THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 AETHIJE YOUNG
 
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 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 WITH 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 That wise and honest traveller'— John Moeley 
 EDITED BY 
 
 M. BETHAM- EDWARDS 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 1898 
 
 [A.11 rights reserved]
 
 J. PETER MAYER 
 LIBRARY
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVEHr^i V Di- CALIFORNIA 
 S^ViN'i'A liAUliARA 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 An apology for these Memoirs is surely not needed. 
 Whilst Arthur Young's famous ' Travels in France ' 
 have become a classic, little is known of the author's 
 life, a life singularly interesting and singularly sad. 
 Whether regarded as the untiring experimentahst and 
 dreamer of economic dreams, as the brilliant man of 
 society and the world, or as the blind, solitary victim 
 of religious melancholia, the figure before us remains 
 unique and impressive. We have here, moreover, a 
 strong character portrayed by himself, an honest 
 piece of autobiography erring, if at all, on the side of 
 outspokenness. In his desire to be perfectly frank, 
 the writer has laid upon his editor the obligation of 
 many curtailments, the Memoirs from beginning to 
 end being already much too long. From seven packets 
 of MS. and twelve folio volumes of correspondence 
 I have put together all that a busy public will pro- 
 bably care to know of Arthur Young — his strength and 
 weakness, his one success and innumerable failures, his 
 fireside and his friends. One striking and instructive 
 feature in this man's history is his cosmopolitanism, 
 his affectionate relations with Frenchmen, Poles, 
 Russians, Danes, Italians, Scandinavians. Never
 
 vi AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 Englishman was more truly English ; never English- 
 man was less narrow in his social sympathies. 
 
 The religious melancholia of his later years is 
 explicable on several grounds : to the influence of his 
 friend, the great Wilberforce ; to the crushing sorrow 
 of his beloved little daughter ' Bobbin's ' death ; lastly, 
 perhaps, to exaggerated self-condemnation for foibles 
 of his youth. Few lives have been more many-sided, 
 more varied ; few, indeed, have been more fortunate 
 and unfortunate at the same time. 
 
 The Memoirs, whilst necessarily abridged and 
 arranged, are given precisely as they were written — that 
 is to say, although it has been necessary to omit much, 
 not a word has been added or altered. Whenever a 
 word or sentence needed explanation or correction, the 
 editorial note is bracketed. The foot-notes, unless 
 when otherwise stated, are all editorial. 
 
 For the use of Memoirs and letters, &:c., I am 
 indebted to Mrs. Arthur Young, widow of the late 
 owner of Bradfield Hall, the last of Arthur Young's 
 race and name, a gentleman alike in his public and 
 private life well worthy of his distinguished ancestry. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Young, who died last year, is buried 
 beside the author of the ' Travels in France,' in the 
 pretty little churchyard of Bradfield, near Bury St. 
 Edmunds. 
 
 M. B.-E.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, 1741-1759 
 
 TAGB 
 
 Ancestry — Anecdotes— Childhood — School life — Inoculation — The 
 paternal character — Mrs. Kennon — Letters to a schoolboy — 
 A mercantile apprenticeship — A youthful love afi'air — Family 
 troubles — A gloomy outlook ....... 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FARMING AND MARRIAGE, 1759-1766 
 
 The gay wqrld — A call on Dr. Johnson — A venture — OfTer of a 
 career— Farming decided upon — Garrick — Marriage — Mr. Harte 
 — Lord Chesterfield on farming — Literary work — Correspon- 
 dence — Birth of a daughter 26 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN SEARCH OF A LIVING, 1767-1775 
 
 Home travels — A move — Anecdote of a cat — Disillusion — 'A 
 Farmer's Letters ' — Another move — ' In the full blaze of her 
 beauty' — Hetty Burney and her harpsichord — 'Scant in 
 servants' — Maternal solicitude — Money difficulties — More tours 
 — Lord Sheffield — Howard the philanthropist — Correspondence 4
 
 viii AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 CHAPTEK IV 
 
 IRELAND, 1776-1778 
 
 PAOB 
 
 The journey to Ireland — Characteristics — Residence at Mitchels- 
 town — Intrigues — A strange bargain — Departure — Letter to his 
 wife — A terrible journey 06 
 
 CHAPTEK V 
 
 FARMING AND EXPERIMENTS, 1779-1782 
 
 Corn bounties — A grievance — Reading — Hugh Boyd — Bishop 
 Watson — Howlett on population — Irish Linen Board — Experi- 
 ments — Correspondence 83 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE, 1783-1785 
 
 Birth of Bobbin — Ice baths — ' The Annals of Agriculture ' — A 
 group of friends — Lazowski — First glimpse of France — Death 
 of my mother — The Bishop of Derry — Fishing parties — 
 Rainham . . . . . . . . . . .110 
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY, 1786-1787 
 
 Death of my brother — Anecdotes of his character — Dr. Burney on 
 farming — Greenwich versus Eton — Blenheim — Correspondence 
 with Dr. Priestley — County toasts — French projects — First 
 French journey 138 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 TRAVEL AND INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS, 1788-89-1790 
 
 The Wool Bill — Sheridan's speech — Count Berchtold — Experi- 
 ments — Second French journey— Potato-fed sheep — Cost of 
 housekeeping — Chicory — Burnt in effigy — Correspondence — 
 Third French journey — With Italian agriculturists — Bishop 
 Watson and Mr. Luther — Correspondence — Literary work — 
 Illness — The state of France 163
 
 CONTENTS IX 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 PATRIOTIC PROPOSALS, 1791-92 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Illness — Correspondence with Washington — The King's gift of a 
 ram — Anecdotes — Eevising MSS. — Patriotic proposals — Deatli 
 of the Earl of Orford — Agricultural schemes — Correspondence 189 
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 1793 
 
 The Board of Agriculture — Secretaryship — Residence in London — 
 Twenty-five dinners a month — The King's bull — The Marquis 
 de Castries — ' The Example of France ' — Encomiums thereof — 
 Correspondence 219 
 
 CHAPTEE XI 
 
 THE SECRETARYSHIP, 1791-95-1796 
 
 The Secretaryship and its drawbacks — Social compensations — Ill- 
 ness and death of Elizabeth Hoole — Letters of Jeremy Bentham 
 and others — A visit to Burke — Home travels — Enclosures . . 241 
 
 CHAPTEE XII 
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN, 1797 
 
 Illness of Bobbin — Letters of Bobbin and her father's replies- 
 Dress minutes at the -opera — Hoping against hope — Bobbin's 
 death— Seeking for consolation — Retrospection — Beginning of 
 diary — Correspondence 2G3 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE, 1798, 1799, 1800 
 
 Assessed taxes— Society— Mr. Pitt and the Board of Agriculture — 
 A foolish joke — Dinners to poor children — Interview with the 
 King — Royal farming — Correspondence — Bradfield— Incidents 
 of home travel— Portrait of a great lady— Correspondence. . 312
 
 X AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG- 
 
 CHAPTEK XIV 
 
 DIARY CONTINUED, 1801-1803 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Public affairs and prophecy — The divining rod — The appropriation 
 of waste lands — The word ' meanness ' defined — South's sermons 
 — Projected theological compendia — Correspondence — Jour- 
 nalising to ' my friend ' — Anecdote of Dean Milner and Pitt — 
 Death of the Duke of Bedford — Napoleon and Protestantism . 347 
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS, 1804-1807 
 
 A great preacher — Arthur Young the younger goes to Russia — 
 Cowper's letters — Mrs. Young's illness — Dr. Symonds — Novel 
 reading — Skinner's ' State of Peru ' — Death of Pitt — Burke's 
 publishing accounts — Literary projects — Approaching blindness 391 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI 
 
 LAST YEARS, 1808-1820 
 
 Gradual loss of sight — Dl ness and death of Mrs. Oakes— Daily routine 
 — A disappointment — Riots — Death of Mrs. Young — Anecdotes 
 of Napoleon — A story of the Terror — National distress — 
 Close of diary — The end 441 
 
 INDEX 475
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Portrait of Arthur yocNo ....... Frontispiece 
 
 Bradfield Hall as in Arthur Young's Time. . . to face p. 127 
 
 Facsimile of Letter from Arthur Young to Miss 
 
 Young ,,188 
 
 Portrait of ' Bobbin ' (Martha Young) . . . . „ 265 
 
 Arthur Young's Tomb at Bradfield „ 472
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, 1741-17o9 
 
 Ancestry — Anecdotes — • Childhood — School life — Inoculation — The 
 paternal character — Mrs. Kennon — Letters to a schoolboy — A mer- 
 cantile apprenticeship — A youthful love affair- Family troubles — A 
 gloomy outlook. 
 
 I WAS born at Whitehall, London, on September 11, 
 1741, many years after my brother John and my sister 
 Elizabeth Mary. In examining the family papers from 
 which the following detail is drawn, I should observe 
 that difficulties often occurred by reason of the ancient 
 hand-writing of many documents, and from several 
 being written in the Latin language not easily 
 deciphered ; but the circumstances relative to the 
 following dates were clearly ascertained as far as they 
 are noted. The principal object is the possession of 
 the Manor of Bradfield Combust, which is traced in 
 the family of Canham till it came by marriage into 
 
 B
 
 2 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 that of Young. Bartholomew Canham the elder had 
 two sons and two daughters. In 1672 he transferred 
 Bradfield Hall, manor and lands to Arthur Young, 
 married to Elizabeth, his daughter. The Young shield 
 bears a Field Argent, three Bends sable and a Lyon 
 rampant ; that of Canham a Field Gule, Bend Argent 
 charged with a cannon ball sable, the Bend cotised 
 with Or. The estate had been purchased in 1620 by 
 my ancestor of Sir Thomas, afterwards Lord Jermyn 
 of Eushbrooke, being part of the great possessions of 
 that family. The steward who acted for Sir Thomas 
 was Martin Folkes, ancestor of the present Sir Martin 
 Folkes. And here it is curious to observe the different 
 results affecting the posterity of the private gentleman 
 who purchases, and of the steward of the great man 
 who sells — I am a poor little gentleman, and Sir 
 Martin Folkes owner of an estate not far short of 
 10,000?. a year. My father. Dr. Arthur Young, in- 
 herited Bradfield from my grandfather, Bartholomew 
 Young, Esq., called Captain from a command in the 
 Militia, and it is remarkable that with only a part of 
 the present Bradfield estate he lived genteely and drove 
 a coach and four on a property which in these present 
 times just maintains the establishment of a wheel- 
 barrow. 
 
 Dr. Arthur Young, my father, was educated at Eton 
 and admitted to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1710, 
 afterwards settling at Thames Ditton, Surrey. He was 
 so much hked by the inhabitants that they elected him, 
 against a violent opposition of the inferior classes, 
 minister of that parish. Whether the ladies of the
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3 
 
 place had a particular influence I know not, but he was 
 a remarkably handsome man and six feet high. It was 
 here he became acquainted with Miss Anne Lucretia 
 de Cousmaker, to whom he was afterwards married. 
 She was the daughter of John de Cousmaker, Esq., 
 who came to England with King William III., bring- 
 ing with him a fortune of 80,000/., the greater part of 
 which he was deprived of by the imprudence of one or 
 two of his sons. If ever there existed in human form 
 an Israelite without guile, it was this worthy man ; 
 and it gives me great pleasure to reflect on the extreme 
 respect and affection which were always felt for him 
 and my dear mother. Mr. de Cousmaker, my maternal 
 grandfather, was executor and residuary legatee to a 
 Mrs. Keene, on which account he could have legally 
 possessed himself of an estate left by her. With an 
 honesty unexampled he would not take one penny of it, 
 but exerted himself with incredible industry to discover 
 some distant relation to whom he might transfer the 
 property. He did find one who had no legal claim, 
 and he gave him the estate. This Mr. Keene dying 
 without issue, his widow told my grandfather that out 
 of gratitude she would provide for two of his children. 
 To a daughter she left an annuity of 300Z. a year, to a 
 son an estate which passed on to his descendants. 
 
 My mother brought a fortune to my father, the 
 amoimt I know not, but it was sufiicient to demand the 
 settlement of the Bradfield estate upon her for life. 
 She was of a very amiable, cheerful disposition, loved 
 conversation, for which she had a talent, and read a 
 great deal on various subjects. The residence at 
 
 B 2
 
 4 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 Thames Ditton resulted in a friendship with the Onslow 
 family, which proved highly advantageous to my father. 
 General, then Colonel Onslow, appointed him chaplain 
 to his own regiment, and the General's brother, Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, also named him chaplain, 
 a step which afterwards led to the prebendaryship of 
 Canterbury. Mr. Speaker Onslow and the Bishop of 
 Kochester were my godfathers. Colonel, afterwards 
 General Onslow, was in the estimation of the world a 
 highly respectable character, in the formation of which 
 it may easily be supposed that religion formed no part 
 from the following anecdote. One Sunday morning his 
 wife obtained his permission to read a chapter of the 
 Bible, but he first bolted the door lest the servants 
 should witness the performance. , He was afraid that 
 the matter might reach the ears of his Commander-in- 
 Chief, the Duke of Cumberland, who to much brutahty 
 of character added the abhorrence of a soldier troubling 
 his head about religion. 
 
 In 1734 my father published his ' Historical 
 Dissertations on Idolatrous Corruptions in Eeligion,' 
 a very learned work which is quoted by Voltaire. In 
 1742 he was in Flanders acting as chaplain to Colonel 
 Onslow's regiment, and I have found among his papers 
 the journal of a tour made through Brabant, Flanders, 
 and a part of Picardy ; on the whole, it is interest- 
 ing, and the cheapness of living therein described is 
 remarkable. The following letter is from my father to 
 his relation, his Excellency Governor Vassy, relating 
 to the conduct of General Ingoldsby (who married my 
 mother's sister) at the battle of Fontenoy, and which
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5 
 
 throws a little additional light upon that transaction, 
 though at the expense of the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 'Bradfield Hall : July 22, 1745 (O.S.). 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — My last, which I wrote some time before 
 our ParHament broke up, was of such a length as I 
 suppose has tired you of my correspondence, since 
 which I, having been here in the country, have had 
 nothing of news worth troubling you with. I make 
 little doubt but that our friend Ingoldsby's behaviour 
 has made much the same figure in your publick papers 
 as your Appius's has done in ours. But I can assure 
 you. Sir, that, notwithstanding the account published 
 in our Gazette, he behaved like a good and a brave officer. 
 A court-martial has set upon him, but what the result 
 of it is we know not as yet. But fear the worst, since 
 the clearing of him must reflect upon a King's son who 
 has the command of an Army. I have enclosed his 
 case, which contains as much of the truth as he could 
 have leave to print, at the bottom of which you will find 
 something wrote which his Eoyal Highness commanded 
 particularly to be left out. But if you, Sir, who are 
 nearer to the Army than we are, desire a more particular 
 account of this affair, your nephew Everet, who will 
 continue here with us for more than a month longer, 
 shall give you the full detail of it. 
 
 ' If, dear Sir, the gentleman who is the bearer of 
 this shall want your protection, I recommend him to it ; 
 he is going to the Army as my substitute. His name 
 is Gough, and is nephew to Captain Gough, who is a 
 member of the House of Commons and director of, and
 
 6 AUTOBIOGRAPm' OF AETHUR YOUNa 
 
 the great manager in, our East India Company. All 
 that I particularly ask in behalf of him is that you will 
 give him your directions how to find our Army, and, if 
 it be necessary, to halt in your garrison. 
 ' I am, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your Excellency's kinsman and servant, 
 
 ' T. Young.' 
 
 Ingoldsby was cruelly used at the battle of Fontenoy 
 by the Duke of Cumberland, who had sent him orders 
 to put himself at the head of a detachment to attack a 
 temporary redoubt which the French had thrown up, 
 but gave him no directions to take cannon ; and when 
 Ingoldsby arrived at the spot he saw the necessity. 
 He instantly dispatched his Aide-de-camp to demand 
 cannon, but before they came the position of the troops 
 changed, and an order came to draw off. No conse- 
 quences attended this business, nor had it any effect on 
 the loss of the battle ; but an opportunity was taken to 
 throw the whole blame on Ingoldsby, and to attach to 
 him all the consequences of that defeat. Ingoldsby 
 complained of this, and Ligonier himself came to him 
 from the Duke to assure him that the D. knew his 
 bravery, and highly valued him, but advised him by all 
 means to be quiet, and everything would blow over, and 
 the business be forgotten. Nothing had been said on the 
 affair, but to save the reputation of the Duke. Mrs. 
 Ingoldsby, losing all patience at his not being promoted 
 according to promise, never let him rest till he pub- 
 lished his case, which put an end to all hope of pro- 
 motion in the Army, and he was obliged to retire. He 
 was in all the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns, and
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 
 
 served with great reputation to the moment of the 
 battle of Fontenoy. 
 
 When I was of a proper age to be placed at school, 
 a choice had to be made between those of Bury 
 St. Edmunds and Lavenham ' ; no possible motive 
 could induce any one to think of the latter, except 
 the circumstance of my father having been there him- 
 self. The master of the former school, Mr. Kinsman, 
 was one of the finest scholars of his age, and is 
 mentioned with much respect by Cumberland m his 
 memoirs.^ Whilst the matter was in abej^ance the 
 Eev. M. Coulter, Master of Lavenham School, came to 
 Bradfield, and my mother, unfortunately for me, was so 
 much pleased with the extreme good temper manifested 
 in his countenance that she persuaded my father to 
 entrust me to his care. I was accordingly sent to that 
 v^rretched place. I was to learn Latin and Greek, with 
 arithmetic, but whether from being a favourite or from 
 the diversion of frequent visits home, I afterwards 
 found myself so ill-grounded in the above languages 
 that for some time before I left the school I found it 
 necessary to give much attention to them in order to 
 recover the lost time. It is easy to suppose how much 
 I was indulged from one instance among many others. 
 At dinner the first dish the boys were helped to was 
 pudding, which I disliked, and was excused from 
 eating — the case of no other pupil. As to correction, 
 I have no recollection of receiving any thing of the 
 
 ' Lavenham is a very pretty village, with splendid church, lying 
 between Hudbury and Whelnethan, whilst Bury St. Edmunds is the 
 second town in Suffolk. 
 
 * Memoirs of Ricliard Cumberland, 1806.
 
 8 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 sort.' I had, however, a sufficient awe of the Master. 
 During the last years of my stay I had a pointer and gun, 
 and often went out with Mr. Coulter, he with a partridge 
 net and I with my gun. I had a room to myself and 
 a neat collection of books. I remember beginning to 
 write a history of England, thinking that I could make 
 a good one out of several others. How early began 
 my literary follies ! I seemed to have a natural pro- 
 pensity for writing books. The following bill for a 
 year's schooling and board must in the present period 
 (about 1816) be considered a curiosity : — ' The Eev. 
 Dr. Young to John Coulter, Xmas 1750, to Xmas 1751. 
 A year's board, &c. 151. Sundries 21. 4s. 4d. Total 
 17Z. 4s. 4cZ.' I find from a memorandum book of my 
 mother's that in 1746 beef was 3d., veal Sd., and 
 mutton S^d. per pound at Bury. 
 
 About the year 1753 I was inoculated. This was 
 a scheme of my mother's which she had more than once 
 proposed, but my father would not consent to it. Taking, 
 however, the opportunity of his visit to Cambridge, she 
 ventured on the experiment. At this period inoculation 
 was so little understood that it is utterly astonishing 
 how anyone could escape ; instead of the cool regimen 
 afterwards prescribed by Sutton, ^ the practice was to 
 
 ' Elsewhere Arthur Young mentions a severe flogging ' very properly ' 
 administered by his father for an act of cruelty, adding, ' It was the 
 only time that I ever received any correction at his hands, yet he was a 
 remarkably passionate man.' 
 
