains! Why will you joy in common-field, where pitch, Noxious to wool, must stain your motley flock, To mark your property? the mark dilates, Enters the flake depreciated, defiled, Unfit for beauteous tint. Besides, in fields Promiscuous held, all culture languishes : The glebe, exhausted, thin supply receives; Dull waters rest upon the rushy flats And barren furrows: none the rising grove There plants for late posterity, nor hedge To shield the flock, nor copse for cheering fire; And in the distant village every hearth Devours the grassy sward, the verdant food Of injured herds and flocks, or what the plough Should turn and moulder for the bearded grain : Pernicious habit! drawing gradual on Increasing beggary, and Nature's frowns. Add, too, the idle pilferer easier there Eludes detection, when a lamb or ewe From intermingled flocks he steals, or when, With loosened tether of his horse or cow, The milky stalk of the tall green-eared corn, The year's slow-ripening fruit, the anxious hope Of his laborious neighbor, he destroys. 1 The shepherds of Apulia, Tarentum, and Attica, used to clothe their sheep with skins, to preserve and improve their fleeces. NON-BRITISH WOOLS; THE GOBELINS. There are who overrate our spongy stores, PASTURES AFFECT THE COLOR OF WOOL. And though with hue of crocus or of rose No power of subtle food, or air, or soil, Can dye the living fleece; yet 't will avail To note their influence in the tinging vase : Therefore from herbage of old pastured plains, Chief from the matted turf of azure marl Where grow the whitest locks, collect thy stores. Those fields regard not through whose recent turf The miry soil appears; nor ev'n the streams Of Yare or silver Stroud can purify Their frequent sullied fleece; nor what rough winds, Keen biting, on tempestuous hills, imbrown. IMPROVEMENT OF PASTURES; BEDFORD LEVEL, ITS FORMER AND PRESENT STATE; RUSSELL. Yet much may be performed to check the force Of Nature's rigor the high heath, by trees Warm sheltered, may despise the rage of storms : Moors, bogs, and weeping fens, may learn to smile, And leave in dikes their soon-forgotten tears. Labor and Art will every aim achieve Of noble bosoms. Bedford Level,1 erst A dreary pathless waste, the coughing flock Was wont with hairy fleeces to deform, And, smiling with her lure of summer flowers, The heavy ox vain struggling to ingulf; Till one of that high honored, patriot name, Russell! arose, who drained the rushy fen, Confined the waves, bade groves and gardens bloom, And through his new creation led the Ouze And gentle Camus, silver-winding streams : God-like beneficence! from chaos drear To raise the garden and the shady grove. THE BOGS OF IRELAND; THEIR RECLAIMING; DEEPING-FENS; Slow tries his mazy step on the yielding turf, 2 Ireland. The pear and tasteful apple; decks with flowers STATE OF ANCIENT BRITAIN; WILLOW WARE; SARUM; COTS- There was a time When other regions were the swain's delight, And shepherdless Britannia's rushy vales, Inglorious, neither trade nor labor knew, But of rude baskets, homely rustic gear, Woven of the flexile willow; till, at length, The plains of Sarum opened to the hand Of patient culture, and o'er sinking woods High Cotswold showed her summits. Urchinfield, And Lemster's crofts, beneath the pheasant's brake Long lay unnoted. Toil new pasture gives, And in the regions oft of active Gaul O'er lessening vineyards spreads the growing turf. SYRIAN WOOL. -PALESTINE; TYRIAN DYES; COLCHIS; PHRYXUS. In eldest times, when kings and hardy chiefs In bleating sheepfolds met, for purest wool Phoenicia's hilly tracts were most renowned, And fertile Syria's and Judæa's land, Hermon and Seir, and Hebron's brooky sides. Twice with the murex, crimson hue, they tinged The shining fleeces; hence their gorgeous wealth; And hence arose the walls of ancient Tyre. Next busy Colchis, blessed with frequent rains Of fair inhabitants), improved the fleece, This rising Greece with indignation viewed, Expands the purple deep; the cloudy isles, And Halonesos: soon huge Lemnos heaves Shakes off her mists, and brightens all her cliffs; Cast out the cabled stone upon the strand. Next to the Mysian shore they shape their course, With loud acclaim received them. Every vale, EFFECTS OF THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION. Thus Phasis lost his pride: his slighted nymphs ANCIENT WOOL COUNTRIES; ARCADIA, ATTICA, THESSALY, With golden fruitage blessed of highest taste, VICISSITUDES OF PROSPERITY. Lo! the revolving course of mighty time, RISE OF VENICE. Long lay the mournful realms of elder fame In gloomy desolation, till appeared Beauteous Venetia, first of all the nymphs Who from the melancholy waste emerged: In Adria's gulf her clotted locks she laved, And rose another Venus: each soft joy, Each aid of life, her busy wit restored; Science revived, with all the lovely arts, And all the graces. Restituted Trade To every virtue lent his helping stores, And cheered the vales around; again the pipe And bleating flocks awaked the cheerful lawn. CASHMERE AND ITS WOOL LABORER, AGRA; ROE, THE PIONEER OF INDIA TRADE; WOOLS OF LYBIA, ATLAS, SPAIN. The glossy fleeces now, of prime esteem, Soft Asia boasts, where lovely Cassimere, Within a lofty mound of circling hills, [lakes, Add, too, the silky wool of Libyan lands, And beauteous Albion, since great Edgar chased The prowling wolf, with many a lock appears Of silky lustre ; chief, Siluria, thine; Thine, Vaga, favored stream; from sheep minute On Cambria bred: a pound o'erweighs a fleece : Gay Epsom's, too, and Banstead's, and what gleams On Vecta's isle, that shelters Albion's fleet With all its thunders; or Salopian stores, Those which are gathered in the fields of Clun : High Cotswold also 'mong the shepherd swains Is oft remembered, though the greedy plough Preys on its carpet. He, whose rustic Muse O'er heath and craggy holt her wing displayed, And sung the bosky bourns of Alfred's shires, Has favored Cotswold with luxuriant praise. Need we the levels green of Lincoln note, Or rich Leicestria's marly plains, for length Of whitest locks and magnitude of fleece Peculiar? envy of the neighboring realms ! But why recount our grassy lawns alone, While ev❜n the tillage of our cultured plains, With bossy turnip and luxuriant cole, Learns through the circling year their flocks to feed? CLOTHING MATERIALS OF COMMERCE ; ASBESTOS, FLAX, CANE, SILK, BARK, GRASS, COTTON, GOAT'S HAIR, BEAVER; WOOL THE BEST. Ingenious trade, to clothe the naked world, A wondrous rock 2 is found, of which are woven With glossy hair of Tibet's shagged goat FAT-TAILED SHEEP OF ASIA MINOR; KANSAS AND LOUISIANA Wild rove the flocks, no burdening fleece they bear In fervid climes: Nature gives naught in vain. Carmanian wool on the broad tail alone Resplendent swells,, enormous in its growth: As the sleek ram from green to green removes, On aiding wheels his heavy pride he draws, And glad resigns it for the hatters' use. [sands, Ev'n in the new Columbian world appears SWEDISH WOOL; COVENTRY; NORWICH. BEST ENGLISH WOOL; JEALOUS MONOPOLY OF IT. If any wool peculiar to our isle Is given by Nature, 't is the comber's lock, 1 Apacheria and Canses [Kansas], provinces in Louisiana, on the western side of the Mississippi. [The United States produced, in 1850, fifty-two and a half million pounds of wool. -J.J 2 These sheep are called Guanapos. 3 Arica, a province of Peru. 4 Rataan fleeces, the fleeces of Leicestershire. Coventry. |