steer bred on the rich pastures round South
Molton, under a damp and genial climate.
The Prince and a gentleman near
Southampton are the only persons who obtain
prizes, not being Devon or Norfolk men.
Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, late of
Holkham, introduced Devons into Norfolk,
with his great agricultural improvements.
His son carries off two prizes for oxen, but
is beaten by his great tenant, Mr. Hudson, of
Castle Acre, in the contest for the fat cow
prize.

Next come Herefords, in number twenty-
two, red coloured, whitefaced, larger and
coarser than the Devons, yet much loved by
the butcher. On tracing their origin, we find
none bred except in their native county, in
the adjoining Welsh county of Brecon, and in
Shropshire. But they are fed in Norfolk,
in Berks, in Oxfordshire, in Somerset, in
Dorset, Middlesex, Glo'stershire, Surrey-
hills, by claimants for the Smithfield stakes.
An innkeeper of Bristol comes in first,
and Prince Albert second, for the chief
prizes.

Thirdly, come the representatives of beef
for the million—the white nose short-horn,
of every colour except black and cream.
Forty-two claimants have come to the poll,
beside ten half-breds, who on one side or
other are half short-horns. This is the beast
most useful for all purposes—an animal that
gives meat and fat to the butcher, and milk
and cream to the dairy; not for flavour or
grain equal to the Devon or well-fed
Highlander; but an excellent, respectable, and
most useful beast. Therefore found
settled and naturalised in all counties and
countries where civilised beef is esteemed
and dairies are maintained. Patrons of the
short-horn have sent up milk-white specimens,
red specimens, red and white
specimens, and roan specimens, from Cambridge,
Lincoln, Wiltshire, Norfolk, Berkshire, Beds,
Bucks, Essex, Dumfries, York, Dorset,
Northampton, Glo'ster, Lancashire,
Worcester, Warwickshire, Aberdeen. The Duke
of Rutland wins the gold medal for the best
animal in the yard, bred and fed by himself.
When this nobleman was born, the short-
horn breed had not been established by the
brothers Collings. He has lived to breed and
feed the best short-horn that ever carried off
a prize at the Smithfield Show. A Squire of an
old Lancashire family follows with the gold
medal for a white cow, which would have
been worshipped in heathen times. When
the Duke of Rutland was of age, no Lancashire
Squire would have condescended to
admit a short-horn on his farm.

In sheep—divided into long-woolled and
short-woolled—a Marquis and a Squire of
ancient name—one a celebrated master of
foxhounds—each take a first and a second
prize in two classes for their pure Leicesters.
The Marquis is the representative of Queen
Bess's wise Burleigh, who could never have
contemplated such an innovation as modern
mutton chops.

The gold medal for the delicious South
Down discovered by Ellman, perfected by
Jonas Webb, goes to the Duke of Richmond,
who is run hard by a Norfolk peer.

In pigs, the commoners have it all their
own way; Prince Albert only securing
commendation for Mrs. Betty, a white pig. No
ancient boar of Druid times could recognise
his descendants in the placid swine which
slept so sweetly on their wooden pillows.
Good pigs nowadays are of no county, as
forty-one snoring specimens of all sizes
proved.

WALTER HURST.

WALTER HURST,
In the grim old days of James the First,
Was a young Esquire of five-and-twenty,
With cows, and sheep, and lands in plenty,
And all things fit for his condition:
But the brains within his head were muddled
By that base and profitless superstition,—
More fit for a worshipper of Apis,
Or a South Sea Islander when he is fuddled,
Than any civilised, sober being,—
Which taught that, by means of the secret unction
Of a certain Philosophic Lapis,
(If rightly timed with the moon's conjunction
And the mystical stars thereto agreeing),
Or else by a chemical transformation,
You might effect the quick mutation
Of lead to gold, though at the risk
Of the currency's depreciation.—
So Walter, with furnaces slow or brisk,
And the aid of alembic, retort, and crucible,
Day after day kept drudging and toiling,
His clean complexion smudging and spoiling
With smoke and sharp metallic vapours
And the flare of many lamps and tapers,
Though the gold was plainly non-producible.
Yet no wonder that he should be thus mistaken,
When my Lord of Verulam, Francis Bacon
(Vide Century Four of his Natural History),
Rather pats the back of this ancient mystery,
While repudiating all connexion
With stones or astrologic spells,
And grounding success on a deep inspection
Of Nature's close and inward cells.

This vain attempt
Walter continued year by year,
Until he dreamt
One night that a Spirit heavenly-clear,
With a face like moonrise when it lightens
The eastern hills with a budding crescent,
And touches the sunset in the west,
While the air between, as it faintly brightens,
Seems held in a deep, enchanted rest,
And a glory subtle and evanescent,
Beside his bed stood richly blooming;
And all around, in a golden glooming,
Answer'd her limbs' harmonious motion
With gleams that alternately dusk'd and glisten'd,
Like a dolphin at night in the dark mid ocean.
His life hung feeding upon her lips,
And he felt that his heart stood still, and listen'd;
For, thorough the luminous eclipse
Of her vapoury shape, to the finger-tips,
Her soul shone forth with a starry splendour,