 - Robert Sutton, physician and inoculist, 1757, Diet, of Biography, 
 Sampson Low. Dr. Guy's Public Health has the following : ' The 
 Suttons were noted for their success in inoculation, but Dr. Gregory 
 gives more credit to diet and exposure to air than to the antimonial and 
 mercurial medicines they extolled.'
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9 
 
 keep the patient's chamber as close and hot as possible, 
 the shutters were kept up, and the door never opened 
 without being shut speedily. I suffered much, and Dr. 
 Kerrich, the physician at Bury, for some time attended 
 every day. It pleased the Almighty that I should re- 
 cover, one of many instances in which His providence 
 preserved a wretch who was to sin against Him by a 
 multitude of offences. When my father returned and 
 I ran out to meet him, my mother exclaimed in a 
 triumphant tone, ' There ! I have had Arthur inocu- 
 lated, and you enjoy the comfort of knowing that your 
 boy has had that terrible disorder.' My father looked 
 at me, but neither spoke a word on the subject then 
 nor ever after. This was his way — resolute in reject- 
 ing all proposals touching upon novelty, and cool after 
 their accomplishment. In an inferior circumstance 
 he showed the same temper, as I will relate. The 
 family pew at church was a wretched hole, lined with 
 ragged cloth and covered with dust ; the pulpit also was 
 tumbling with age and rottenness. On my father's 
 going to London and leaving my brother at Bradfield, 
 he begged permission to have a new pew and pulpit. 
 This was refused. ' Good enough. Jack ! ' said my 
 father. But Jack attacked his mother, and set the 
 carpenter to work, who made a spacious pew, with 
 one for the servants, new pulpit and reading desk. 
 The first Sunday my father went to church, on 
 approaching the place, he stopped short, surveyed 
 all three with great attention, said nothing, and on 
 joining the family party home never opened his lips, 
 nor ever after mentioned the subject. He was
 
 10 AUTOBIOftEAPHY OF AETHUE, YOUNG 
 
 inwardly pleased, but not gracious enough to confess it. 
 There was in Dr. Young a strong mixture of obsti- 
 nacy and sang-froid, as the preceding anecdotes prove. 
 
 In 1753 I went to London, and find by an old 
 pocket-book that I saw Mr. Garrick in ' Archer,' ^ heard 
 the Oratorio, ' The Messiah,' spent an evening at 
 Kanelagh, and viewed the Tower and St. Paul's. I also 
 remember visiting the widow of General Ingoldsby, who 
 opened her house every evening to all comers, nor 
 was the number of fashionable people inconsiderable. 
 John Wilkes, afterwards so well known, I met there 
 more than once ; he was then considered a wit. Mrs. 
 Ingoldsby made a point of going to Court at least twice a 
 year, but I never heard her repeat any other conversa- 
 tion with the King than complaining to him how 
 much she was afflicted with rheumatism. 
 
 In 1754 died Mrs. Sidney Kennon, a lady highly 
 respected and well known as the midwife to the Prin- 
 cess of Wales ; she also brought into the world my 
 brother, sister and myself, and was a very old friend of 
 my father's, and him she left executor and residuary 
 legatee. That her professional emoluments were of 
 some consideration was proved by the fact of a gen- 
 tleman after her decease presenting her executor with 
 fifty guineas as her fee for having delivered his wife. 
 By her will all her furniture and a great collection of 
 medals, bronzes, shells, curiosities, books on natural 
 history, &c. with money in the funds, came into his 
 possession, to the amount of nearly five thousand 
 pounds. By a codicil she had ordered that her 
 ' Hero of TJie Beaux' Stratagem, G. Farquhar.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 11 
 
 servants should be retained and the house kept for six 
 months after her death, in consequence of which our 
 family moved into her residence in Clifford Street. It 
 was, of course, to be expected that my father would sell 
 all the curiosities, but that a clergyman, a man of 
 learning, having a son of my brother's attainments 
 should dispose of such a collection, was not looked for ; 
 my maternal Uncle, de Cousmaker, dining one day at 
 the house enquired as to my father's intentions. On 
 being informed that everything would go to an auction, 
 he asked the price. My father repHed that the articles 
 had not been valued, but he supposed that they would 
 fetch fifty or sixty pounds. Mr. de C. at once offered 
 sixty guineas, the bargain was struck, and the books 
 departed next day, to our great mortification ; the price 
 was preposterous, as the collection contained many 
 curious and scarce publications, and my Uncle after- 
 wards sold many of the duplicates for a greater amount 
 than he had given for the whole, yet retaining a most 
 valuable number. As a proof of the worth of what 
 might be called Mrs. Kennon's Museum, I insert a 
 letter to her from Sir Martin Folkes, President of the 
 Eoyal Society. 
 
 ' Madame, — I am sorry I had not the happiness of 
 seeing you when I was last to wait on j^ou, but will 
 take another opportunity of paying my respects. The 
 worms you were pleased to send seem to me the very 
 same I received from Holland, and which I was in the 
 utmost distress for, being quite out, and my Polypes in 
 great want, so that a word of instruction, how I may
 
 12 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNG 
 
 get at some of these worms, will be a great obligation. 
 
 When I had the honour of leaving you a Polype, I had 
 
 never a one by me with a young one fairly put out, so 
 
 here was one beginning. I now beg leave to send you 
 
 such a one ; and when you are disposed to cut one will 
 
 wait on you, and show it you in a microscope, if you 
 
 have not yet seen it. I beg leave to return very many 
 
 thanks for the favour of seeing your noble collection of 
 
 rarities, and have hardly talked of anything else since. 
 
 * I am. Madam, with the sincerest respect, 
 
 * Your ladyship's most obedient humble servant, 
 
 ' M. FOLKES. 
 ' May 6, 1743.' 
 
 Doddington, in his diary, under the date of June 28, 
 1750, mentions supping at this lady's house, in com- 
 pany with Lady Middlesex, Lord Bathurst, and Lady 
 Torrington ; and in the ' World ' (No. 114) there is a 
 humorous paper on the distinctions between noble birth, 
 great birth, and no birth, in which the writer says, 
 ' I never suspected that it could possibly mean the 
 shrivelled tasteless fruit of an old genealogical tree. 
 I communicated my doubts, and applied for information 
 to my late, worthy, and curious friend, Mrs. Kennon, 
 whose valuable collection of fossils and minerals, lately 
 sold, sufficiently prove her skill and researches in the 
 most recondite parts of nature. She, with that frank- 
 ness and humanity which were natural to her, assured 
 me that it was all a vulgar error, in which, however, 
 the nobility and gentry prided themselves ; but that, in 
 truth, she had never observed the children of the quality
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 
 
 to be wholesomer and stronger than others, but rather 
 the contrary, which difference she imputed to certain 
 causes which I shall not here specify.' I possess several 
 letters written to this lady by the Governor of Bermuda, 
 Mr. Popple, in 1739 and 1740, in which he considers 
 her of sufficient importance to request that she would 
 speak a good word for him in behalf of his being 
 removed to a better Government, or some other employ- 
 ment at home, and concludes a letter with saying, ' I 
 believe your present power to assist your absent friends 
 is now as great as I have always thought your inclination 
 was.' 
 
 When my father returned to Bradfield, after passing 
 the winter in London, he pulled down the old part of 
 the house, a wretched lath and plaster ill-contrived 
 building ; then, to the astonishment of every one, he 
 employed a hedge carpenter to rebuild exactly on the 
 old foundations. Thereby was constructed a mansion 
 which had not a single room free from every fault that 
 could be found, whether as to chimney, doors, windows, 
 or connecting passages, and this at a larger expense than 
 need have cost an excellent house. The new stables, 
 with coach-house, brew-house and offices, were built 
 of brick, and cost 500/. It was rather whimsical to 
 give his horses, carriage, and brewery ' the warmth 
 of solid walls, and to house himself in lath and plaster ; 
 but in fixing his new farmery,^ a sad error was com- 
 mitted. The whole interposed between the dwelling, 
 
 ' Till the last generation it was the fashion to brew one's own beer 
 in Suffolk. 
 
 - ' The buildings and yards necessary for the business of a farm.' — 
 Webster.
 
 14 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 and four acres of turf dotted with beautiful oaks. My 
 poor father, however, did not hve to enjoy his improve- 
 ments, for he was very soon seized with a dropsy, and 
 which — as will be seen — terminated his life. During 
 one of his journeys to London in order to consult a 
 doctor, occurred a circumstance so whimsical that I must 
 mention it. Several sleepless nights made him take it 
 into his head that anything would be better than a bed ; 
 as an experiment at one inn he ordered that a hole 
 should be cut in a haystack, in which he passed the 
 night. But it is time to return to myself. During all 
 these years I was at Lavenham School reading Caesar, 
 Sallust, Homer and the Greek Testament, when a 
 sudden whim seized my father, and he ordered Latin 
 and Greek to be discarded and algebra to take their 
 place. I thus became absorbed in Saunderson.' But 
 what commanded more of my attention at this time 
 was a very different branch of learning, namely, the 
 lessons of a dancing master ; he came once a week 
 from Colchester to teach the boys, also some young 
 ladies of the neighbourhood, two of whom made terrible 
 havoc with my heart. The first was Miss Betsy Harring- 
 ton, a grocer's daughter, admitted by all to be truly 
 beautiful ; the second of my youthful flames was Miss 
 Molly Fiske, a clergyman's sister. For one or two 
 years we corresponded, but afterwards I went away, 
 and she married the Eev. M, Chevalier, of Aspall. 
 Long after her marriage she told me that she had 
 accepted that gentleman on finding that I did not 
 
 ' Nicholas Saunderson, D.D., author of the Elements of Algebra, in 
 ten books, 1740.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15 
 
 come forward with the proposal. Her fortune was 
 4,000Z. 
 
 Arthur Young, from his Sister Elisa Maria 
 
 ' 1755. 
 
 ' Dear Brother, — I acknowledge it's very long since 
 I last wrote to you, but I enclose you my excuses, and 
 what was I assure you the occasion of my delay. I de- 
 signed making you a present of lace for a pair of ruffles, 
 and the weather had been so bad that it was too dirty 
 for me to go out and get them. I hope they will 
 engage your approbation, which is all I desire, and 
 you'll do me honor in wearing them. I've not yet 
 seen Miss Aspin, and believe I shall not till Monday, 
 when we propose going to Gen' Onslow's, and calling 
 upon her in our way. We have had so much rain 
 lately that there has been no stirring, or I would 
 have made her a visit long ago. 
 
 ' I believe I told my Mother my Uncle was dis- 
 appointed of his company which were to be here on 
 Saturday last by Miss Turner being ill, but she 
 recovering we are to have the same party next week, 
 and a very grand concert it is to be, because we are 
 musical people. 
 
 ' Ranelagh is to be opened on the 8th with a rural 
 carnival. I vastly wished for you at Mrs. Gibber's benefit. 
 The play was " Tancred and Sigismunda," the plan of 
 which you and I have often weep'd over together in 
 " Gil Bias." It was most inimitably acted by Garrick and 
 Mrs. Gibber ; you would have been vastly entertained. 
 The play I was at before, but went purposely to see the
 
 16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Princess of Wales and her family. The Prince and 
 Prince Edward were in one box, and the Princess, 
 Lady Augusta, Elizabeth, and Louisa in the other. 
 Upon my word, they are a fine parcel of children ; only 
 poor Elizabeth is, unhappily, almost a dwarf, but the 
 rest make very good figures. 
 
 * Monday your Aunt and I were in the House of 
 Commons from one o'clock at noon till nine at night ; 
 it was the Mitchell Election,^ when the great ones were 
 setting themselves in combat against each other ; it 
 was a most hard-fought battle. The ^ Duke espousing 
 our party against the Duke of Newcastle in support of 
 the other, but the Tories most of them going with the 
 D. of N. gave him the majority. Though he lost it 
 at the Committee. There was much speaking, which 
 was very entertaining ; Mr. Fox talked a great deal 
 with great vehemence, for this loss frustrates his 
 schemes, as he finds the strength of the D. of N.'s party 
 though he had all the Army and the Duke's Court 
 people with him. And now, Mr. Arthur, you being a 
 very good polititian, I shall proceed to entertain you 
 v^dth some more Parliamentary affairs. Tuesday last 
 the Message was brought from the King to the House. 
 It imparted little ; nothing to be collected from it of 
 either peace or war. Only desiring the Parliament 
 would support him in the armaments he might have 
 occasion for by sea and land, &c. &c. General Onslow 
 
 ' The Mitchell Election, a petition brought by Lord Orwell and 
 Colonel Wedderburn against undue election and return for borough 
 of Mitchell, in Cornwall. See Commons' Journals, xxii., xxiv. and 
 xxxii. 
 
 - The Duke of Cumberland.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 
 
 says during the eight and twenty years he has sat in 
 that house he never saw, or could have conceived it to 
 be so unanimous in the acclamations of the King. 
 Every one striving who should in the strongest terms 
 express their confidence in him, Tories and all. Even 
 Sir John PhiUips declared he would vote the King 
 twenty shillings in the pound, for that their lives and 
 wJiole fortunes were not too much for him, and the 
 House rung with their confidence in the King, without 
 any one of the Ministers saying a syllable. They were 
 the silentest people. The General says he would have 
 given any money Miripoix ' had been in the House 
 to have heard the Parliament of England's hearty 
 affection for their King. I should have much liked to 
 have been there, but the ladies' privilege extends no 
 farther than elections. Lady Crosse sent to us on 
 Monday morning at ten o'clock to let us know she 
 would call on us at eleven, and we had to dress in 
 gowns and petticoats and eat our breakfasts, which last 
 was not to be omitted, for it was certain we were to 
 have no dinner. And by much hurry we did get ready 
 for her ladyship, but waited at her house for Sir John 
 till near one, frighted to excess, fearing we should not 
 get in. This Mitchell Election so famous an aftair 
 that all the town wanted to hear it, and evidently the 
 gallery would hold a small part of them. However, 
 we had the luck to get excellent places, having a chair 
 for one of us brought out of the Speaker's chamber. 
 The elections for this year are now all over except the 
 Oxfordshire, and whether they will be able to finish 
 
 ' M. de Miripoix, then French Ambassador at St. James's. 
 
 C
 
 18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 that no one can tell. In answer to this long letter 
 I shall hope to hear very soon from you, and am, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate 
 
 'E. M. Young. 
 
 ' Friday Good (sic).^ 
 
 ' August 26, 1755 (from Bristol Hot Wells). 
 
 ' Dear Arthur, — I was in hopes you would have 
 given me the pleasure of hearing from you. I should 
 have wrote to you before now, but have so many letters 
 perpetually upon my hands that no clerk to an attorney 
 has more pen exercise. I want much to have a parti- 
 cular account of the Bury Assizes ; I suppose you will 
 go to an Assembly, and therefore pray you to send ixie 
 intelligence of who and who are together, who dresses 
 smartest, looks best, and seems most pleased with 
 themselves and those about them. The balls here are 
 vastly disagreeable. I dance French dances constantly, 
 but none of the people of fashion dance country dances ; 
 there are such numbers of Bristol people that do, and 
 they are such an ordinary set that it prevents the fine 
 folks. The rooms of another night are much cleverer ; 
 there is a lottery table which we play at from eight till 
 half an hour after nine most nights. My Aunt and I 
 have both hitherto played with great success. The 
 principal support of our table we lose to-day, Mr. 
 Brudenell, member for Butlandshire, an extreem good- 
 natured, pretty kind of man ; the company is going off 
 so fast and the place is so thin, that I fear we shall miss 
 him very much. My Aunt sends her love to you. She 
 says she made you a promise of giving you a pair of
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19 
 
 lace ruffles or a guinea, which ever you chose, and 
 desires you will consult with your mother which you 
 will have, and if the lace, let her know it ; for it's sold 
 here as well as at Bath. I should advise the money ; 
 for you have two pair of lace ruffles which I am sure is 
 as much as you can possibly have occasion for ; those 
 you have must be taken off the footings, for the fine 
 men weer them extreemly shallow ; they should not 
 be near a nail of a yard deep. 
 
 ' Pray make my compliments to everybody that 
 enquires after me, and let me have a very long letter 
 from you very soon. I have nothing to add to your 
 entertainment, heartily wish I was at Bradfield, and 
 beg you to tell me all you can that is doing there ; and 
 ' Believe me with great sincerity, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate 
 
 ' Elisa Makia. 
 
 * Be sure don't speak before my father of my playing 
 at lottery.' 
 
 Extracts from further letters 
 
 * My Uncle Ingoldsby I think looks very well. He 
 asked after you, and so did my Aunt. He goes out of 
 town for a fortnight next Monday, and Mr. and 
 Miss go then. Dr. In. has made a new coach. 
 Yesterday was the second day of using it, cost him 82?. ; 
 it's very handsome, all but being painted in a mosaic, 
 which all the smart equipages are. Miss Joy's mother 
 has made one this spring, cost 147Z. There is hardly 
 such a thing seen as a two-wheeled post-chaise ; 
 
 c 2
 
 20 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 nobody uses anything but four-wheeled ones, and 
 numbers of them "with boxes put on and run for 
 chariots, and vastly pretty they are. 
 
 * Now I must give you some account of the mas- 
 querade at Mrs. Onslow's ; Lady Onslow was there, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Onslow, the Mr. Shelley we met at the 
 Speaker's, and Miss Freeman. Lady Onslow was in a 
 Venetian domino white lustring trimmed with scarlet 
 and silver blonde. Mrs. Onslow's dress we thought not 
 at all pretty nor becoming ; she had no jewels on, but 
 was ornamented with mock pearl. Mr. Onslow was in a 
 domino, as was Mr. Shelley ; the first was very genteel 
 and handsome, white lustring trimmed with an open 
 shining gold lace and little roses of purple with gold in 
 the middle of them. I never saw anything prettier. 
 Miss Freeman was the sweetest figure I ever saw. 
 Her dress, a dancer, blue satin trimmed with silver in 
 the richest genteelest taste and very fine jewels. They 
 say Fenton Harvey was the best figure there amongst 
 the gentlemen, with his masque ; on his dress was a 
 domino which was reckoned the genteelest dresses. 
 
 ' Lady Coventry, amongst the ladies, was the best 
 figure ; Lady Peterson another much admired. The 
 Town said beforehand that she was to be Eve and wear 
 a fig leaf of diamonds ; however, this was not true.' 
 
 Mrs. To7nlinson {nee Elisa Maria Young) 
 to her Father 
 
 'Honoured Sir, — Mr. Tomlinson and myself are 
 your urgent petitioners for a favour which, if granted.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 
 
 will give us very great pleasure. It is that you will 
 give my brother Arthur leave to make us a short visit ; 
 my mother (who we found safe and well at Chelmsford 
 and have conducted hither) rejoins in the request ; she 
 desires you to determine in what manner is best for 
 him to come hither on horseback, the joiner with him 
 or in the stage coach, but either way, we beg to see 
 him Tuesday at farthest, but on Monday if he comes 
 on horseback. Be pleased to direct him to have his 
 linnen washed, stocking (sic) mended, &c., and in case 
 he comes on horseback, it may not be amiss to hint to 
 him that he is not to reach London on one gallop, for 
 his impatience may outrun his prudence. It was a 
 great pleasure to hear a pretty good account of yom- 
 health, and hope we shall hear often from Bradfield 
 during my mother's stay here. 
 
