eighbourhood from a very early period. Sheep were here in great
abundance, and as soon as there were ships to send them in, were exported
to other countries from these parts. Doomsday Book mentions numerous
"sheep-walks," covering many acres of ground; whether these "walks"
comprised such lands as we now term "meadows or pastures," is not
explained, but most probably such is the interpretation to be put upon
the term, and _not_, as at first sight might seem to be implied, that the
sheep had narrow strips of "esplanade," or promenade, all to themselves,
upon which they marched up and down in regimental order. About these
same sheep it has been said, in these our times, that there exists strong
presumptive evidence that the fine Spanish "merino" is a lineal
descendant of the family, and that the wool now imported as of foreign
extraction, is literally and truly the growth of the offspring of
respectable English forefathers, some members of whose domestic circle
were honoured by being made presents of to Spanish princes by the
sovereign of England, in the days when the office and title of shepherd
was coveted by nobles in that country. The hypothesis we pretend not to
establish, so "revenons _a nos_ moutons."

The preparing of wool was a favourite occupation of the British ladies of
rank; and soon after the settlement of the Romans, it is recorded by
Dionysius Alexandrinus, that "the wool of Britain was often spun so fine,
that it was in a manner comparable to a spider's thread." The mother of
Alfred is described as being skilled in the spinning of wool, and busied
in training her daughters to similar occupations. The advent of the
various workmen who followed in the train of the conqueror from Normandy,
caused fresh energy to be infused into this, as all other branches of
manufactures; but the main stimulus was given by a colony of Dutch, who,
driven from their own country by inundations in the reign of Henry the
First, crossed the channel, and selecting the convenient promontory of
Norfolk, settled themselves down at a little village called _Worsted_,
about thirteen miles from Norwich, whence the name of the wool first spun
there by them.

In the reign of Stephen the woollen manufactures were so flourishing in
many large towns, that the merchants petitioned for power to form
themselves into distinct guilds or corporations,--the earliest
development of the principle of joint stock companies, borrowed by the
Normans