REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. Observations addressed to the Wool Growers of Australia and Tasmania, respecting Improvements in the Breed of Sheep, preparing and assorting Wools, &c.; also, on the Introduction of other laniferous (lanigerous?) Animals suited to their Climate and Localities, and recommended for their Adoption. By Thomas Southey, Wool Broker, 2d edit. London: Redford and Robins, London Road, Southwark, 1831. SHEEP's wool has, for many centuries, been considered one of the principal staple commodities of this island, and is pre-eminently so of that portion of the kingdom which is comprised within the territory of Wales. Whatever relates, therefore, to the growth, the commerce, or the manipulation of the fleece, can never fail to excite an interest among the inhabitants of a country distinguished as is the Principality, for the number and quality of her flocks. In the very earliest periods of history, we find that the ancients duly appreciated the value of this article of commerce. It may fairly be presumed, indeed, that the tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece is only a beautiful allegory, intended to convey a more lively idea of the high importance of this branch of commercial enterprise. This, at least, is certain, that merchant-vessels have been called Argosies, after the name of the ship Argo, on board of which those early commercial travellers, the Argonauts, embarked in this expedition, in search of the raw material depicted as the fleecy treasure. "Your mind is tossing on the ocean, The Romans, we know, paid particular attention to their breed of sheep; and the flocks of Tarentum, Parma, and Altino, were celebrated for the superiority of their fleeces. Varro assures us, that they were accustomed sometimes to clothe their sheep with skins, in order to secure the wool from damage, and to make it of a finer quality. This we can easily conceive, as those horses which are kept constantly covered with horsecloths, acquire a sleeky silkiness of coat, which they lose again on any long continued exposure to the open air. On the first importation of the Merinos into this country, they were clothed in somewhat a similar way, to protect them from the rigour of our northern climate. Yet we find that portion of the fleece of a sheep which grows during winter is considerably finer than that which is the produce of the summer exudations of that animal. But extreme heat, as well as extreme cold, are alike prejudicial to the quality of wool, which can only attain perfection in the temperate zone. The word wool is evidently derived from the Welsh etymon, "gulan," the Saxons having rejected the one initial, and the two final letters of this term. This excision has reduced it to wl, the w in Welsh sounding to the ear as double o in English, ool, or wool. And in further confirmation of this etymology, we may observe that ool is always pronounced short, wool, and not long, wooll, as in all other English words similarly spelled, as cooll, fooll, tooll, pooll, stooll, &c. So, in the Anglo-Saxon, it was written and pronounced wul. It is singular, that the Saxons should have adopted that first part of this word which is pure, unmixed British, and rejected the latter portion, lan, which bears so near an affinity to the Latin expression for wool, lana, as to lead many to suppose the Welsh word to have been borrowed from the Latin, and to be formed of a mongrel mixture of gwolo, the old British word for riches, and the Latin lana, "gwlan," implying that her wool constituted the wealth of Wales. This, indeed, would only be a Cambrian version of the Golden Fleece. But we can never suppose that the Welsh had not a word in their own language for wool, long before the Roman invasion, more particularly when we recollect that two of our counties, two of our ancient territorial divisions, took their names from that of the lanigerous animal in which they were known to abound. Thus, Pembrokeshire is designated by the name of Dyfed in all the old Welsh manuscripts, "because," says Baxter, "it was a country fit for the pasture of sheep," quasi regio ovibus pascendis apta. So, also, Radnorshire is to this day called, Maesyfaid, that is, sheep-field, from maes, a field, and defaid, sheep; quasi, Maesdefaid, or maes y defaid, afterwards contracted, (euphoniæ gratia,) into Maesyfaid. We are aware that the derivation of this word has been attributed to the name of the Welsh prince Hefaidd, as meaning the field of Hefaid; but ours seems the more probable, when we consider that this country has ever been particularly distinguished for its fleecy flocks, as, for instance, in these four Welsh lines: "Nesaf y hon mae gwlad Vaesy faidd Buguil, a shepherd, and ty, a house; Bugaildy, the shepherd's house. Translation. And next to this is Radnor's shire, And the loved spot of Glasb'ry bridge. Besides Wales, in the remotest periods of antiquity, has been so celebrated for her sheep that the word by which wealth, property, riches are represented, in the ancient British, is defod*, thereby giving us to understand that her wealth and her sheep were synonymous terms. Again, Etifedd or Edifedd, means an heir; that is, he who inherits the defaid, i. e. the sheep; nor should we forget that it is from this defod that the Latin word for riches, divitiæ, is derived, the Welsh f being precisely the Roman v. After this, it will hardly be contended, that a word expressive of the produce of their flocks was wanting in the vocabulary of the ancient British. It seems to us, that the two invading nations, the Romans and the Saxons, have committed a successive spoliation of this word gwlan, and have divided these spoils between them; the Romans first dismembering it of the final portion lan, which, by giving it a Roman termination, they have latinized into lana; and the Saxons again, in their turn, seized upon the first part gwl, which, in the Anglo-Saxon, they spelled wul, and afterwards enriched the English language with it, by anglicising it into wool. If any gentleman of either of our universities should object against the possibility of the Latin being derived from