 'Beg my love with Mr. T.'s to my brother. He 
 desires to present his duty to you. 
 
 ' And I am, honoured Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate and most dutifull daughter, 
 
 ' E. M. TOMLINSON. 
 ' Bucklersbury : Tuesday ni^ht, 10 o'clock (1757).' 
 
 Whilst at school I made in the playground a famous 
 fortification, and then besieged it with mines of gun- 
 powder, nearly blowing up two boys and an old woman 
 seUing pies. A better example was my habit of read- 
 ing, which became a sort of fashion. I was thought 
 to be of an uncommon stamp, and when the pupils 
 returned home their parents became desirous of seeing 
 the lad to whom they thought themselves indebted.
 
 22 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 My own acquisitions received a mortal shock on the 
 marriage of my sister with Mr. TomHnson, of the firm 
 of TomHnson & Co. The opportunity of introducing 
 me into their counting-house was thought advantageous 
 by my father, and in consequence orders came that 
 I should receive immediate instruction in mercantile 
 accounts ; as a further preparation the sum of 4001. 
 was paid to Messrs. Eobertson, of Lynn, Norfolk, for 
 a three years' apprenticeship. 
 
 In February 1758 I took my last farewell of 
 Lavenham, and paid a visit to my married sister in 
 London. I remember nothing more of this visit than 
 several performances of Mr. Garrick. When I took 
 leave of my sister, who was far advanced in her 
 pregnancy, she wept and said she might never see me 
 more. This proved to be the case, as she died during 
 her lying-in. She was a remarkably clever woman, with 
 much beauty and vivacity of conversation, combined 
 with much solidity of judgment. My mother grieved 
 so much for her loss that she could never be persuaded 
 to go out of mourning, but mourned till her own death, 
 nor did she ever recover her cheerfulness. This had 
 one good effect, and that a very important one for me ; 
 she never afterwards looked into any book but on the 
 subject of religion, and her only constant companion 
 was her Bible, herein copying the example of her 
 father. 
 
 Every circumstance attending this new situation at 
 Lynn was most detestable to me till I effected an 
 improvement. This was done by hiring a lodging, 
 surrounding myself with books, and making the
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23 
 
 acquaintance of Miss Robertson, daughter of my 
 employer's partner. She was of a pleasing figure, with 
 fine black expressive eyes, danced well, and also sang 
 and performed well on the harpsichord ; no wonder, as 
 she received instructions from Mr. Burney.' He was 
 a person held in the highest estimation for his powers 
 of conversation and agreeable manners, which made 
 his company much sought after by all the principal 
 nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. Here I must 
 reflect, as I have done many times before, on the un- 
 fortunate idea of making me a merchant. The im- 
 mediate expense absolutely thrown away differently 
 invested would have kept me four years at the Uni- 
 versity, enabling my father to make me a clergyman 
 and Eector of Bradfield. This living he actually gave 
 to my Lavenham schoolmaster. The whole course of 
 my life would in such a case have been changed. I 
 should have known nothing of Lynn, and have taken a 
 wife from a different quarter. I should probably have 
 been free from all attraction to agriculture, and that 
 circumstance alone would have changed the whole 
 colour of my existence. I might never have been of 
 any use to the public, but my years would have passed 
 in a far more tranquil current, escaping so many storms 
 and vicissitudes which blew me into a tempest of 
 activity and involved me in great errors, great vice, and 
 perpetual anxiety. This was not to be the case, and 
 what I thought an evil star sent me to Lynn. In this 
 place monthly assemblies were held, a mayor's feast 
 
 ' Dr. Charles Burney, author of the History of Music, father of 
 Madame d'Arblay.
 
 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 and ball in the evening, a dancing master's ball and 
 assemblies at the Mart. It was not common, I was 
 told, for merchants' clerks to frequent these, a suggestion 
 I spurned, and attended them, dancing with the principal 
 belles. I was complimented by the dancing master, 
 who assured me that he pointed out my minuet as an 
 example to his scholars. But pleasure alone would not 
 satisfy me ; I was by nature studious, and from my 
 earliest years discovered a thirst for learning and books. 
 These, the smallness of my allowance (I think not 
 more than SOI. per annum), with my great foppery in 
 dress for the balls, would not permit me to purchase 
 and supply me with what I so much needed. Ac- 
 cordingly in 1758 I compiled a political pamphlet named 
 ' The Theatre of the Present War in North America,' 
 for which a bookseller allowed me ten pounds' worth 
 of books ; as he urged me to another undertaking I 
 wrote three or four more political tracts, each of which 
 procured me an addition to my little library. My first 
 year's apprenticeship had not expired before the death 
 of my sister overthrew the whole plan which had sent 
 me to Lynn. As 400Z. had been paid for the agreed 
 period of three years, I was kept there from no other 
 motive. Under such circumstances it may be supposed 
 that the counting-house and the business received not 
 an atom more of attention than could be dispensed with. 
 I was twenty years old on leaving Lynn, which I 
 did without education, profession or employment. In 
 June of this year (1759) my father died, and as he 
 left debts, my mother thought it necessary to take
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25 
 
 an exact account of his effects. The following is the 
 result: — 
 
 £ s. 
 
 Household goods 674 1 
 
 Farming stock 226 4 
 
 Plate 149 13 
 
 Books 57 
 
 Total £1,106 18 
 
 I am sorry to add that money or money due to him 
 made no part of the estimate. The fact was that my 
 father died much in debt, and it was two years before 
 my mother found herself tolerably free.
 
 26 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNQ 
 
 CHAPTEK II 
 
 FAEMING AND MAREIAGE, 1759-1766 
 
 The gay world — A call on Dr. Johnson — A venture — Offer of a career — 
 Farming decided upon — Garrick — Marriage — Mr. Harte — Lord Ches- 
 terfield on farming — Literary work — Correspondence — Birth of a 
 daughter. 
 
 In 1761 I was at the Coronation, had a seat in the 
 gallery of Westminster Hall, and being in the front 
 row above the Duke's table, I remember letting down a 
 basket dm'ing dessert, which was filled by the present 
 Duke of Marlborough. On this visit to London I had 
 a mind to see everything, and ordered a full dress suit for 
 going to Court. This was in September. In December 
 I was again in London figuring in the gay world.' In 
 January 1762 I set on foot a periodical publication 
 entitled ' The Universal Museum,' which came out 
 monthly, printed with glorious imprudence on my own 
 account. I waited on Dr. Johnson, who was sitting by 
 
 ' The following notes are taken from a small memorandum-book 
 appended to memorials : — 
 
 ' 1761. July 23. — Leak in full (meaning debts), 51. 5s. 
 ' Sept. 22. — Coronation. 
 ' „ 28.— To Court. 
 ' Oct. 9. — Blackheath ; cards. 
 ' Dec. — To London with Ed. Allen. 
 ' „ 31.— Debts 62Z. 
 ' (My) History of the War published.'
 
 FAEMING AND MAKRIAGE 27 
 
 the fire so half-dressed and slovenly a figure as to make 
 me stare at him. I stated my plan and begged that he 
 would favour me with a paper once a month, offering 
 at the same time any remuneration that he might 
 name. ' No, sir,' he replied, ' such a work would be 
 sure to fail if the booksellers have not the property, and 
 you will lose a great deal of money by it.' ' Certainly, 
 sir,' I said ; ' if I am not fortunate enough to induce 
 authors of real talent to contribute.' ' No, sir, you are 
 mistaken, such authors will not support such a work, nor 
 will you persuade them to write in it ; you will pur- 
 chase disappointment by the loss of your money, and I 
 advise you by all means to give up the plan.' Somebody 
 was introduced, and I took my leave. Dr. Kenrick,' 
 the translator of Kousseau, was a writer of a very 
 different stamp ; he readily engaged to write for me ; 
 so did Collier - and his wife, who between them trans- 
 lated the ' Death of Abel.'^ I printed five numbers of 
 this work, and being convinced that Dr. Johnson's 
 advice was wise and that I should lose money by the 
 business, I determined to give it up. With that view 
 I procured a meeting of ten or a dozen booksellers, 
 and had the luck and address to persuade them to take 
 the whole scheme upon themselves. I fairly slipped 
 my neck out of the yoke — a most fortunate occurrence, 
 for, though they continued it under far more favourable 
 circumstances, I believe no success ever attended it. 
 
 ' Dr. Kenrick, critic of the Monthly Review, attacked Dr. Johnson, 
 who said, ' I do not think myself bound by Kenrick 's rules.' 
 
 ■^ Joseph and Mary Collier ; the first, author of a History of 
 England. 
 
 ' Gesner Solomon, born at Zurich, 1730.
 
 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 In September of the following year I broke a blood- 
 vessel and was attended by a Lynn physician, who 
 ordered me to Bristol Hotwells, as I was in a very 
 consumptive state. I accordingly went, boarding and 
 lodging in a house where I met very intelligent and 
 agreeable society ; amongst the number was one 
 gentleman with whom I had many arguments con- 
 cerning Eousseau and his writings, I, like a fool, much 
 admiring both, my new acquaintance abusing them 
 with equal heat. But the principal acquaintance I 
 made at the Hotwells was Sir Charles Howard, K.B., 
 then an old man. Being informed that I was a 
 chess-player, he introduced himself to me in the pump- 
 room and invited me to coffee and a game of chess. 
 After some time and various conversations he made 
 enquiries relating to my family and destination. I took 
 it into my head that he seemed more affable when he 
 was informed (for his enquiries were numerous) that 
 Mr. Speaker Onslow and the Bishop of Kochester were 
 my godfathers. On understanding that I w^as not bred 
 to any profession and was without hope of any settle- 
 ment in life, he asked me if I should like to enter the 
 Army. I answered in the affirmative, but added that it 
 could only be matter of theory, as I had not lived 
 with any officers. He often recurred to the idea, and 
 at last told me that he would give me a pair of 
 colours in his own cavalry regiment, and bade me 
 write to my mother for her approval. 
 
 This I did, and was not at all surprised by her 
 reply. She begged and beseeched me not to think 
 of any such employment, as my health and strength
 
 FARMING AND MARRIAGE 29 
 
 were quite inadequate to the life. I loved my dear 
 mother too much to accept an offer against her consent. 
 I also became acquainted with an officer in the Army, 
 Captain Lambert, who visited the Countess of B. at 
 B. Castle. She was esteemed a demirep, handsome 
 and fascinating. A little before I left Bristol I was 
 introduced to her, and had my stay been longer should 
 have made one in the number of her many slaves. On 
 returning from Bristol to my mother at Bradfield, I 
 found myself in a situation as truly helpless and forlorn 
 as could well be imagined, without profession, busi- 
 ness, or pursuit, I may add without one well-grounded 
 hope of any advantageous establishment in life. My 
 whole fortune during the life of my mother was a copy- 
 hold farm of twenty acres, producing as many pounds, 
 and what possibility there was of turning my time to 
 any advantage did not and could not occur to me ; in 
 truth, it was a situation without resource, and nothing 
 but the inconsiderateness of youth could have kept me 
 from sinking into melancholy and despair. My mother, 
 desirous of fixing me with her, proposed that I should 
 take a farm, and especially as the home one of eighty 
 acres was under a lease expiring at Michaelmas. I 
 had no more idea of farming than of physic or divinity, 
 but as it promised, at least, to find me some employ- 
 ment, I agreed to the proposition, and accordingly 
 commenced my rural operations, which entirely de- 
 cided the complexion of all my remaining years. My 
 connections at Lynn carried me often to that place, 
 and my love of reading proved my chief resource. I 
 farmed during the years 1763-4-5-6, having taken also 
 
 /
 
 30 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNa 
 
 a second farm that was in the hands of a tenant. I 
 gained knowledge, but not much, and the principal 
 effect was to convince me that in order to understand 
 the business in any perfection it was necessary for me 
 to continue my exertions for many years. And the 
 circumstance which perhaps of all others in my life I 
 most deeply regretted and considered as a sin of the 
 blackest dye, was the publishing the result of my ex- 
 perience during these four years, which, speaking as a 
 farmer, was nothing but ignorance, folly, presumption, 
 and rascality. The only real use which resulted from 
 those four years was to enable me to view the farms of 
 other men with an eye of more discrimination than I 
 could possibly have done without that practice. It 
 was the occasion of my going on the southern tour in 
 1767, the northern tour in 1768, and the eastern in 1770, 
 extending through much the greater part of the king- 
 dom, and the exertion in these tours was admitted by 
 all who read them (and they were very generally read) 
 to be of most singular utility to the general agriculture 
 of the kingdom. In these works I particularly attended 
 to the course of the farmer's crops, the point perhaps 
 of all others the most important, and the more so at 
 that period, because all preceding writers had neglected 
 it in the most unaccountable manner. They relate 
 good and bad rotations with the same apathy as if it 
 was of little consequence in what order the crops of a 
 farm were put in provided the operations of tillage and 
 manuring were properly performed. 
 
 It has been very justly said that I first excited the 
 agricultural spirit which has since rendered Britain so
 
 FAKMING AND MAERIAGE 31 
 
 famous ; and I should observe that this is not so great 
 a compliment as at first sight it may seem, since it was 
 nothing more than publishing to the world the exertions 
 of many capital cultivators and in various parts of the 
 kingdom, and especially the local practice of common 
 farmers who, with all their merit, were unknown beyond 
 the limits of their immediate district, and whose opera- 
 tion wanted only to be known to be admired. 
 
 In December 17G2 I was again in London, and, as 
 usual, constantly at the theatre. The parts in which 
 Mr. Garrick acted to my great entertainment were, 
 Macbeth, Benedict, Lear, Posthumus, Oakely,^ Abel 
 Drugger,^ Sir J. Brute,^ Sir J. Dorrimant,^ Bayes,-^ 
 Carlos,^ Felix,^ Kanger,** Scrub,^ Hastings.'" I must 
 once for all remark that this astonishing actor so much 
 exceeded every idea of representing character that the 
 delusion was complete, Nature, not acting, seemed to be 
 before the spectator, and this to a degree a thousand 
 times beyond anything that has been seen since. The 
 tones of his voice, the clear discrimination of feeling 
 and passion in the vast variety of characters he repre- 
 sented, surpassed anything one could imagine, and 
 raised him beyond competition. I have often reflected 
 on the principal personages who figured in England 
 during this age, and I am disposed to think that Gar- 
 rick was by far the greatest, that is to say, he excelled 
 
 ' Tlie Jealous Wife. - The Alcliemist. ' The Provoked Wife. 
 
 * The Man of Mode. ^ The Rehearsal. * Love Makes a Man. 
 ' The Wonder. " The Suspicious Husbatid. 
 
 * TJie Beaux' Stratagem. '" She Stoops to Conquer. 
 
 This last play seems to have been first acted in 1773. See Brewer's 
 Reader's Handbook.
 
 32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 all his contemporaries in the art he professed. Few 
 men have been able to laugh at their own foibles 
 with as much wit as Garrick. A striking instance was 
 his little publication called ' An Ode to Garrick on the 
 Talk of the Town,' in which we find this stanza : 
 
 Two parts they readily allow 
 
 Are yours, but not one more they vow, 
 
 And they close their spite. 
 You will be Sir John Brute ^ all day, 
 
 And Fribble "^ all the night. 
 
 In 1765 the colour of my life was decided. I mar- 
 ried. My wife ^ was a daughter of Alderman Allen, of 
 Lynn, and great-granddaughter of John Allen, Esq., of 
 Lyng House, Norfolk, who, according to the Comte de 
 Boulainvilliers,* first introduced the custom of marling 
 in the above-named county. We boarded with my 
 mother at Lynn. 
 
 This year (1765) I was in correspondence with the 
 Kev. Walter Harte,-^ Canon of Windsor, and author of 
 
 ' ' The coarse pot-bouse valour of Sir John Brute, Gan-ick's famous 
 part, is finely contrasted with the fine lady airs and affectation of his 
 ^yife.' — Chambers's English Literature. 
 
 - ' All the domestic business will be taken from my \nfe's hands, 
 shall make the tea, comb the dogs, and dress the children myself.' — 
 Fribble, in Miss in her Teens (Garrick). 
 
 ^ Mrs. Young was sister to Fanny Burney's stepmother. The 
 marriage proved unhappy from the beginning. 
 
 ^ See his work, Les Intirets de la France mal ejitendtis, Henri, Comte 
 de Boulainvilliers, voluminous author on French history, 1658-1722. 
 
 ^ Eev. W. Harte, poet, %vriter on rural affairs, historian, 1700-1774. 
 Dr. Johnson much commended Harte as a scholar and a man of the 
 most companionable talents he had ever known. He said the defects 
 in his history (Gustavus Adolphus) arose not from imbecility, but from 
 foppery. His Essays on Husbandry is an elegant, erudite, and valuable 
 work (Lowndes).
 
 FARMINa AND MAERL4GE 33 
 
 the ' Essays on Husbandry ' and the ' Life of Gustavus 
 Adolphus.' He advised me to collect my scattered 
 papers in the 'Museum Kusticum,' and, with additions, 
 to publish them in a volume. This I did under the title 
 of ' A Farmer's Letters.' I visited Mr. Harte at Bath ; 
 his conversation was extremely interesting and in- 
 structive. I have rarely received more pleasure than in 
 my intercom'se with this amiable and deeply learned 
 man. It is well known that he was tutor to Mr. 
 Stanhope, natural son of Lord Chesterfield, to whom so 
 many of that nobleman's letters were addressed.' 
 
 To Mr. Harte 
 
 ' Blackheath : August 16, 1764. 
 
 ' Sir, — I give you a thousand thanks for your book, 
 of which I've read every word with great pleasure and 
 full as great astonishment. When in the name of God 
 could you have found time to read the ten or twenty 
 thousand authors whom you quote, of all countries and 
 all times, from Hesiod to du Hamel ? - Where have you 
 ploughed, sowed, harrowed, drilled, and dug the earth 
 for at least these forty years ? for less time could not 
 have made you such a complete master of the practical 
 part of husbandry. I can only account for it from the 
 Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, 
 and the supposition that Hartlib's soul has animated 
 your body with a small alteration of name ; seriously, 
 your book entertains me exceedingly, and has made me 
 
 ' The accompanying letter is included in Arthur Younf,''s corre- 
 spondence of this year, and is given, although not addressed to himself. 
 
 - Duhamel du Monceau, botanist and agronomc, contributor to the 
 Encyclopidie, 1700-1781. 
 
 D
 
 34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 quite a dilettante, though too late to make me a 
 virtuoso, in the useful and agreeable art of agriculture. 
 I own myself ignorant of them all, but am nevertheless 
 sensible of their utility, and the pleasure it must afford 
 to those who pursue them. Moreover, you've scattered 
 so many graces over them that one wishes to be better 
 acquainted with them, and that one reads your book 
 with pleasure most exquisite. It is the only prose 
 Georgic that I know, as agreeable, and I dare say much 
 more useful, in this climate than Virgil. ^^Tiy have 
 you not put your name to it ? for though some passages 
 in it point you out to be the author here, they will not 
 do it so in other countries, and as I am persuaded that 
 your book will be translated into most modem languages 
 and be a polyglott of husbandry, I could have wished 
 your name had been to it. How goes the Havabilious 
 complaint : has not the Bath waters washed it away yet ? 
 I heartily wish it was, as I sincerely wish you whatever 
 can give you ease or pleasure. 
 
 * For I am with great truth your 
 
 ' Faithful friend and servant, 
 
 ' Chesterfield. 
 
