Robert Bakewell,[C] who gave the name to this race of sheep, (afterward known as New-Leicesters,) lived at Dishley, upon the highway from Leicester to Derby, and not very far from that Ashby de la Zouche where Scott plants the immortal scene of the tournament in "Ivanhoe." He was a farmer's son, with limited education, and with limited means; yet, by due attention to crosses, he succeeded in establishing a flock which gained a world-wide reputation. His first letting of bucks at some fifteen shillings the season was succeeded in the year 1774 by lettings at a hundred guineas a head; and there were single animals in his flock from which he is reported to have received, in the height of his fame, the sum of twelve hundred pounds. Nor was Bakewell less known for his stock of neat-cattle, for his judicious crosses, and for a gentleness of management by which he secured the utmost docility. A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of his date says,--"This docility seemed to run through the herd. At an age when most of his brethren are either foaming or bellowing with rage and madness, old 'Comely' had all the gentleness of a lamb, both in his look and action. He would lick the hand of his feeder; and if any one patted or scratched him, he would bow himself down almost on his knees." The same writer, describing Mr. Bakewell's hall, says,--"The separate joints and points of each of the more celebrated of his cattle were preserved in pickle, or hung up there side by side,--showing the thickness of the flesh and external fat on each, and the smallness of the offal. There were also skeletons of the different breeds, that they might be compared with each other, and the comparative difference marked." Arthur Young, in his "Eastern Tour," says, "All his bulls stand still in the field to be examined; the way of driving them from one field to another, or home, is by a little switch; he or his men walk by their side, and guide them with the stick wherever they please; and they are accustomed to this method from being calves." He left no book for future farmers to maltreat,--not even so much as a pamphlet; and the sheep that bore his name are now refined by other crosses, or are supplanted by the long-woolled troop of "New-Oxfordshire." * * * * *