the Celtic, we would beg leave to refer him to Professor Jükel's Dissertation, in German, "On the Origin of the Latin Language and Roman People," and to the very learned and elaborate review of this work in the Quarterly Review, for January 1832. The old Welsh standing toast, "ar arad, a dafad, a llong,"+ places the sheep in very honourable juxta-position between the arts of agriculture and navigation. Of all the mutations which our commercial institutions have recently undergone, those legislative provisions which regulate the trade in wool seem to be the most considerable, both in regard to the extent of the change operated, and the vast importance of the results. Until a very late period, it had always been the policy of England, for many centuries, to prohibit the exportation of her See the Laws of Howel Da. To the plough, the sheep, and the ship. wools in the raw material, and to visit the infraction of these prohibitions with the severest penalties. Notwithstanding this extreme rigour, however, it often happened that English wool found its way into the foreign market in despight of all the vigilance of our custom-house officers, for we find one of our poets lamenting, that "Some English wool, vered in a Belgian loom, Did into France, or colder Denmark roam, To ruin with worse wear our staple trade.”—DRYDEN. To counterpoise the severity of these laws against the exportation of British wool, the legislature seems to have exerted itself to the utmost, to force the home consumption of the manufactured article. Accordingly, among other parliamentary provisions enacted with this view, a statute was passed in the reign of Charles II., enjoining the burying in sheep's wool only, and enacting the affidavit of the executor, or of some person of the family of the deceased, to prove a strict compliance with the requisitions of this Act after every interment. # It is in reference to this law for burying in woollen, that Pope, in his satire on the ruling passion in woman, makes a fashionable lady of his day exclaim, in her last moments: "Odious in woollen! Twould a saint provoke! No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace, Wrap these cold limbs, and shade this lifeless face!" And it was, in allusion to this severe statute that, soon after the appearance of Dyer's poem of the Fleece, a critic, after having been told by Dodsley, the bookseller, that the work had been composed in the author's old age, rather sarcastically observed, "then he will be soon buried in woollen.” Having mentioned the name of this modern Cambrian bard, and on a subject connected with the question before us, we cannot refrain from observing, that Dr. Johnson, in his life of this poet, seems. to have indulged in too great a severity of criticism, more particularly, when he makes the extraordinary assertion, that the Fleece is an unpoetical subject, and that the "wool-comber and the poet appeared to him of such discordant natures, that an attempt to bring them together was to couple the serpent and the fowl." Now, to us the Flecce appears replete with poetic imagery; and. had Johnson forgotten that Shakspeare himself was the son of a wool-comber, from whom Dyer was lineally descended? But the great lexicographer seems to have conceived some unaccountable aversion to our staple manufacture, since, either by accident or design, the words woolstapler, wool-comber, * 30 C. ii. chap. 3. and wool-sorter, have not found a place in his dictionary, although they are surely as much entitled to it as ironmonger, cheesemonger, fellmonger, flaxdresser, and a number of other compound words of the same description. The more enlightened policy of the present day has discarded all the old restrictions and enforcing enactments, and left the wool trade and its consumption wholly free and unfettered. For the low duties on foreign wools, not exceeding a penny per pound, can scarcely be said to amount to any check on the importation of them, and our own are allowed to be freely exported without the least restraint. Mr. Southey, therefore, could not have selected a more appropriate period for the publication of his little tract on wool than this, the commencement of a new era in this branch of com merce. The writer has contrived to condense much valuable and practical information in a short pamphlet of a few pages: and though his hints are addressed to the colonists of New South Wales, they will be found well worth the attention of our wool-growers in old Wales, both North and South. On the breed of sheep, he gives us the following curious and useful observations. "It is only about sixty or seventy years ago, that the late king of Saxony received, as a present from the then king of Spain, fifty sheep of the most celebrated flocks of that country, to which were added, a few years afterwards, one hundred rams, and two hundred ewes. These were nourished with the utmost care and attention; and from this small stock the whole Germanic empire has since been supplied with a race of sheep, producing wool of a finer fibre than any other class in Europe." Although Mr. Southey acquaints us, in p. 16 of his pamphlet, that the race of Saxony sheep which now produce the finest wool in Europe, sprung from a present of a certain number of Spanish ewes and rams, made, about seventy years ago, by the King of Spain to the then Elector of Saxony, yet he omits to inform us further, that this very breed of Spanish fine-wooled sheep came originally from Old England, being likewise a royal present sent from our King Edward IV. to the King of Castille. This historical fact is recorded and deeply lamented by a writer of the reign of Charles I., now but little known, John Trussel, in his "Continuation of the History of England, &c." fol. edit. 1641, p. 185, in the following terms: "And to that end, King Edward entreth into a league with John, King of Arragon, and Henry, King of Castille, to whom he sent for a present a score of Cotswold ewes and five rams, which, though they were but few in number, yet hath the losse that hath thereby redounded to England been too, too great, yet more than he could then well imagine, and greater than the |