 ' P.S. — Though I can be as partial as another to my 
 friends, I cannot be quite blind to their omissions ; for 
 though you have enumerated so many sorts of grass, 
 with a particular panegyrick on your dear Lucem, you 
 have not described, nor so much as mentioned, that 
 particular sort of grass ivhich while it grows the steed 
 starves. 
 
 ' Your Eleve is very well at Dresden. I will send 
 him his book when I can find a good opportunity.'
 
 FARMING AND MARELIQE 35 
 
 The following letters Mr. Harte was so good as to 
 address to me : — 
 
 ' Bath : February 3, 1765. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — That I am obliged to trouble you with a 
 letter, purely on my own account, I balance not a 
 moment within myself, between interrupting a friend 
 and being thought ungrateful. The kind mention 
 you have been pleased to make of my Essays on 
 Husbandry in the last number of the Museum 
 Eusticum deserves my warmest thanks and acknow- 
 ledgements : and though your good opinion of me as 
 bonus agricola, bonus civis may be a little partial, yet 
 sure I am that your favourable report is the overflowing 
 of a generous mind, and under that medicament I must 
 with modesty and diffidence arrange it, feeling at the 
 same time that inward pleasure which Tacitus describes 
 Dulce est laudari a laudato Viro. For my own part, 
 my ill health, as I greatly fear, will make me unable to 
 continue much longer on the theatre of agriculture ; 
 but if it pleases God that this nation is ever touched 
 with a true vital sense of the uses of husbandry in their 
 full extent (and runs not mad vnth the visionary notions 
 of Colonies), there will soon be a succession of younger 
 and abler genius's to perfect that, which I have had 
 the honor and satisfaction of suggesting to my beloved 
 but mistaken country. I may say as old Dryden did 
 to Congreve. (You will put aside the vanity of naming 
 Dryden in the same paragraph with myself.) 
 
 ' So, when the States one Edward did depose, 
 A greater Edward in his room arose, 
 But now not I but husbandry the curst, 
 And Tom the Second writes like Tom the First. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 ' And now, Sir, give me leave to assure you that I 
 am extremely pleased with your last published per- 
 formance, and the rather as the idea is useful and new. 
 In order to send abroad a truly qualified person, as 
 you have most judiciousl}^ characterised him, you do 
 well to address yourself to noble-spirited individuals. 
 Kings and ministers look upon agriculture as only 
 physical means of supplying mankind with food ; nor 
 does one glimpse of an idea ever enter their heads or 
 hearts concerning the circulation of profit from the 
 highest to the lowest resulting from thence ; nor of the 
 national strength, health, population, and, I may say, 
 the sobriety of getting money which results from that 
 art when it is exercised and maintained in full activity. 
 France might till this time have languished for her 
 enclosure of waste land and exportation of superfluous 
 corn if a shrewd and artful foreigner had not flattered 
 a fair lady into a passion for agriculture ; the man I 
 mean is M. Patulle.' And indeed, since the times of 
 Augustus and Maecenas (which latter loved agriculture, 
 before he loved poetry, but lavishly united both in 
 Virgil) and since the time of ConstantinelV. to the present 
 hour I can recollect no Princes and Prime Ministers who 
 understood the national advantages of husbandry in 
 their full extent but Henry IV. and Sully.' [Letter 
 breaks off here.'] 
 
 ' Windsor : May 1, 1765. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — Your last kind pacquet was conveyed to 
 me here by our much esteemed friend Mrs. Allen, whom 
 I hope to see at Bath in about twelve days. I am now 
 
 ' Patulle. A French writer on agriculture.
 
 FAEJVnNG AND MAERIAGE 37 
 
 to thank you for entertaining me with so much and so 
 good matter relating to Harrows, and look upon your 
 improvement to be a most sensible and most ingenious 
 one at the same time. This is the happy perfection in 
 writing which Horace mentions : 
 
 ' Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. 
 
 ' In the same manner I have also read with delight 
 and improvement your remarks upon broad-wheeled 
 waggons, in the Museum for last March : but why, 
 my good friend, do you bury such dissertations as yours 
 in blue-paper Periodical Essays? Or why rather do 
 you not throw them together in one book, or large 
 pamphlet"? I return you my best thanks for your 
 Technical Terms of Art in the Suffolk Husbandry, and 
 the provincial words, which latter, one time or other, 
 shall be considered by me in a more extensive and 
 critical view respecting the English language in general. 
 Many of these provincial words' are the truly classical 
 words of our nation. Some of them are elegant and 
 musical, and most of them in general express the sense 
 in their sound. In one word, from a thorough know- 
 ledge of the provincial words of our language, one might 
 venture to explain Shakespear, B. Jonson, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, &c., better and safer than all his editors 
 and conjectural critics. If you have a friend tolerably 
 
 ' Here is an illustration. The Suffolk husbandman's afternoon 
 collation is invariably called ' beaver.' In Nares' Glossary we find, 
 ' Bever, from the Sp. and It. : an intermediate refreshment between 
 breakfast and dinner.' ' Without any prejudice to their bevers, drink- 
 ings, and suppers.' — B. ami Fletcher, ' The Woman Hater.'
 
 38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 skilled in husbandry, who lives in any part of England 
 except the southern and western, be so obliging to me 
 as to solicit his assistance, and convey the list of words 
 to me ; for by what I have before suggested, you see I 
 have views that extend beyond husbandry. 
 
 ' When you go to London, will you not be tempted 
 to make a flying excursion to Bath ? 'Tis a digression, 
 but it can hardly be called an episode. If I have any skill, 
 or knowledge of the world, Mrs. Allen's conversation 
 alone will indemnify you for your trouble, and that 
 most amply. He also who subscribes his name to this 
 letter has a private ambition to be better known to you 
 than upon paper 
 
 * I am, dear Sir, your most obedient and most 
 
 humble servant, 
 
 ' W. Harte.' 
 
 ' Kintbury, Berks : May 7, 1765. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — If gratitude did not operate strongly 
 upon me (and that towards a friend whom I never 
 saw but hope to see, know, and cultivate his friendship) 
 I should not trouble you with another letter so quick 
 upon the heels of my last from Windsor ; but finding 
 by chance here, in a lone village, the Museum Eusticum, 
 I see you have done justice to the Essays on Hus- 
 bandry. I wash they had half the merit which your 
 partiality to the author fancies they have. 
 
 ' In the main particular you have spoken exactly my 
 private sentiments. When I write for the instruction 
 and amusement of Cuddy and Lohhin and Clout in 
 matters of husbandry I will also publish a supple-
 
 FAEMINCt and MAEELA.GE 39 
 
 mental essay on the art of piish-pin/ stylo puerili. 
 Who would write for farmers, who perhaps cannot 
 read, or who, I am sure, will never try to read "? 
 Were I condemned to this punishment I would desire 
 my footman to hold the pen — and even then what would 
 such critics say? They would find fault with 
 inelegance and want of propriety in the work. They 
 bring to my mind an anecdote which de Voltaire once 
 told me of his father (by the way, Voltaire put the 
 incident into a farce, and was disinherited for it) . The 
 peevish old gentleman said one morning when his son 
 rose from bed at about 11 o'clock : "Young man, you 
 were drunk last night ; you vdll sleep away your senses, 
 neglect your studies, and die a beggar." Piqued at this 
 reproach, Voltaire got up at 4 next morning, and by 
 the by it was in winter. " Son," said his father at 
 breakfast, " you vnW ruin us in the expenses of fire 
 and candle. All your draggle-tailed Muses vnll never 
 indemnify us with the wood-merchant and chandler." 
 This is a just picture of a reviewing Critic or a Mago. 
 
 ' Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nolo ? 
 
 ' As to the Museum Rusticum (your writings in it 
 excepted) I know nothing of the authors, but look 
 upon it (as I am now speaking to you sub sigillo 
 silentii) as a blue-paper job. Books in this age are a 
 manufacture as much as hats or pins. The bookseller 
 chooses a subject and the author writes at 10s. a sheet. 
 It is probable that one man in a garret, who does not 
 know a blade of wheat from a blade of barley, writes 
 
 ' ' A child's game, in which pins are pushed alternately.' — Webster.
 
 40 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 half the letters from the 'Kentish man,' 'Yorkshire 
 man,' ' Glocester man,' &c. And perhaps the same 
 hand, in the notes, signs with all the letters in the 
 alphabet. Perhaps this very man Eocque (I speak 
 only from conjecture), for I observe the whole work has 
 a tendency to favour this avanturier in agriculture. I 
 declare to you seriously that I know nothing of its 
 authors, you excepted. Might it not be better if you 
 kept your admirable tracts by you, and to those you 
 have already published, so much to your honour, you 
 may add such occasional pieces as you shall afterwards 
 write, and let them all appear together in a volume 
 which might be entitled Sylvae,' or occasional tracts 
 on husbandry and rural economics. I would have all 
 books on husbandry, if possible, pocket volumes, that 
 one may read in the fields, &c. In short, I would print 
 it in a beautiful duodecimo as du Hamel does ; you have 
 written enough already to make one such volume, or 
 nearly. However, there must be some new things in 
 this work ; doubtless you have the plan of more tracts 
 by you. If you read French I would recommend a 
 charming idea to you in this enclosing age, namely a 
 little 12mo. called " L' amelioration des Terres," by 
 Patulle. In that work are plans, and also the manner 
 of throwing a square tract of ground of three or four 
 hundred acres, &c., into an ornamented farm, or, as the 
 French call it, ferine ornee : the house and buildings 
 in the centre ; the fields are square, the hedges quick 
 set, and the owner may command with his eye, and 
 almost with his voice, everybody and thing he is 
 
 ' Included in A Farmer'' s Letters.
 
 FAKMING AND MARRIAGE 41 
 
 concerned with. If j'OU cannot get the book (though 
 you certainly may at Vaillant's) I will send you mine. 
 ' Adieu, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate and obliged friend, 
 
 ' Walter Harte.' 
 
 'Barton Street, Bath : Oct. 16, 1766. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — My wretched state of health must be 
 my just excuse for being so bad a correspondent. I 
 owe you an answer to a letter of yours which was 
 equally kind and long, and that answer is now of near a 
 quarter of a year's standing ; not but that I think of 
 you and my honoured friend at Lynn almost every 
 day of my life. Pray inform me in your next how your 
 husbandry lucubrations go on in point of progress and 
 advancement ? I will be responsible for their good 
 taste and accuracy. You are like the Matinian bee 
 mentioned by Horace, which gathers more fragrance 
 from a few sprigs of thyme than others can do from the 
 stately lilac and larch trees. You gave me some hopes 
 that my ever honoured friend at Worcester should 
 convey to me, from you, some manuscript dissertations 
 on agriculture, but I have been so unhappy as to know 
 no more of them than of the lost books of Liv3^ In 
 the course of the winter you will see an octavo volume 
 of religious poems intituled the " Amaranth," adorned 
 with very fine sculptures from the designs of the 
 greatest masters, and executed by an artist of my 
 own forming, who never appeared before in a public 
 capacity, except on my Essays on Husbandry. The 
 poetry I hope will prove that I have been bred up in
 
 42 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 the school of Pope, and I hope the disciple will retain 
 something at least of the manner of the master. 
 "When you see Mrs. Allen you will impart this little 
 anecdote to her, because I am not yet quite clear 
 whether I shall prefix my name or not. 
 
 '1 am, dear Sir, &c., &c., 
 
 'Walter Harte. 
 
 ' P.S. — I have just had a visit from my old friend 
 the Marquis of Eockingham, who (to say truth) loves 
 husbandry as much as you or I do, and is, besides, an 
 excellent judge of it speculatively and practically.' 
 
 ' Bath : Nov. 24, 1766. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I received safely by coach your manu- 
 script, which shall be perused with all the accuracy of 
 friendship, after having turned partiality out of doors. 
 My impatience about whatever concerns you has 
 already made me read a part of youi work, and enables 
 me to prophesy well concerning it. Pray be not fearful 
 about the execution of 5^our plan, which seems to me a 
 good one ; authors must be careful but not fearful ; we 
 have a proverb in husbandry (as old, I think, as 
 Henry VII. 's time), which deserves to be written in 
 letters of gold : " He that's afraid of a blade of grass 
 must not sleep in a meadow." 
 
 ' I like one part of yom- manuscript exceedingly ; it is 
 in truth the only thing wanted, and yet the only thing 
 too often omitted, I mean the idea and calculation of 
 the outgoing expenses. M. Patulle felt this as fully as 
 you do, and as good wit will jump, hit upon a part of
 
 FAEMING AND MAREIAGE 43 
 
 your plan. You therefore must see that book, as the 
 French say, coute que coitte ; I have, I believe, almost 
 the only copy in England, which shall be conveyed to 
 you in a week's time. 
 
 ' I am, dearest Sir, 
 
 ' Your affectionate friend, 
 
 'Walter Harte.' 
 
 Mr. Harte published a volume of religious poems 
 called * Amaranth,' which he sent me. He took great 
 pains about the decoration of this book by a young 
 artist of his own forming, but it had no success. 
 
 In 1766 my daughter Mary was born, and I remained 
 at Bradfield, with the exception of several journeys to 
 Lynn.
 
 44 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LIVING, 1767-1775 
 
 Home travels — A move — Anecdote of a cat — Disillusion — ' A Farmer's 
 Letters ' — Another move — ' In the full blaze of her beauty ' — Hetty 
 Burney and her harpsichord — 'Scant in servants' — Maternal 
 solicitude — Money difficulties — More tours — Lord Sheffield — Howard 
 the philanthropist — Correspondence. 
 
 DuEiNG this year I executed that journey, the register 
 of which I pubHshed under the title of a ' Six Weeks' 
 Tour,' in which, for the first time, the facts and prin- 
 ciples of Norfolk husbandry were laid before the public, 
 and which have since become famous in the agricul- 
 tural world. Till my work appeared nothing of 
 that husbandry was known beyond the county. The 
 publication excited great interest, and became unques- 
 tionably the origin of many and great improvements 
 in various parts of the kingdom. I scarcely went into 
 any company in which it was not mentioned. Had 
 I better understood the art of husbandry it might, 
 perhaps, have been well for me. Finding that a 
 mixture of families was inconsistent with comfortable 
 living, I determined to quit Bradfield, and advertised 
 in the London papers for such a house and farm as 
 would suit my views and fortune, that is to say, one 
 thousand pounds which I received with my wife, the
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LIVING 45 
 
 remainder being settled upon her. I fixed upon a 
 very fine farm in Essex called Samford Hall ; there I 
 worked with incredible avidity both in the agricultural 
 and literary department. I remember once to have 
 written a quire of foolscap in one day ! The work was 
 entitled ' PoUtical Essays on the Present State of the 
 British Empire.' 
 
 And here I may mention a singular instance of 
 animal sagacity. The gentleman who gave up the 
 house to me was a Mr. Farquharson. His wife had a 
 favourite cat which, upon their removal, was put into a 
 sack and carried away with the furniture from Essex 
 to Yatesby Bridge in Hampshire. I was surprised in 
 about five or six days to see poor puss again at Samford 
 Hall ; nearly at the same time a letter was received 
 from Mrs. Farquharson lamenting her loss, but doubting 
 the possibility of the cat having returned to its original 
 home. The circumstance is astonishing, and shows 
 an instinct almost incredible, for the animal must have 
 travelled seventy miles and threaded the Metropolis. 
 
 My landlord, a Mr. Lamb, was a King's messenger. 
 He had formerly been, I believe, butler or valet de 
 chambre to the Duke of Leeds, and gave me many 
 accounts of the journeys he had made to Petersburg, 
 Constantinople, Naples, &c., profiting by every journey 
 very considerably, as he expended much less in tra- 
 velling than was allowed by Government. I write 
 from memory, but I think he said that a journey to 
 Petersburg or Constantinople paid him a neat profit 
 of a hundred guineas. 
 
 This speculation turned out a bitter disappointment.
 
 46 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 I trusted to the promise of a relative to lend me some 
 money, making, with what I possessed, sufficient for 
 the undertaking. But he was himself disappointed of 
 the money, and I clearly foresaw that an insufficient 
 capital would infallibly cramp me in such a manner as 
 to render all my efforts very uncomfortable and perhaps 
 vain. I determined to make a short cut and get rid of 
 it immediately, which I did at the end of six months at 
 no further loss than of 1001. This was a lesson of 
 some use to me at subsequent periods of my life, and 
 taught me early to distinguish between certainty and 
 probabilities. 
 
 Arthur Young to his Wife 
 
 ' Tuesday : 1767.' 
 ' My Dearest, — I am much in hopes I shall have a 
 letter from you to-morrow ; if I have not it will be a 
 great disappointment ; for when you don't write in huffs 
 your letters are my only comfort. I went to Yeldham's 
 this morning, but he, according to custom, was out, and 
 will not be home of some days ; it will be Saturday 
 before I can see him. How this terrible affair will end 
 I cannot conjecture, nor what I am to do. The most 
 miserable circumstance of all is the being in such 
 suspense and anxiety. It absolutely stupefies me, and 
 I am forced to pin myself down to writing without the 
 soul for anything but mere copying. I would give my 
 right hand that I had never seen this place, but such 
 reflections only make one the more miserable ; and the 
 
 ' ' We -were married more than two years.' [Note by A. Y.]
 
 rx SEAECH OF A LIVING 47 
 
 thoughts at the same time of what you feel with a 
 young child to suckle hurt me more than I can express 
 in a word ; we shall both be capitally miserable till we 
 are fixed somewhere on a certainty, and when that w^ll 
 be Heaven knows. I had infinitely rather live in a 
 cottage upon bread and cheese than drag on the 
 anxious existence I do at present. Whichever way I 
 turn my thoughts I see no remedy, nor know who can 
 advise me what step to take. I know not which is best 
 myself, I am sure, for everyone depends so on con- 
 tingencies that sagacity itself cannot foresee the conse- 
 quences of all. An ill star rose on my nativity ; had I 
 never been born it would have been just so much the 
 better for me, for you, and our wretched children. If 
 anybody was to knock me on the head it would 
 be a trifling favour done to you all three, for most 
 assuredly no good will ever come from mj- hands. 
 
 ' Adieu ! I have scribbled out the paper to but little 
 
 purpose. 
 
 ' A. Y.' 
 
 The gentleman who assisted me in getting rid of 
 this nuisance was a Mr. Yeldham. I am sure the 
 reader will peruse with gratification the following 
 letter (given in part) : — 
 
 ' Saling : Dec. 10, 1768. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — Your obliging present of lampreys and 
 more obliging letter of the 7th came safe to my 
 hands, as did your books and Westphalia ham. I assure 
 you I thought myself amply rewarded for the service 
 I did you in Essex by the present of your work on
 
 48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNa 
 
 agriculture, and everything beyond that was unneces- 
 sary and the result of your generosity. Give me leave to 
 return j^ou my respectful thanks, and to assure you that 
 in the twenty-six years I have had transactions with 
 mankind, and whenever in my power have endeavoured 
 to assist as many as I could, I have scarce ever met 
 with so much gratitude as you have shown. It will 
 not be in my power ever again to do you any acceptable 
 service, but for your sake I shall be more ready to do a 
 kind office than ever ; so if I mended your fortune by 
 helping you off a hurtful contract, you will mend my 
 heart by making me more in love with mankind, and 
 more ready to seek opportunities of being useful. 
 
 ' I have often heard of the fine husbandry of the 
 North. If such things as you speak of are to be had 
 every day, why are North Country farmers so poor ? 
 Here we give from ten to fifteen shillings per acre for 
 lands not a whit better than you can have in the North 
 for a penny. We get estates and live like gentlemen ; 
 North Country farmers are poor and live worse than 
 our labourers. These are allowed truths, but utterly 
 irreconcilable to the small share of reason I possess. 
 All our good farmers can lay up from one to two years' 
 rent of their farms in common years, after paying the 
 landlord, the parson, the poor, servants' wages, &c. &c. 
 Were the North Country farms in the least comparable 
 should not we hear of it ? Would not some of us get 
 farther from the capital for the sake of profit ? Our 
 mercantile people ramble all over the world for gain, so 
 would the farmer could he find it ; and any distance 
 would be agreeable. There must, I think, be some-
 
 IN SEAKCH OF A LIVING 49 
 
 thing in the distant counties' prices which counter- 
 balances the cheapness of the land and labour. I 
 heartily wish you success and comfort in all your 
 undertakings, and that Bradmore Farm may produce 
 corn, wine, and oil in abundance. 
 
 ' Mrs. Yeldham joins in compliments to you and 
 
 Mrs. Young. 
 
 ' I remain, dear Sir, &c. &c., 
 
 'John Yeldham.' 
 
 My correspondence with Mr. Harte continued. 
 It gave me pain to find that his health greatly declined. 
 He was a cripple at Bath, but the disorders of his 
 body seemed little to affect the vigour of his mind. 
 He spoke very flatteringly of the reception of my 
 'Farmer's Letters.' 'I am amazed,' he writes, 'that 
 you have so soon and so easily acquired the hardest 
 point in all writing — namely, perspicuity and ease of 
 style.' And elsewhere, 'Your letter addressed to my 
 Lord Clive on an experimental farm is new, spirited 
 and pleasing, but I fear he has not a spark of the 
 divina aura in him. I have shown your pamphlet to 
 the best judge in England, my Lord Chesterfield, who 
 is now here. He likes it extremely, and vows if he was 
 young and rich enough he would carry your scheme 
 into execution.' 
 
 From Samford Hall I moved, in 1768, to another 
 farm at North Mimms, in Hertfordshire. I had scarcely 
 settled here before my bookseller united with many 
 correspondents in urging me to take another tour. I 
 accordingly travelled through the north of England, 
 
 E
 
 50 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNa 
 
 registering so many observations, and noting the experi- 
 ments of such a number of gentlemen, that the record of 
 the whole, with the necessary remarks, filled four octavo 
 volumes, and enabled me to present the public with 
 interesting agricultural details never before published. 
 I may assert this without vanity, because the real merit 
 belonged to those who furnished me with the informa- 
 tion ; and the success of the work was so great that 
 the first edition was sold almost as soon as it appeared. 
 In the ' Six Weeks' Tour ' I visited but few gentlemen, 
 and consequently witnessed but few experiments. On 
 the ' Northern Journey ' the case was very different, 
 and the number of trials reported on a variety of soils 
 were great and interesting. I spent some time with 
 my friend, Mr. Ellerton, of Eisby, in the East Eiding ; 
 he accompanied me to York races and on a visit of 
 several days to the Marquis of Eockingham, who had 
 previously to the journey invited me to see him, and 
 pointed out a number of persons proper for me to visit. 
 Amongst the company at Wentworth was Mr. Danby, 
 of Swinton, and his daughter,' then in the full blaze 
 of her beauty. My Lord Eockingham overheard her 
 speaking to me and using the expression ' amazingly 
 fine turnips.' ' So, so, Mr. Young,' said his lordship, 
 ' you are getting farming intelligence of Miss Danby ; 
 the lady must let us hear more of those fine turnips.' ^ 
 His lordship ordered me into an apartment, in a closet 
 
 ' ' The Mashamshire Molly,' afterwards Countess of Harcourt. 
 
 2 It must be remembered that turnips were a comparative novelty at 
 this date, not being cultivated as food for cattle till the latter part of the 
 last century.
 
 IX SEAECH OF A LIVING 51 
 
 of which was a considerable collection of ancient and 
 curious books on agriculture, which he pointed out for 
 my amusement when I had time to consult them. 
 There was one circumstance which seemed very 
 awkward to me at Wentworth, the necessity of every 
 person always having his hat under his arm, a hint of 
 which Lord K. gave me on my arrival, and I saw the 
 want of it in one or two new comers, who, when the 
 horses were brought to the door, had a journey to make 
 through the house before they could find their hats. 
 From Wentworth I went to the Duke of Portland's 
 and others, and afterwards examined a great part of 
 the county of York with much attention, everywhere 
 being received in a very flattering manner. 
 
 This year I made many visits to my friend. Dr. 
 Burney, in Poland Street, to whom my wife's sister was 
 married, and whose daughter Hester (by a former 
 marriage) entertained, or rather, fascinated me, by her 
 performance on the harpsichord and singing of Italian 
 airs. I was never tired of listening to the ' Ah, quelli 
 occhi ladroncelli,' and 'Alia larga,' of Piccini,' and it is 
 marvellous to me now to recollect that I was thus 
 riveted to her side for six hours together. 
 
 During this year my daughter Bessy was born, 
 and the second edition of my ' Farmer's Letters ' 
 published. 
 
 1769. — My son Arthur born. The whole of this year 
 I passed at North Mimms, very well received and 
 visited in that thronged neighbourhood. The Duke of 
 Leeds, who lived in the parish, condescended to make 
 
 ' Nicolo Piccini, 1728-1800, composer of the opera Zinohie, &c. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 overtures with a view to my acquaintance. Sir Charles 
 Cocks, afterwards Lord Somers, if I do not mistake the 
 year, did the same, and often drank tea with me ; also 
 Dr. Roper and his wife Lady Harriet. He was a man 
 of great learning, and she a most amiable woman, free 
 from all pride and affectation. I also often met Lady 
 Mary Mordaunt at two or three houses, and her sister 
 Lady Frances Bulhely, with whom she lived ; with the 
 former I had something of a flirtation and lent her 
 many books ; she was rather handsome and very 
 agreeable. I was elected member of a dining club at 
 Hatfield, and became acquainted with Samuel Whitbread, 
 Esq. M.P.,' and Mr. Justice Willes from East Barnet. 
 I was very well received by Mrs. Willes, a fine lady, 
 and rather fantastical. They were both vain people, 
 and I remember one day at dinner Judge Willes saying 
 to his wife, ' My dear, I think we are rather scant in 
 servants ' — yet there was one to every chair and some to 
 spare. She was making an ornamental path round the 
 homestead, and asked my advice in several difficulties. 
 During this year Prince Massalski, Bishop of Wilna, 
 wrote me a long French letter on the agricultural 
 prosperity of England. He afterwards passed two 
 days with me in Hertfordshire, an agreeable, well- 
 instructed man, who much lamented the miserable 
 state of his own country. 
 
 1770. — What a year of incessant activity, composi- 
 tion, anxiety and wretchedness was this ! No carthorse 
 ever laboured as I did at this period, spending like an 
 
 ' Samuel Whitbread, son of a gi'eat brewer, distinguished in Parlia- 
 mentary life as a vigorous assailant of Pitt ; committed suicide 1815.
 
 IN SEAKCH OF A LIVING 53 
 
 idiot, always in debt, in spite of what I earned ' with the 
 sweat of my brow and almost my heart's blood, such 
 was my anxiety ; yet all was clearly vexation of spirit. 
 Well might my dear mother write to me as she did. I 
 trusted in an unparalleled industry, but not in God ; 
 and see how He brought it all to nought, as if to con- 
 vince me of my supreme folly and infatuation. My old 
 Suffolk bailiff was the channel through which I ran into 
 debt to the Bury banker by a series of drawing bills, 
 one to pay another, till the plan became so obvious that 
 he cut short and refused to accept any more. I had 
 run near a thousand pounds into his debt, and it was 
 necessary for me to go over directly to Bury to see 
 what could be done to pacify him. He was at his 
 country seat at Trosston. Thither I followed him, and, 
 with great difficulty, persuaded him to have patience, 
 under a promise that I would make arrangements to pay 
 him very speedily. This I did with difficulty, and I 
 scarcely recollect how. I shall, in the first place, note 
 that the Eastern Tour was accomplished, the journal of 
 which was afterwards published in four volumes. In 
 the preface I returned thanks to those who contributed 
 to my information, and in the number were many 
 most distinguished personages amongst the nobility and 
 gentrj' in the counties through which I travelled, with 
 numerous distinguished farmers. 
 
 It is necessary here to pause a little in order to 
 examine the object and the effect of the three tours I 
 made and published. They have, by the very best 
 
 ' Entry in memorandum-book of this year : ' The year's receipts, 
 1,167Z.'
 
 54 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNG- 
 
 judges, been esteemed highly useful to practical agricul- 
 turists, and unquestionably they are equally so for the 
 information they afford in political economy : they have 
 accordingly, in these views, been celebrated ' in almost 
 every language of Europe. When a work appears, the 
 object and execution of which are equally novel and 
 unexampled, it is not surprising that a certain measure 
 of success should attend such a work. Nothing in the 
 least similar to it had before appeared in the English 
 language ; for though there had been a tour of Great 
 Britain, and other tours through great part of the king- 
 dom, yet all these works agreed in one circumstance — 
 that of the authors confining their attention absolutely 
 to towns and seats, without paying any more thought 
 to agriculture than if that art had ho existence between 
 the towns they visited. Indeed my work was admitted 
 on all hands to be perfectly original. In regard to the 
 practical husbandry of the farmers, and the experimental 
 observations of the gentlemen I visited, the utility of 
 these could not be doubted. When a Lord Chancellor 
 of England, amusing himself with husbandry, read the 
 English works on that subject for information, and 
 burnt them as affording him nothing but contradictions, 
 without doubt he complained that these writers did not 
 describe the common management of the farmers, and 
 on that management founding their propositions of 
 improvement. But the fact was, and it must be, in the 
 nature of things, writers confined to their closets, or, at 
 most, to a single farm, could not describe what it was 
 impossible for them to know ; and before the appearance 
 
 ' Sic in author's MS. ; 'translated' would seem to be the word.
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LIVING 55 
 
 of my tours there was scarcely a district in the kingdom 
 described in such a manner as to convince the reader 
 that the authors had any practical knowledge of the art ; 
 for a man to quit his farm and his fireside in order to 
 examine the husbandry of a kingdom by travelling above 
 four thousand miles through a country of no greater 
 extent than England was certainly taking means 
 sufficiently effective for laying a sure basis for the 
 future improvement of the soil. To understand well 
 the present state of cultivation is surely a necessary 
 step prior to proposals of improvement. This I effected ; 
 and in the opinion of some very able agriculturists now 
 living, the greatest of the subsequent improvements 
 that have been made during the last forty years have, 
 in a great measure, originated in the defects pointed 
 out by me in the detail of these journeys. 
 
 I shall venture to insert one anecdote which occurred 
 in the Northern Tour. At Mr. Danby's, at Swinton in 
 Yorkshire, I met a very uncommon instance of extra- 
 ordinary industry in a collier, who improved some 
 waste moors by the labour of his own hands beside his 
 common hours of working in the colliery. He had so 
 animated a spirit of improvement that I thought it a 
 great pity that he should be left without better support ; 
 and therefore I proposed a subscription for him, which 
 raised in all about 1001., and Mr. Danby, his landlord, 
 releasing him from his colliery, he was enabled to 
 extend his improvements with much more comfort to 
 himself. After a few years he died, leaving his farm 
 for the benefit of his family. He shortened his life, 
 poor fellow, by his industry. 
 
 This year I was obliged to decline an invitation
 
 56 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 from Lord Holdernesse to accompany him to Hornby 
 Castle. Upon informing my mother of the refusal, she, 
 with her ever watchful kindness concerning my interests, 
 wrote thus : ' I am extremely sorry that you refused 
 Lord Holdernesse's invitation; it was an opportunity 
 you may never have again, for when favours that great 
 people oifer are refused, they seldom, if ever, make a 
 second ; it is very extraordinary indeed if they do. He 
 is as likely to be one in the Administration as any other, 
 for since Lady H. is one of the Ladies of the Queen's 
 Bedchamber it is not likely that he [Lord H.] will be long 
 out of post ; and who knows ? you might have found 
 favour in his sight. I fear as long as my poor eyes are 
 open I shall never want for something relating to your 
 welfare to vex me extremely, which I must own is a great 
 weakness. As to the regard of this world, thank God I 
 do often reflect on the shortness of every earthly felicity, 
 a misery compared with the duration of hereafter, and 
 I am fully convinced that on God all events depend. 
 I can't help transcribing a few lines out of a book you 
 know little of. \_Here folloio scriptural texts.'] Thank 
 God, I don't owe five pounds in the world, not that I 
 brag of being free from debt as owing to any merit to 
 me, for I am far from thinking an5^thing like it ; no, it 
 is to the mercy and goodness of God who has given me 
 a comfortable provision for the situation I am in, and 
 in a better I don't desire to be, for a little with God's 
 blessing goes much farther than a great deal without 
 it. You may call all this rubbish if you please, but a 
 time will come when you will be convinced whose 
 notions are rubbish, yours or mine.'
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LIVING 57 
 
 I here insert another letter from my mother, at the 
 risk of being taxed with personal vanity : — 
 
 ' I had a letter yesterday from yom: brother, in 
 which was a paragraph that I think will give yon a 
 little pleasure. It is as follows : " I find that Arthur 
 has printed lately a pamphlet on the ' Exportation 
 of Corn.' A gentleman who came from the Drawing 
 Room yesterday told me that the King asked him 
 whether he had read Mr. Young's pamphlet on the 
 subject, and commended it." Oh, dear ! how pleasing 
 it is to have the approbation of a King, even though 
 we never get sixpence by it. And j'et how few are 
 desirous of the approbation of the King ; yet they may 
 be sure of it if they sincerely try, and can never fail 
 of being well rewarded, both in this world and the 
 next. Oh ! Arthur, with what capacities are you 
 endowed — with what advantages for being greatly 
 good ! But with the talents of an angel a man may 
 be a fool if he judges amiss on the supreme point.' 
 
 1771.' — The same unremitting industry, the same 
 anxiety, the same vain hopes, the same perpetual dis- 
 appointment. No happiness, nor anything like it. 
 
 This year I published the third edition of the 
 ' Farmer's Letters,' the second edition of the ' Northern 
 Tour,' the ' Farmer's Calendar,' my ' Proposals for 
 Numbering the People ' — the occasion of which was 
 the Earl of Chatham's words : ' When I compare the 
 number of our people — estimated highl}^ at seven - 
 
 ' In a memorandum-book occurs the following entry : ' 1771. — 
 Receipts, 697Z. ; expenses, 3G0/. — I know not how.' 
 
 -' Estimated population of England and Wales in 1770. 7,428,000.— 
 Haydjfs Dictionary of Dates.
 
 58 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNa 
 
 millions — with the population of France and Spain, 
 usually computed at twenty-five millions, I see a clear, 
 self-evident possibility for this country to contend with 
 the united powers of the House of Bourbon merely 
 upon the strength of its own resources.' I conceived 
 that to draw such political principles for the national 
 conduct from a mere supposition of population was a 
 doctrine tending to very mischievous errors. I there- 
 fore was convinced that an actual enumeration of the 
 people ought to take place. Nothing, however, was 
 done at the time, but thirty years afterwards ^ the 
 Legislature was of the same opinion, and not till then 
 were the numbers ascertained.' 
 
 This year I began my correspondence with Mr. 
 John Baker Holroyd,^ afterwards so well known for his 
 literary productions as Lord Sheffield. In his first 
 letter, dated March 1771, he mentions his wish that I 
 should forward some cabbage seed, and hopes that 
 I may be the means of introducing the culture of 
 cabbages into that neighbourhood (Sussex), but adds — 
 what must now appear singular — that the very extra- 
 ordinary scarcity of hands cramps him very much. 
 ' All the lively, able young men are employed in 
 smuggling. They can have a guinea a week as riders 
 and carriers without any risk ; therefore it is not to 
 be expected that they will labour for eight shillings 
 a week until some more effectual means are taken to 
 prevent smuggling.' 
 
 I had also a letter from the deservedly celebrated 
 
 ' The first census was taken in 1801. 
 
 - 1740-1821. The friend and editor of Gibbon.
 
 IN SEARCH OF A LIVING 59 
 
 philanthropist, John Howard, with a basket of his 
 American potatoes, afterwards known under the name 
 of 'the Howard and duster potatoes.' He added: 
 ' Permit me, sir, to offer my thanks for the entertain- 
 ment of your very ingenious and useful labours, and 
 the honour you did me in the mention of my name.' 
 
 1772.— Published 'Pohtical Essays on the British 
 Empire,' * Present State of Waste Lands.' A third 
 edition of the ' Six Weeks' Tour ' was also published. 
 
 This year I attended very much the meetings 
 of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,' Manu- 
 factures and Commerce, as well as the Committee of 
 Agriculture,^ of which I was Chairman. In a letter 
 from Mr. Butterworth Bayley, he lamented the want 
 of a respectable publication by the Society of Arts, 
 and called on me to think of some means of remedying 
 the misery (sic). When I became Chairman of the 
 Committee of Agriculture, I was the first to propose 
 that annual publication which afterwards took place. 
 This proposition was at once acceded to, and Valentine 
 Green, the engraver, had the impudence to assert that 
 it originated with him. 
 
 This year T visited Samuel Whitbread, Esq., at 
 Cardington, in Bedfordshire, and as Mr. Howard, who 
 afterwards became so celebrated for his philanthropy, 
 lived in the same parish, Mr. W. took me to call upon 
 him one morning. He was esteemed a singular 
 character, but was at that time quite unknown in the 
 
 ' Founded 1751, mainly owing to the efforts of ^Ir. Shipley and Lord 
 Folkestone. 
 
 ^ This evidently depended on the Society of Arts.
 
 60 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 world. He was then only famous for introducing a 
 new series of potatoes into cultivation. We found him 
 in a parlour, without books or apparently any employ- 
 ment, dressed as for an evening in London — a powdered 
 bag wig, white silk stockings, thin shoes, and every 
 other circumstance of his habiliments excluding the 
 possibility of a country walk. He was rather prag- 
 matical in his speech, very polite, but expressing 
 himself in a manner that seemed to belong to two 
 hundred years ago. I asked Mr. Whitbread if Mr. 
 Howard was usually thus dressed and confined to his 
 room, for he was as intimate with Whitbread as with 
 anybody. He had never seen him otherwise, he said, 
 but added that he was a sensible man and a very 
 worthy one. 
 
 At this time I published my ' Political Essays on 
 the Present State of Affairs in the British Empire,' 
 also the third edition of the ' Six Weeks' Tour.' 
 Comber's ' Keal Improvements in Agriculture on the 
 Principles of A. Young, Esq.,' was likewise printed. 
 Comber was afterwards deeply engaged in the ' Monthly 
 Review,' and belaboured me with all the abuse he 
 could accumulate. I published also a tract enti- 
 tled ' The Present State of Waste Lands in Great 
 Britain.' 
 
 In March, Mr. Allen, my wife's brother, an alder- 
 man of Lynn, applied to the Earl of Orford to procure 
 for me an establishment in some public of&ce, and his 
 Lordship wrote to Lord North on the subject. In his 
 reply the latter spoke of me as one ' whose very 
 ingenious and useful writings point out as a very
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LIVING 61 
 
 proper object of notice and reward.' It was an appli- 
 cation for a King's waiter's ^ place, a sinecure. 
 
 At this time I was so distressed that I had serious 
 thoughts of quitting the kingdom - and going to 
 America. Surelj' the three last years ought to have 
 convinced me, had I not l^een worse than an idiot, of 
 the vanity and folly of my expenses, and how utterly 
 all comfort and happiness must fly such pursuits. 
 Feeling a force and vigour of mind in myself erroneously, 
 I trusted in them. As to God, I lived without Him in 
 the world, and had not a companion that could bring 
 me to Him. But my mother, my ever dear mother, 
 wrote in vain to me ; her advice was not listened to. 
 She tried to bring me to a right sense of religion, 
 which would have conferred that peace and content 
 which flew before my vain pursuits. 
 
 Dr. Hunter,^ of York, wrote to me this year on the 
 Georgical Essays, and on carrots and their conversion 
 into a confection for the use of seamen, of which he 
 entertained great expectations. ' I received much 
 pleasure,' he wrote, * from the perusal of your Eastern 
 Tour, and could not help expressing uneasiness at the 
 rancorous treatment of the monthly reviewers. We 
 are all open to fair and candid criticism, but when 
 
 ' King's waiter. I have not been able to discover the precise 
 nature of this sinecure. 
 
 - ' Mr. Young is not well, and appears almost overcome with the 
 horrors of his situation ; in fact, he is almost destitute. This is a 
 dreadful trial for him, yet I am persuaded he will find some means 
 of extricating himself from his distress — at least, if genius, spirit, and 
 enterprise can prevail.' — Early Diaries of Faiuuj Durney. 
 
 ^ Dr. Alexander Hunter, died 1809, editor of Evelyn's Sylva, and 
 author of Georgical Essays, ' an able and esteemed work ' (Lowndes).
 
 62 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 there is the least spark of resentment seen it then 
 ceases to be criticism, and deserves another name. I 
 propose to finish the Georgical Essays, with two more 
 volmnes, in 1773. My own natural avocations will 
 not permit me in future to be anything but an editor ; 
 I wish I had leisure to prosecute so agreeable a study. 
 I have, however, some satisfaction in seeing the art (of 
 agriculture) improve under your hands, and hope that 
 nothing will prevail upon you to withdraw yourself 
 from the public. I have, this year, a large experiment 
 with onions and carrots. These vegetables have not 
 hitherto been cultivated in the field in th^s country. 
 Besides the application of carrots for horses and hogs, 
 I am persuaded that they may be converted by a cheap 
 process into a confection for the use of seamen. This, 
 and the last year's experiments, convince me of the 
 practicability of the scheme, and next year I propose 
 to ship a considerable quantity for the above purpose. 
 The expense is small, and my expectations are great.' 
 
 1773. — Here began a new career of industry, ill- 
 exerted, of new hopes and never-failing disappoint- 
 ments, labour and sorrow, folly and infatuation, which 
 it is scarcely possible for a man, turned into the world 
 without business or profession, to escape, and it affords 
 a most impressive lesson to all parents to be almost as 
 ready to hang their children as to bring them up 
 without a regular profession. If I had been a country 
 curate with 501. a year, in addition to the income I 
 possessed, and had Uved in a quiet parsonage, the 
 probability of happiness would have been far greater. 
 The business of my farm at North Mimms was
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LIVING 63 
 
 insufficient to keep me employed, and the intercom'se I 
 constantly had with London I considered as a means 
 which should be turned to some account in the in- 
 crease of a most insufficient income ; in fact, I was in 
 a most uncomfortable state, which induced me to 
 listen to the proposals of a gentleman I met with — I 
 have quite forgotten whom — who informed me that the 
 ' Morning Post ' proprietors were in great want of 
 some person to report the debates in Parliament. In 
 consequence of this information I applied at their 
 office, and they very readily engaged me for a trial, to 
 see if I was able to perform the business they required. 
 This was done, and as they were well satisfied with 
 the manner in which the work was executed, I con- 
 tinued it at a salary, as well as I can recollect, of five 
 guineas a week. Every Saturday I walked seventeen 
 miles to my farm, and back again on the Monday 
 morning. This year I published my observations on 
 the present state of waste lands, which contained a 
 new idea of extreme importance in the mode of 
 working any great and effective improvement. In 
 most of the attempts that have been made by in- 
 dividuals to accomplish these meritorious works, there 
 generally appeared a weakness of effort and insuffi- 
 ciency of means, which prevented anything con- 
 siderable being effected, and the cause I justly 
 explained to be, a want of proportion between the 
 means and the end, not so much in a want of money 
 as in a most erroneous method of applying it. To raise 
 a set of buildings for a farm, with gradual additions to 
 the whole, and enclosing from the waste, field after
 
 64 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNa 
 
 field for improvement, with views merely of forming a 
 large farm, and keeping tlie whole in hand, demands so 
 large a capital that the succeeding languor of the 
 exertions has been evidently owing to want of money, 
 the capital being insufficient for the two distinct 
 objects of farming and improving. The novel idea 
 struck me that the whole capital in such cases should 
 be appropriated to improvements alone ; that no other 
 buildings should be raised than exactly sufficient for 
 such a small farm as lets most readily in the district — 
 and this, usually, is little more than a cottage, and 
 ten or twenty acres of grass round it. Hence I 
 proposed that an entire new farm should, after one 
 course of crops, be formed, and let, sold, or mortgaged 
 every year. In this mode of proceeding the farming 
 would be entirely subservient to the improvement, and 
 the capital would be constantly moving to fresh land. 
 I showed that a small sum of money, thus employed, 
 would gradually improve a great and increasing breadth 
 of waste ; whereas, if the same money was employed 
 in the common manner of farming and occupying a 
 larger farm, the space improved, after fifteen or twenty 
 years, would be trifling, and the profit very inferior. 
 My explanation of this system carries conviction with 
 it ; but the work appearing at a period when the 
 rapidity of my publications satiated the world, little or 
 no attention was paid to it. 
 
 1774. — I, this year, published on my own account 
 my political arithmetic, one of my best works, which 
 was immediately translated into many languages, and 
 highly commended in many parts of Europe. Judges
 
 IN SEAECH OF A LR'ING 65 
 
 of the subject here, as well as abroad, have considered 
 it as abounding in valuable information and the justest 
 views ; but, unfortunately, as in the case of my work 
 on waste lands, it followed so many other of my publi- 
 cations that little attention was paid to it, except by 
 thefeio who saw the importance of the subject, or who 
 were able to judge of the merit of the work. 
 
 The winter was passed in London in the same 
 employment as the preceding ; but I had become 
 known to so many men of science that several hinted 
 to me the propriety of my being a candidate for 
 election as a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, and my 
 recommendation as such being garnished with some 
 respectable names I was accordingly elected, which 
 adds the F.R.S. to my name. Once in conversation 
 with Dr. Burney on these elections, he said, ' No 
 matter, for that we have got our ends of them.' This 
 year I was elected an honorary member of the Palatine 
 Society of Agriculture established at Mannheim, also of 
 the Geographical Society of Florence. 
 
 1775. — This winter I spent in London. From 1766 
 to 1775 being ten years, I received 3,000Z., or 300/. a 
 year.
 
 66 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNQ 
 
 CHAPTEK IV 
 
 IRELAND, 1776-1778 
 
 The journey to Ireland — Characteristics — Residence at Mitchelstown — 
 Intrigues — A strange bargain — Departure — Letter to his wife — A 
 terrible journey. 
 
 The events which followed the close of this year 
 carried a better complexion than the preceding period, 
 and therefore I shall in general remark that the last 
 four or five years of my life had been detestable, my 
 employments degrading, my anxiety endless, every 
 effort unsuccessful, exertion always on the stretch, and 
 always disappointed in the result, uneasy at home, 
 unhappy abroad, existing with difficulty and struggling 
 to live, never out of debt, and never enjoying one 
 shilling that was spent. What would not a sensible, 
 quiet, prudent wife have done for me ? But had I so 
 behaved to God as to merit such a gift ? 
 
 The only pleasant moments that I passed were in 
 visits to my friend Arbuthnot ^ at Mitcham, whose 
 agriculture so near the capital brought good company 
 to his house. He was upon the whole the most agree- 
 able, pleasant and interesting connection which I ever 
 
 ' Appears to have been brother to the Hon. Robert Arbuthnot, third 
 son of John, Viscount Arbuthnot, whose death is recorded in the Annual 
 Register of 1801.
 
 lEELAND 67 
 
 made in agricultural pursuits. He was brother of the 
 present Rt. Honorable. 
 
 I had in 1775 determined on making the tour of 
 Ireland, to which the Earl of Shelburne ^ much insti- 
 gated me, and I corresponded with several persons on 
 the subject, who urged me much to that undertaking, 
 but I was obliged to postpone it to the following year. 
 The following is a note from Mr. Burke on the subject : — 
 
 ' Mr. Burke sends the covers with his best compli- 
 ments and wishes to Mr. Young. He would be very glad 
 to give Mr. Young recommendations to Ireland, but his 
 acquaintance there is almost worn out, Lord Charle- 
 mont and one or two more being all that he thinks 
 care a farthing for him. However, if letters to them 
 would be of any service to Mr. Young, Mr. B. would 
 with great pleasure write them.' 
 
 On June 19 of this year 1776 I embarked at Holy- 
 head for Ireland, and in consequence of this journey 
 through every part of the kingdom, produced in 1780 
 that tour which succeeded so well, and has been 
 reckoned among my best and most useful productions ; 
 and I have reason to believe had considerable effect in 
 enlightening the people of that country. I took with 
 me many letters of introduction, from the Earl of 
 Shelburne, Mr. Burke, and other persons of eminence 
 in England ; and on landing at Dublin, was imme- 
 diately introduced to Colonel Burton, afterwards Lord 
 Cunningham, aide-de-camp to the Earl of Harcourt, at 
 that time Lord Lieutenant, and well known to the whole 
 
 ' First Marquis of Lansdowne ; took part in Lord Chatham's 
 Ministry. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 kingdom. Colonel Burton, to whom I was more 
 indebted for letters of introduction than to any other 
 man in England, was a most remarkable character. 
 He had great care and elegance united with a measure 
 of roughness, which may be attributed to a sort of 
 personal courage which was apt to boil over. This led 
 him into many quarrels, and not a few duels, one of 
 which was fought across a table of no great length 
 from end to end, and, not strange to tell of in Ireland, 
 several of the party stood near enjoying the sport. He 
 was a true friend to the interests of Ireland, and far 
 more enlightened upon it than the greater part of well- 
 informed people to be found there. He made immense 
 exertions to improve the fisheries on his estate at 
 Donegal, but they were unsuccessful. He was respect- 
 able ^ for general knowledge, and possessed a great 
 flow of animated conversation. He carried me to Lord 
 Harcourt's villa at St. Woolstans, with whom I spent 
 some days ; and the Colonel arranged the plan of my 
 journey, giving me a multitude of letters to those who 
 were best able to afford valuable information. I kept 
 a private journal throughout the whole of this tour, in 
 which I minuted many anecdotes and circumstances 
 which occurred to me of a private nature, descriptive 
 of the manners of the people, which, had it been pre- 
 served, would have assisted greatly in drawing up these 
 papers ; but, unfortunately, it was lost, with all the 
 specimens of soils and minerals which I collected 
 throughout the whole kingdom. On returning to 
 England, I quitted my whisky ^ at Bath, and got into a 
 
 ' This use of the word as respectworthy is noticeable. 
 
 2 Whisky: a light carnage built for rapid motion. — Webster.
 
 lEELAND 69 
 
 stage, and sent a new London servant, the only one I 
 had, thither to bring the horse and chaise to London, 
 and the trunk containing these things. The fellow was 
 a rascal, stole the trunk, and pretended that he had 
 lost it on the road ; in addition to the loss was the 
 torment of hunting him out (for he went away directly) 
 through London for punishment. With great difficulty 
 I found him, and serving a w^arrant upon him, carried 
 him to Bow Street, where Fielding the magistrate at 
 once dismissed the complaint, it being only a breach of 
 trust, as the robbery could not be proved ; and all I 
 got for my pains was abuse from the fellow. 
 
 This was a very great loss to me, as the specimens 
 I brought of soils would have been of great use to me 
 in the course of experiments which I soon after began 
 in the object of expelling gases from earths. In my 
 journey through Ireland I was received with great 
 hospitality, which characterises the nation, and with 
 that particular attention which my peculiar object 
 excited in so many persons who rendered agriculture 
 either their profit or amusement. 
 
 I travelled four hundred miles cle suite without 
 going to an inn. Amongst those who were most 
 desirous of my calling upon them was Sir James 
 Caldwell, of Castle Caldwell, on Lough Erne. One 
 anecdote will give some idea of his character. 
 
 The Marquis of Lansdowne, then Earl of Shelburne, 
 being in Ireland, and intending to call on Sir James, he, 
 with an hospitality truly Irish, thought of nothing 
 night or day but how to devise some amusement to 
 entertain his noble guest, and came home to breakfast 
 one morning with prodigious eagerness to communicate
 
 70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 a new idea to Lady Caldwell. This was to summon 
 together the hundred labourers he employed, and choose 
 fifty that would best represent New Zealand savages, 
 in order that he might form two fleets of boats on the 
 Lough, one to represent Captain Cook and his men, 
 the other a New Zealand chief at the head of his 
 party in canoes, and consulted her how it would be 
 possible to get them dressed in an appropriate manner 
 in time for Lord Shelburne's arrival. Lady C, who 
 had much more prudence than Sir James, reminded 
 him that he had 200 acres of hay down, and the pre- 
 parations he mentioned would occupy so much time 
 that the whole would now stand a chance of being 
 spoiled. All remonstrances were in vain. Tailors were 
 pressed into his service from the surrounding country 
 to vamp up, as well as time would permit, the crews of 
 men and fleets. The prediction was fulfilled : the hay 
 was spoiled, and what hurt Sir James much more, he 
 received a letter from Lord S. to put off his coming 
 till his return from Kilkenny, and that uncertain. To 
 add to the mortification, after some weeks. Sir James 
 being on business at Dublin, Lord S. arrived without 
 giving notice, and Lady C, not presuming to exhibit 
 the intended battle, but wishing to amuse his Lordship 
 as well as the place would afford, told him at breakfast 
 that the morning should be spent in fishing. Lord S. 
 replied, ' My dear Lady C, you look upon a fine lake 
 out of your windows ; but I have often remarked — 
 from the ocean to the pond — that where at the first 
 blush you have reason to expect most fish you are sure 
 to find least.' This made Lady C. exert herself — boats.
 
 IRELAND 71 
 
 nets, and all were collected, and they caught such an 
 immensity as really proved a most gratifying spectacle 
 to his Lordship, who confessed that his maxim failed 
 him for once. His stay was too short for Sir James's 
 return. 
 
 At Lord Longford's I met a person of some celebrity 
 at the time for adventures not worth reciting, Mr. 
 Medlicott. Lord L. and he gave me an account of a 
 gentleman of a good estate in that neighbourhood, but 
 then dead, whose real life, manners and conversation 
 far exceeded anything to be met with in ' Castle Eack- 
 rent.' His hospitality was unbounded, and it never for 
 a moment came into his head to make any provision 
 for feeding the people he brought into his house. 
 While credit was to be had, his butler or housekeeper 
 did this for him ; his own attention was given solely 
 to the cellar that wine might not be wanted. If claret 
 was secured, with a dead ox or sheep hanging in the 
 alaughter-house ready for steaks or cutlets, he thought 
 all was well. He was never easy without company in 
 the house, and with a large party in it would invite 
 another of twice the number. One day the cook came 
 into the breakfast parlour before all the company : ' Sir, 
 there's no coals.' ' Then burn turf.' ' Sir, there's no 
 turf.' 'Then cut down a tree.' Tliis was a forlorn 
 hope, for in all probability he must have gone three 
 miles to find one, all round the house being long ago 
 safely swept away. They dispatched a number of cars 
 to borrow turf. Candles were equally deficient, for 
 unfortunately he was fond of dogs all half starved, so 
 that a gentleman walking to what was called his
 
 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNG 
 
 bed-chamber, after making two or three turnings, met a 
 hungry greyhound, who, jumping up, took the candle 
 out of the candlestick, and devoured it in a trice, and 
 left him in the dark. To advance or return was equally 
 a matter of chance, therefore groping his way, he soon 
 found himself in the midst of a parcel of giggling maid- 
 servants. By what means he at last found his way to 
 his ' shakedown ' is unknown. A ' shakedown ' when I 
 was in Ireland meant some clean straw spread upon the 
 floor, with blankets and sheets, in what was called the 
 barrack room, one containing several beds for single 
 men. 
 
 At Mr. Kichard Aldworth's, in the county of Cork, 
 I met with an instance, both in that gentleman and lady, 
 of elegant manners and cultivated minds. He had 
 made the grand tour, and she had been educated in that 
 style which may be imagined in a person nearly related 
 to a Lord Chief Justice and an Archbishop. But it 
 was evident that patriotic motives alone made them 
 residents in Ireland. A sigh would often escape when 
 circumstances of English manners were named, and they 
 felt the dismal vacuity of living in a country where 
 people of equal ideas were scarce. Mrs. Aldworth had 
 in her possession one original manuscript letter of 
 Dean Swift, entrusted to her under a solemn promise 
 that she would permit no copy to be taken, nor ever 
 read it twice to the same people. It was without 
 exception the wittiest and severest satire upon Ireland 
 that probably ever was written, and it was easy to 
 perceive by the manner in which it was read that the 
 sentiments were not a little in unison with those of the
 
 IRELAND 73 
 
 reader. This letter was equally hostile to the nobility, 
 the gentry, the people, the country, nay the very rivers 
 and mountains ; for it declared the Shannon itself 
 to be little better than a series of marshes, that carried 
 to the ocean less water than flows through one of the 
 arches of London Bridge. 
 
 From various other instances, as well as from this, 
 I was inclined to think that that degree of a polished 
 and cultivated education, which suits well enough for 
 London or Paris, or a country residence in a good 
 neighbourhood of England, was ill-framed for a pro- 
 vince in Ireland. Persons of equal attainments may now 
 and then come across them, but they are compelled 
 to associate with so many who are the very reverse that 
 a more certain provision of misery can scarcely be laid. 
 
 The preceding observation is in a measure appli- 
 cable to Mr. and Mrs. Jefferys and Mr. and Mrs. Trant, 
 who lived in the vicinity of Cork. The two former 
 when I was there were actually embarking for France, 
 after great speculations in building a town and esta- 
 blishing manufactures, which probably had proved too 
 expensive. They were well informed and cultivated, 
 and spoke most modern languages. Mr. Trant was an 
 instance of a singularly retentive memory. It was 
 never necessary for him to consult the same book 
 twice. All that he ever read in a variety of languages 
 was at his tongue's end, and he applied these un- 
 common stores with great judgment and propriety. 
 The most beautiful description of Kilkenny was written 
 by him. It gave me pleasure to hear not long after- 
 wards that Mr. and Mrs. Jefferys were at Paris but a
 
 74 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNQ 
 
 few days, and then returned to England. The motive 
 of the journey was reported to be to get rid of a much 
 too numerous estabhshment of servants, as they started 
 again on a much more moderate and comfortable plan. 
 As a feature of Irish manners, I may mention 
 another circumstance which astonished me. When 
 upon my tour I spent a day or two with the Eight 
 Hon. Silver Oliver, who had at that time much company 
 in his house. The table w^as well appointed, and every- 
 thing wore an air of splendour and affluence. After- 
 wards when I resided at Mitchelstown — Mr. Oliver was 
 either dead or absent, and everything in the house was 
 advertised to be sold by auction — I went over to that 
 auction, which gave me an opportunity of examining 
 the whole house. I desired to - be shown into the 
 kitchen, as I could not find it of myself. When 
 pointed out I was in utter amazement. There never 
 was such a hole. I insisted upon it that it could not be 
 the kitchen, as I had myself partook of dinners which 
 could never have been dressed in such a pig-stye ; but 
 they assured me there was no other. It was about 
 eight feet wide and ten long. Scarcely any light, and 
 the walls black as the inside of the chimney. The 
 furniture was no better than the fitting up ; dressers, 
 tables, and shelves seemed to have been laid aside as 
 superfluous luxuries. It must have been an effort of 
 uncommon ingenuity to cook at a turf hearth, in such 
 a cave as this, the ample dinners I had seen in this 
 house, and Etna or Vesuvius might as soon have been 
 found in England as such a kitchen. Its existence for 
 a single instant in the house of a man of fortune would
 
 lEELAND 75 
 
 be a moral impossibility. No English farmer would 
 submit to it for a week. This strongly shows the 
 manners of the people. 
 
 A family with whom I resided for some time, while 
 waiting for the Waterford packet, was that of Mr. 
 Bolton, in a beautiful situation, commanding the finest 
 views. Mr. Bolton, the elder, was a respectable man ; 
 but his son, the present proprietor of the estate, then 
 in Parliament, was a man of singular and genuine 
 patriotism, and of so mild and pleasing a temper that I 
 much regretted I had him not for a neighbour at Brad- 
 field. I had the pleasure of sending him from Suffolk 
 many implements &c. for assisting him in his improved 
 husbandry ; and he has proved to the present day one 
 of the most enlightened friends that Ireland has to 
 boast, making an equal figure in my tour, and in the 
 very able work of Mr. "Wakefield ' published within an 
 interval of thirty years. 
 
 Among the persons who received me in the most 
 agreeable and hospitable manner I may be permitted 
 10 name the following : Earl of Harcourt (Lord 
 Lieutenant), Earl of Charlemont, Lord Chief Baron 
 Forster, his Grace the Lord Primate, the Archbishop 
 of Tuam, Sir James Caldwell, &c. 
 
 1777. — Tliis was the first favourable turn that 
 promised anything after ten years' anxiety and misery, 
 yet how little did I deserve from that Providence I had 
 so long neglected. The year was a remarkable one in 
 the events of my life. 
 
 ' Edward Wakefield, An Account of Ireland : Political and Statis- 
 tical, 1812.
 
 76 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 Mr. Danby, of whom mention has already been 
 inserted, was this spring in London, and as Lord 
 Kingsborough, son of the Earl of Kingston, was 
 intimately acquainted with Mr. D., and at that time 
 there also, his Lordship often complained of the sad 
 state of neglect in which his property remained in the 
 hands of an Irish agent, who never saw an acre of the 
 estate but merely on a rapid journey once, or at most 
 twice, a year to receive the rents. For this pm'pose a clerk 
 resided at Mitchelstown, having a summer house in the 
 Castle garden for his office, and here the tenants came 
 to pay their rents in a constant succession of driblets 
 the whole year round. His Lordship observed that it 
 would be of much importance to him to have a respect- 
 able resident agent who understood agriculture, and 
 might greatly contribute to the improvement of the 
 property. Mr. Danby entirely coincided in this opinion, 
 and told his Lordship that he knew a gentleman who 
 possessed the unquestionable knowledge and manage- 
 ment of estates, and as he had known me for several 
 years he had every reason to beheve in my integrity. 
 He then named me. Lord K. begged him to make the 
 application to me immediately, which Mr. Danby did, 
 and invited me to meet Lord and Lady K. to dinner. 
 I had a good deal of conversation with Lord K., and 
 the next day Mr. Danby made an agreement with his 
 Lordship for me to become his agent at an annual salary 
 of 5001., with an eligible house for my residence, rent 
 free, and a retaining fee, to be paid immediately, of 500Z, 
 more. 
 
 In consequence of this arrangement, to which I
 
 IRELAND 77 
 
 readily agreed, I disposed of the lease of my farm in 
 Hertfordshire, and sent my books and other effects which 
 I might want to Cork by sea, going myself to Dublin, 
 where I resided some time in a constant round of 
 Dublin dinners, till I was informed by Lord Kingsborough 
 that the house at Mitchelstown was ready in which I 
 was to reside, w^hilst a new one was building on a plan 
 and in a situation approved of myself. In September 
 I left Dublin for Mitchelstown — 130 miles off — making 
 a detour through those counties which I had not 
 sufficiently seen the preceding year. And here I cannot 
 avoid inserting the following excellent advice from my 
 ever affectionate mother : ' My memory begins to fail 
 me, but no wonder at 72. That is not the cause of yours 
 doing so, but the multiplicity of business you are 
 engaged in. I attribute it also to being overbm^thened 
 with your affairs. I can get neither ploughman nor 
 footman to go over to Ireland, so you must see what 
 you can do when you come yourself, which, I am sorry 
 to hear, is not till (next) September. God only knows 
 if I shall live so long as to see you once more. However, 
 to hear you are well and happy is a great comfort to me, 
 and the only one I have left, for it is my lot to be 
 deprived of all those who to me are dearest. I hate now 
 to do anything but sit by the fire and write to you. , . . 
 But the happiness of this world, Arthur, is but of a 
 short duration ; I therefore wish you would bestow some 
 thoughts on that happiness which will have eternal 
 duration.' ' 
 
 ' Entries in memorandum-book ' The year's receipts, 1,145/. Wrote 
 Alcon and Flavia, a poem.'
 
 78 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNGi- 
 
 1778. — The opening of this year found me at 
 Mitchelstown, where Mrs. Young joined me. On my 
 arrival I busied myself incessantly in examining and 
 valuing the farms which came out of lease, and was so 
 occupied several months. I was most anxious to per- 
 suade Lord K. into the propriety of letting his lands to 
 the occupying cottar as tenant, and dismissing the 
 whole race of middlemen. I adhered steadily to this, 
 and had the satisfaction to find that Lord K. was well 
 inclined to the plan. But a distant relation of Lady K.'s, 
 who had one farm upon the estate as middleman. Major 
 Thornhill, feeling the sweets of a profit rent upon that 
 one farm, was exceedingly anxious to procure from Lord 
 K. the profits of others upon the same terms, and in this 
 respect I was placed in an awkwai'd situation. It was 
 impossible for me, consistently with the interest of 
 Lord K., in any measure whatever to promote the 
 success of designs which struck at the very root of all 
 my plans, as the Major had his eye upon several of the 
 most considerable farms. Lady K. had a high opinion 
 of the Major, who was a lively, pleasant, handsome 
 man, and an ignorant open-hearted duellist ; she had 
 of course favoured his plans, and I as carefully avoided 
 ever saying anything in favour of them. Thus from 
 the beginning it was not difficult to see an underground 
 plot to frustrate schemes commencing very early, but 
 things in the meantime carried a fair outward appear- 
 ance. I dined very often at the Castle, and generally 
 played at chess with Lady Kingsborough for an hour 
 or more after dinner, and I learned by report that her 
 Ladyship was highly pleased with me, saying that I was
 
 IRELAND 79 
 
 one of the most lively, agreeable fellows. Lord Kings- 
 borough was of a character not so easily ascertained, 
 for at many different periods of his life he seemed to 
 possess qualities very much in contradiction to each other. 
 His manner and carriage were remarkably easy, agreeable, 
 and polite, having the finish of a perfect gentleman ; he 
 w^anted, however, steadiness and perseverance even in 
 his best designs, and w^as easily wrought upon by 
 persons of inferior abilities. Mrs. Thornhill, the wife 
 of the Major, was an artful designing woman, ever on 
 the watch to injure those who stood in her husband's 
 way, and never forgetting her private interest for a 
 moment. I saw a fixed plan in her mind for dis- 
 possessing me of the agency and procuring it for the 
 Major, and I conceive it was by her misrepresentations 
 that a decisive use was made of an opportunity which 
 soon after offered for effecting her plan. 
 
 Lady K. had a Catholic governess, a Miss Crosby, 
 relative to whom Mrs. T. had inspired Lady K. with 
 sentiments of jealousy, insomuch that she was dis- 
 charged, and I was employed to draw up an engagement 
 to grant her an annuity of 50Z. per annum. This 
 transaction and others connected with it occasioned 
 me to be much at the Castle, and in situations which 
 were converted by Mrs. Thornhill into proofs that I 
 was in league with Miss C. for securing the affections 
 of Lord Kingsborough at the expense of his wife, and, 
 at the same time, it was carefully impressed into liis 
 Lordship's mind that I was in love with Lady K. Thus 
 by a train of artful intrigues and deceptions the ladies 
 brought Lord K. to the determination of parting with me.
 
 80 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 after which nothing remained but to settle our accounts. 
 This was done, and a balance being due to me of about 
 600Z. or 700^., I informed his Lordship that I waited only 
 to be paid in order to set off for England. Here was a 
 demur, and Major Thornhill came to inform me that his 
 Lordship had not the money to pay me ; several days 
 passed in which I was in a very awkward state of un- 
 certainty. It occurred to me as I saw no sign of payment 
 to propose that he should give me an annuity for life, 
 which he at once agreed to. What that annuity should 
 be I was perfectly ignorant, but there was an advertise- 
 ment in a London paper offering terms, which I sent 
 to his Lordship, with a note, informing him that if he 
 would give me an annuity on the terms there specified 
 I would agree to it and free him for the present from 
 all payment. This his Lordship at once acceded to, and 
 signed a bond granting me an annuity for life of 72,1.,^ 
 according to the terms specified in the advertisement. 
 This business being settled to the satisfaction of both 
 parties, and my books packed up and sent to Cork, I 
 stepped into my post-chaise, and, with a pair of Irish 
 nags, set off on a journey to Waterford on a visit to my 
 excellent friend, Cornelius Bolton, Junr. Esqr. M.P., 
 where I waited for the packet to sail for Milford Haven 
 long enough to have gone round by Dublin and have 
 reached Eome or Naples. I had a miserable passage 
 of three days and nights, a storm blowing us almost to 
 Arklow, but through the providence of God we escaped 
 the threatened dangers and landed safely in the desired 
 
 ' This curious arrangement seems to have been faithfully kept, as will 
 be seen later on.
 
 lEELAND 81 
 
 haven. I travelled post to London, and thus ended 
 one of the greatest speculations of my life, and I 
 remember observing that in all probability the provi- 
 dence of God was exerted to remove me from a kingdom 
 in which no unconnected motives could induce me to 
 remain. The transaction was not absolutely free from 
 circumstances in a measure favourable to my future ease 
 and repose. I had received 500Z., which took me out of 
 some difficulties, and had the addition of 721. per annum 
 to my income, which was to me an object of some consi- 
 deration. It also removed me entirely from the farm in 
 Hertfordshire, a most unprofitable one, and, what was 
 better, from a winter residence in London. It also took 
 me back to Bradfield to my aged mother, whose health 
 was daily declining, and whose memory, being much 
 impaired, subjected her to imposition by tenants and 
 servants. 
 
 To his Wife 
 
 ' Haverford West : Oct. 23. 
 
 ' My Dearest, — It pleases God that I am once more 
 to embrace you and my children — a passage that is 
 common in eight hours was from Sunday morn eight 
 o'clock till one o'clock this morning Wednesday, thirty- 
 six hours of which, a raging storm ; we talk of them at 
 land, but those who have not seen them at sea know 
 not what the very elements are. Pent up in the Irish 
 Channel, the ship ran adrift, wearing ' to keep free from 
 rocks and sands — the wind did not blow, it was like 
 volleys of artillery ; part of the sails were torn into 
 
 ' Wear : sea-term, to bring a ship on. -Bailey's Dictionary. 
 
 G
 
 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 fritters ; the waves were mountains high, while the 
 ship was perfectly tossed on end of them ; the cabin 
 window burst open, and deluged everything afloat ; the 
 horses kicked and groaned, the dogs howled ; six pas- 
 sengers praying, shrieking, and vomiting ; every soul 
 sick but myself ; the sailors swearing and storming ; 
 and the whole — such a scene ! The Captain, who has 
 been many voyages, and the pilot tliirty-six years, 
 never saw such a storm — to last so long. 
 
 * It has worried and starved the horses so that I 
 know not what I am to do — shall go with them as far 
 as I can, and if they knock up must leave them and 
 take some fly to be by you thirty-first ; of which send 
 immediate notice to B. 
 
 ' I know not if Bath be my nearest way, so let me 
 have a letter at Nicoll's in case I am not in Town, to 
 the same purport as that to Bath, to inform me what 
 I am to do and when to go. 
 
 ' Adieu, 
 
 ' Most truly yours, 
 'A. Y. 
 
 ' Thank God for me. Peter would not come over 
 with me. My passage has cost me between 11. and 8Z., 
 which is the very devil, so that I shall come home without 
 a shilling, and the thoughts of coming full swing upon 
 poverty again make me miserable. Two ships were 
 lost in the storm.* 
 
 Note in memorandum-booJc. — ' Note of my being 
 thirty-eight, and poetry in my head.'
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTEK V 
 
 FARMING AND EXPERIMENTS, 1779-1782 
 
 Corn bounties— A grievance — Reading — Hugh Boyd — Bishop Watson — 
 Hewlett on population — Irish Linen Board Experiments — Corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 1779. — Quitting Ireland and coming again to Bradfield 
 occasioned a great pause and break in my life and pur- 
 suits, and had I made a proper use of it might have 
 fixed a quiet destiny, so far as a heart not renewed 
 could be happy and content ; but I wanted religion, 
 and that want includes all others. I arrived at Brad- 
 field on the first of January, and had then full time to 
 reflect upon what should be the future pursuit of my 
 life, and upon what plan I could devise for that fresh 
 establishment of myself, which should, at the same time, 
 prevent any relapse into those odious dependencies upon 
 uncertainties, which from 1771 to 1778 had been the 
 perpetual torment of my life. While I was hesitating 
 what plan to follow, an emigration to America arose in 
 my mind and much occupied my thoughts. But the 
 advanced period of my mother's life and her persuasions 
 against any scheme of that sort prevailed, and with 
 some reluctance I relinquished it. I had also to consider, 
 how far it would be prudent to yield to her earnest 
 entreaties to return to farming at Bradfield and live 
 
 a 2
 
 84 xVUTO BIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 with her. To stock a farm of any size would have 
 been to me a matter of difficulty, but, at the same time, 
 to get free from all London engagements, and to secure 
 the tranquillity of a retired life after all the stormy 
 perplexities thi-ough which I had passed, was an object 
 full of attraction, and it prevailed. A small farm con- 
 tiguous to the old family mansion was to be vacant at 
 Michaelmas, and notice was accordingly given to the 
 tenant to quit. Thus was I once more engaged in 
 husbandry, with a prospect of gradually increasing my 
 business according as my capital should enable me. 
 Relative to my farm, it may here be proper once for 
 all to observe, that as the leases of the estate fell vacant 
 I gradually enlarged my occupation, till I had between 
 tliree and four hundred acres in hand, most amply 
 stocked, and conducted with such an expense of labour 
 as enabled me to support the credit of my husbandr3^ 
 I remained at Bradfield the whole year, and the only 
 literary pursuit I engaged in was a correspondence with 
 Mr. Wight upon some points in the Scotch system of 
 farming ; it was published in his ' Present State of the 
 Husbandry of Scotland.' ^ I had reason to believe that 
 his letters were written under the eye of Lord Kames,- 
 the author of the well-known work called, ' The Gentle- 
 man Farmer,' and much better known book, ' Elements 
 of Criticism.' 
 
 ' In memorandum-book occurs this note : ' Correspondence with 
 Wight printed in his reports.' This seems to be Alexander Wight, 
 author of 'An Enquiry into the Rise and Progress of Parliament, chiefly 
 in Scotland.' 
 
 - Henry Home, a Scotch judge, better known by the title of Lord 
 Kames, author of several legal and other works, among them ' Intro- 
 duction to the Art of Thinking.' Died 1782.
 
 FARMING AND EXPEEIMENTS 85 
 
 About this period I was elected a member of the 
 Imperial (Economical Society of Petersbmrg. 
 
 The first event of the year 1780 was the publication 
 of my Irish Tour in one volmne quarto. It was so 
 successful and popular in both kingdoms that it is 
 unnecessary to expatiate upon it ; thus much, however, 
 I trust I may say without vanity, that it has stood the 
 test of examination, and received from the best judges 
 the highest commendation. But there is one circum- 
 stance which appears never to have been sufficiently 
 understood, or at least the effect properly attributed to 
 this work. Perhaps the most novel, instructing, and 
 decisively useful part of the publication was the attack 
 made upon the bounty paid on the land carriage of corn 
 to Dublin.' I therein proved beyond the possibility of 
 doubt the gross absurdity of the measure. The whole 
 kingdom, however, without exception, considered this 
 bounty as the great palladium of their national agricul- 
 ture, and in conversation upon that subject wdth the 
 most able men then living there, I found them so 
 strongly prejudiced in its favour that they were not 
 very willing to hear anything spoken against it. But 
 it appeared to me so manifestly absurd that I exerted 
 my industry to examine the measure on its very 
 foundation. When I was a complete master of the 
 subject and stated the result in conversation to the 
 warmest friends of the measure, I had the satisfaction 
 
 ' Corn bounty in Ireland, 1780. This was granted by the Irish 
 Parliament. The Lord Lieutenant, in his speech at the close of the 
 session, said : ' Ample bounties on the export of your corn, your linen, 
 and your sail-cloth have been granted.' See Anniuil Rc(jistcr, 1780, 
 p. .3.S8.
 
 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 to find that the documents thus produced were utterly 
 unknown to all, and they were fairly beat ' out of their 
 prejudices in favour of the measure ; at least their 
 argument entirely failed on the occasion. But the 
 event proved that the conviction was real. For in the 
 very first session after the publication of my book 
 the bounty was reduced by half, as appears by Mr. 
 Henry Cavendish's publication on the revenue and 
 national expenses of Ireland. It was afterwards 
 gradually reduced, and at last gave up entirely. The 
 saving to the nation occasioned palpably bj^ this publi- 
 cation amounted to 40,000?. per annum immediately, 
 and as the expense of the bounty had been constantly 
 increasing, the saving was of course in reality much 
 greater. Long after, in conversation with Lord 
 Loughborough, he told me that he had read that part 
 of my work relative to the bounty, &c., with particular 
 attention, and that he thought the arguments most un- 
 answerable, adding, * Ireland ought to have rewarded 
 you for that.' When the whole was given up it was a 
 saving of 80,000?. a year to the nation. This was much 
 for one individual to effect ; and some reward for such ser- 
 vices would not have been much for the nation to grant. 
 I cannot on such an occasion name Ireland without 
 remarking that though the Irish are certainly a gene- 
 rous people, and liberal sometimes almost to excess, yet 
 not a ray of that spirit was by any public body shed on 
 my labours. 
 
 After I had left the kingdom and published the tour, 
 I received the following letter : — 
 
 ' Beat : participial adjective. — Webster-
 
 FAEMING AND EXPEEIMENTS 87 
 
 ' Dublin : Sept. 16, 1780. 
 
 * Sir, — With great pleasure I take up the pen in 
 obedience to the commands of the Dubhn Society, to 
 communicate to you their thanks for the late publica- 
 tion of your tour in Ireland, a treatise which, in doing 
 justice to this country, puts us in a most respectable 
 view ; for which reason we consider you to have great 
 merit. But what particularly gained the attention of 
 the Society were your just and excellent observations 
 and reasoning, in the second part of that work, relative 
 to the agriculture, manufactures, trade, and police of 
 the kingdom. And gentlemen thought the publication 
 of that part, particularly so as to fall into the hands of 
 the generality of the people of this country, might be 
 of great benefit and use ; and we wish you would let us 
 know your sentiments relative to the preparing a 
 publication of that kind, and in what mode you would 
 think it most proper, and would answer best, and what 
 you would judge a reasonable amends for all this 
 trouble, that we may lay the same before the Society 
 at our next meeting, the beginning of November. 
 There are a great many useful observations and hints 
 interspersed in many parts of your tour which may be 
 of great use to throw into the hands of the public. 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obedient servant, 
 
 'Eed. Morres.' 
 
 In answer to this letter, I returned sincere thanks 
 for the honour of the vote ; and assured them that I 
 should be ready either to publish any part of the work
 
 88 AUTOBTOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 separately, or to make an abridgment of the whole, 
 reduced in such a manner as to be diffused at a small 
 expense over all the kingdom. In a few posts I received, 
 under the Dublin post-mark, an envelope, enclosing an 
 anonymous essay, cut out of a newspaper, which re- 
 ferred to the transactions of the Society relative to me, 
 and condemning pretty heavily my whole publication ; 
 and in this unhandsome manner the business ended. 
 
 In a Society which disposed of 10,000/. a year of 
 public money, granted by Parliament chiefly with 
 a view, as the Act expresses, to encourage agricul- 
 ture, but which patronised manufacturers far more, 
 there will necessarily be an agricultural party and a 
 manufacturing one. According as one or the other 
 happens to prevail, such contradictions will arise. All 
 that is to be said of my case now is, that it was not so 
 bad as that of poor Whyman Baker, who settled in 
 Ireland as their experimenter in agriculture — lived there 
 in poverty ten or twelve years — and broke his heart on 
 account of the treatment which he met with. But 
 while their Societies acted thus, the Parliament of the 
 kingdom paid my book a much greater compliment 
 than any Society could do ; for they passed more than 
 one Act almost directly, to alter and vary the police of 
 corn, which I had proved was vicious, but which till 
 then had been universally esteemed as the chief pillar 
 of their national prosperity, and I had thus the satisfac- 
 tion to see the Legislature of the kingdom improving the 
 policy of it from the known and confessed suggestions 
 of a work that, in other respects, had proved to the 
 author a mere barren blank. I have, however, since
 
 FAEMING AND EXPERIMENTS 89 
 
 heard from many most respectable gentlemen of that 
 nation, as well as from the correspondence of others, 
 that the book is even now esteemed of some value to 
 Ireland, and that the agriculture of the kingdom has 
 been advanced in consequence. But it is time to dis- 
 miss a subject upon which I have dilated too much, 
 and spoken perhaps with an unguarded vanity and self- 
 love which would ill become me. 
 
 I was the chief part of this year at Bradfield, but I 
 had bought at London a pair of roan mares for drawing 
 a post-chaise, and having the small farm in hand, I 
 made myself by practice no bad ploughman, and could 
 finish the stetches ^ neatly, and execute everything except 
 the rivalling the Suffolk ploughman in drawing straight 
 furrows to a mark set for that purpose ; yet I overcame 
 this difficulty in a manner that would have been com- 
 mended in any other county. 
 
 The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 
 Manufactures, and Commerce voted me their Honorary 
 Medal for some experiments I had communicated to 
 them on the culture of potatoes. 
 
 According to custom, part of my time was occupied 
 in reading, and among other works was highly enter- 
 tained with Gray's letters, and particularly with the 
 following passage, which displays so much knowledge of 
 the human mind, and, at the same time, much sterling 
 sense : ' To find oneself business I am persuaded is the 
 great art of life, and I am never so angry as when I 
 hear my acquaintance wishing they had been bred to 
 
 ' Stetch : as much land as lies between one farm and another. — Prov- 
 Eng., Halliwell.
 
 90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 some poking profession, or employed in some office of 
 drudgery, as if it were pleasanter to be at the command 
 of other people than at one's own, and as if they could 
 not go unless they were wound up. Yet I know and 
 feel what they mean by this complaint ; it proves that 
 some spirit, something of genius (more than common) 
 is required to teach a man how to employ himself — I 
 say a man, for women, commonly speaking, never feel 
 this distemper, they have always something to do. 
 Time hangs not on their hands (unless they be fine 
 ladies), a variety of small inventions and occupations fill 
 up the void, and their eyes are never open in vain ' 
 (vol. ii.) 
 
 Thank heaven, I have so much of the woman in me 
 as to possess this faculty of employing myself. The day 
 is never too long, for I think time spent in reading is 
 always well employed, unless a man reads like an idiot, 
 that is, equally removed from instruction and entertain- 
 ment. Now the general occupation of my hfe — agri- 
 culture — has the happy circumstance of giving much 
 employment, and with it exercise, at the same time that 
 it naturally leads into a course of reading, to which it 
 gives the air and turn of a study, and consequently 
 renders it more interesting, an advantage I shall be 
 solicitous to preserve, by persisting, at all events, to be 
 much interested in farming, even though I should not 
 continue an actual farmer. Gray felt the advantage of 
 country pursuits. ' Happy they that can create a rose 
 tree or erect a honeysuckle, that can watch the brood 
 of a hen, or see a fleet of their own ducklings lamich 
 into the water ; it is with a sentiment of envy I
 
 FARMING AND EXPERISIENTS 91 
 
 speak it, who never shall have even a thatched roof 
 of my own, nor gather a strawberry but in Covent 
 Garden.' 
 
 I read also Koberts' ' Map of Commerce,' • and find 
 the following extract about the spot where should be 
 the ruin of Troy : ' Anno Domini, 1620. — I hardly saw 
 the reHcs of tliis mighty fabric (Troy), though I traced 
 it for many miles, and gave ear to all the ridiculous 
 fables of those poor Grecians that inhabit thereabouts 
 in many villages within the compass of her ancient 
 walls, from Mount Ida to the Eiver Scamander, now 
 only a brook not two feet deep, so that what Ovid said 
 of old I found by experience verified, " jam seges est 
 ubi Troja fuit." ' There is a melancholy which attends 
 such reflections that with me makes a deep impression ; 
 the idea that what was once the seat of power, arts, litera- 
 ture and elegance is now in the most miserable situation 
 which Turkish oppression and Mahometan superstition 
 can inflict, that not a trace of a once mighty city is now 
 to be found, is depressing to the human mind. In an 
 equal series of time what will become of the cities 
 which are now the pride of Europe ? what obscure 
 farmer of futurity shall plough the ground whereon 
 that House of Common stands in which a Hampden, 
 a Bolingbroke, a Pitt, and a Mansfield have delighted 
 the most celebrated assembly now in the world '? ^ 
 
 My visit to London was, part of it, very agreeable, 
 
 • Lewis Roberts, The MerclianVs Map of Comvierce, London, 163S, 
 ' The first systematic writer upon trade in the English language ' 
 (Lowndes). 
 
 - Had this sentence appeared in print anterior to Macaulay's famous 
 passage, the latter might have been deemed a plagiarism.
 
 92 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 my whole intercourse with Arbuthnot entirely so. At 
 Dr. Burney's, while it lasted, the same ; the opera, 
 parties, the Koyal Society, with some of the attend- 
 ance on Parliament, add to this being in the world 
 and on the spot for whatever happened, were all so 
 many opportunities for pleasure and amusement, which, 
 however, I did not make the most of. Against these I 
 must now rank ease in my circumstances. Let it fly, 
 and the change has been a bad one, indeed. But I 
 think I have resolution enough to take special care of 
 the greatest of all man's chances. I do not remember 
 when my acquaintance with Mr. Hugh Boyd ' began, 
 but I was acquainted with him in London, met him in 
 many companies in Dublin, and travelled with him 
 from thence to London. It has been supposed that he 
 was the author of ' Junius,' and I must give it as my 
 opinion that there was much probability in the supposi- 
 tion. I have been many times at his house, at break- 
 fasts, morning calls and dinners, and never without seeing 
 the Ptiblic Advertiser and remarking that they were 
 blanks, that is to say, without being stamped. All 
 writers in newspapers are allowed a copy gratis, and 
 these are never stamped. His company was so much 
 sought after in Dublin that I was scarcely at a great 
 dinner without his being present. A very striking 
 circumstance in his character was a memory in some 
 points beyond example ; he would multiply nine figures 
 by eight entirely in his head, and would give the result 
 
 ' Hugh Boyd, a writer whose real name was Macaulay, author of 
 two political tracts now forgotten. Died at Madras in 1791, having 
 dissipated his wife's fortune and his own.
 
 FARMING AND EXPERIMENTS 93 
 
 with the most perfect accuracy. When it is considered 
 that such an operation demands the recollection not 
 merely of the figures, but of their position in order for the 
 final addition, it must be admitted to be a stupendous 
 one. He was on all occasions and in every circum- 
 stance a most pleasing, agreeable companion. His wife 
 was a woman of verj'^ good understanding, and appeared 
 to be sensible of her husband's extraordinary talents. 
 One morning at breakfast Mr. Burke's son came in, and 
 as his father had made a very celebrated speech the day 
 before in the House of Commons which he intended to 
 publish, but had, in the conclusion, departed from his 
 notes in a very fine strain of eloquence, knowing the 
 great memory of Boyd, he sent his son to request some 
 hints for that conclusion. We set to work to recollect 
 as much as possible his own words, and furnished young 
 Burke much to his satisfaction. Mr. Boyd's letters, 
 of which I have preserved several, are written in a most 
 pleasing, lively style. 
 
 ' Norfolk street : August IG, 1780. 
 * My dear Sir, — You have an excellent physician, but 
 I should be glad to know what right the patient has to 
 become his own apothecary ? The doctor's prescription 
 consists of such rare ingredients as require no common 
 skill to discover and use, Cuivis in sua, arte. If it had 
 been your inferior fate to wield the pestle instead of 
 the ploughshare and the pen, I should subscribe to the 
 judgment of the apothecary as fully as I do to the 
 author's genius and the farmer's knowledge. " A friend 
 who can enliven the dulness of the country." Well
 
 94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 said, doctor. Macbeth himself might take your advice, 
 for there is little difference between a dull mind and " a 
 mind diseased ; " but my good friend has neither. His 
 mistake, therefore, in making up your prescription, and 
 shaking me up as the aforesaid ingredient, is of little 
 consequence. To convince him, however, that he is 
 mistaken — for I love to set your clever men right — 
 I shall make my appearance, first in the county of 
 Cambridge, and next in the county of Suffolk — or ere 
 the amorous Phoebus shall have twice resorted to his 
 evening assignation to take an oyster with Miss Thetis. 
 By the bye, we have had very good [entertainment] 
 in town for some days — though as to days I can only 
 answer for one and a half ; being no longer returned 
 from a Western Tour, which I have had the pleasure 
 and trouble of making — for everything is mixed, you 
 know, pleasure and pain — rose and thorns — man and 
 wife ; I ask Mrs. Young ten thousand pardons. 
 
 ' I have had hopes sometimes of tempting Mrs. B. 
 to a country excursion, and she has almost agreed to 
 make it with me to Cambridge, where I wish to call 
 for half a day, and perhaps longer, soon ; the hopes of 
 seeing her friends at Bradfield Hall are a strong in- 
 ducement. 
 
 ' Believe me, 
 
 ' Very sincerely yours, 
 
 'H. Boyd.' 
 
 ' August 17, 1780. 
 
 ' My good friend will be at least just in this instance, 
 when he is in every other so partial to his friends ; and
 
 FAEMING AND EXPERIMENTS 95 
 
 you'll believe that it is no small disappointment to me 
 quod inclination, though the cause will probably be 
 very advantageous, businesshj speaking, that I am 
 obliged to postpone my Suffolk trip. Observe I esta- 
 blish a credit by the term postpone, and I sincerely 
 hope it will not be a long term. I have at present only 
 another half minute to say fifty things. But not being 
 able to think, speak, or write the fiftieth part as quick 
 as certain persons of my acquaintance (my love to 
 Mrs. Young), I must confine myself to one subject — 
 which I have too much at heart to omit — the assuring 
 you and her of my being very sincerely yours, 
 
 'H. Boyd.' 
 
 ' September 2, 1780. 
 
 ' My dear Friends, — You'll excuse coarse paper, and 
 coarse writing in every sense, I'm afraid, " in matter, 
 form, and style," according to Milton's divisions, when 
 you know that I sit down to this delectable epistle in a 
 City coffee-house, in the midst of Bob-wigs and worsted 
 stocking knaves, Turks, Jews, and brokers, infidels, and 
 merchants. Nunquam, si quid mihi credis, amavi 
 Hos homines. dialect of Babel! "Who calls for 
 coffee ? " — " This policy, sir " — " Strong convoy, a very 
 good thing " — " Pen, ink, and wafer " — " I'sh would be 
 rejoished to do for you, shur " — " Was Mr. Shylock here 
 this morning?" — " Yesh, just gone to Jerusalem." O 
 blessed race ! I wish you were all there, with all your 
 adopted brethren of Jewish Christians from this holy 
 land. 
 
 ' I have continued in much disappointment — at least,
 
 96 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUXa 
 
 suspense — since I wrote to you last, when I hinted the 
 sudden occurrence of some business preventing the 
 pleasure of my proposed trip. Depending on the 
 pleasures not only of some three or four different 
 persons, but of great ones, too, who think themselves 
 personages, you will not wonder that the said business 
 has been like Sisyphus's Stone, or Ixion's Cloud, or 
 Tantalus's Apple, or anything else that's infernally 
 troublesome. But it may, and, notwithstanding their 
 greatness, probably it will, be very consequential. In 
 the meantime I must deny myself both Suffolk and 
 Cambridge. The former, indeed, is the self-denial ; for 
 Cam. I had more at head than at heart. Besides, 
 wishing to establish my Mastery of Arts by a little 
 residence near them, I had a little reading and 
 writing also in contemplation, near the walks locally 
 — perlongo intervaUo in every other sense — of old 
 Erasmus. 
 
 'I should have been happy in being at Bradfield 
 Hall ; I long to hear my friend refute himself, to com- 
 plain with good spirits, and to demonstrate, with much 
 wit, that he was extremely dull. But I dare say you 
 have too much genuine vivacity, as well as good taste, 
 to enter much into the bastard sort of alacrity — the 
 intoxicated bustle that rages in empty heads and full 
 pockets, by Koyal proclamation. I should not object if 
 the cui bono ? could be answered. But in the present 
 desperate size of power and depopulation of spirit, so 
 much and so expensive pains seem little better than a 
 curious folly. If a man's brains must be blown out, 
 why need he gild his pocket pistol, much less purchase
 
 FAKMIXG AND EXPERIMENTS 97 
 
 a great gun — unless it be a Scotch canonade, which, it 
 must be confessed, will do the business, con amore, for 
 England or Ireland ? 
 
 ' Yours ever, 
 
 'H. Boyd.' 
 
 I continued farming at Bradfield, and also reading 
 and writing with much attention, as about this time I 
 had formed the intention of delivering lectures on 
 agriculture, and had prepared several. The original 
 hint came from Mr. Wedderburn,' who persuaded me 
 to persevere in this plan ; but the lectures never took 
 place. I was highly honoured by the commendation 
 and partiality of a friend. Dr. Watson,^ the celebrated 
 Professor at Cambridge, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, 
 who wrote thus : ' We owe to the agricultural societies, 
 and to the patriotic exertions of one deserving citizen 
 (Arthur Young, Esq.), the present iflourishing condition 
 of our husbandry ' (' Chemical Mag.' vol. 4). 
 
 I find from an application of my friend, Arbuthnot, 
 that the Bishop of Chester was at this time collecting 
 materials for a work on population by the Kev. Mr. 
 Howlett,'' and had desired Arbuthnot to apply to me 
 for assistance. I was myself meditating such a work, 
 
 ' Alex. Wedderburn, Earl of Rosslyn, Baron Loughborough. In 1778 
 Attorney-General ; in 1793 succeeded Lord Thurlow to the Chancellor- 
 ship. Died 180.5. 
 
 - Richard Watson, a celebrated prelate. In 179G he published an 
 answer to Paine's Age of Reason. He was left an estate worth 24,000Z. 
 by a Mr. Luther, an entire stranger to him, author of many theological 
 works and memoirs of himself. Died 1816. 
 
 ^ Died in 1804. There is a notice of this writer in Watts' Biblio- 
 Iheca Britannica. 
 
 H
 
 98 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 but complied with the request, and transmitted the 
 collections I had made to the Bishop, who wrote me a 
 most obliging letter. 
 
 ' Your facts are clear and decisive, and the conclusions 
 you draw from them, unanswerable. The only difficulty 
 I am apprehensive of is that as his work is now pretty 
 far advanced, and is already larger than I could wish 
 he will not be able to take in the whole of your papers, 
 especially as I observe that he has in some part of his 
 pamphlet fallen into the same train of reasoning as 
 yourself. If, therefore, you would allow him to take 
 only your two general tables of baptism before and 
 after the Eevolution, and the two more recent periods 
 of thirty years each, which is the very method he has 
 himself adopted, subjoining such of your observations 
 as are the most important and are not in some measure 
 anticipated by him, he will be most exceedingly obliged 
 to you, and will, I am sure, be very ready to acknow- 
 ledge in proper terms the sense he has of your goodness 
 to him.' 
 
 I had also a sad letter from my friend Arbuthnot 
 on his return from France, but it was written in so 
 melancholy a strain on his own situation and that of 
 his wife and family, that it has often made my heart 
 ache to read it. By Lord Loughborough's interest 
 he got an appointment in Ireland under the Linen 
 Board, ^ which carried him to that country, where he 
 
 ' Irish Linen Board, established 1711 ; the Board aboUshed 1828. 
 We do not learn upon what business Mr. Arbuthnot had gone to France.
 
 FAEMING AND EXPEREVIENTS 99 
 
 lived but a few years. I lost in him by far the most 
 agreeable friend I was ever connected with. 
 
 At this time I was much engaged in making a 
 variety of experiments in expelling gaseous fluids from 
 specimens of soils, the results of which were afterwards 
 published in ' The Annals of Agriculture.' As I met 
 with some difficulties I wrote to Dr. Priestley, stating 
 them, and begging information. He very hberally and 
 politely answered all my enquiries, encouraging me to 
 proceed with my trials, and I received several interest- 
 ing letters from him. 
 
 ' Bii-mingham : Dec. 12, 1781. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — If I had any remarks or hints respecting 
 the subject of your experiments, I should certainly with 
 much pleasure have communicated them long ago. I 
 meant, indeed, to have made a few more experiments 
 on the growth of plants in the course of the last summer, 
 but the weather was so bad, and the sun shone so little, 
 that I dropped the scheme. All I can do, therefore, in 
 return for your facts, is to mention one that I have 
 lately observed. I readily convert pure loater into 
 permanent air, by first combining it with quicklime, 
 and then exposing it to a strong heat. The weight of 
 the air is equal to the weight of water, and no part of 
 the water is turned into steam in the process. During 
 the whole of it, a glass velum, interposed between the 
 retort and the recipient for the air, remains quite cool 
 and dry. The air I procure in this manner is in part 
 Jixed air, but the bulk of it is such as a candle would 
 hardly burn in it, but is such as I should imagine would 
 be the best for plants, which would pm'ify it and 
 
 h2
 
 100 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 render it fit for respiration. And as this kind of air 
 would be yielded in great abundance by volcanoes, from 
 calcareous matter in the earth ; such was perhaps the 
 original atmosphere of this earth, which according to 
 the Mosaick account (which you must allow me to 
 respect) had plants before there were any land animals. 
 ' This letter I fear is hardly worth sending you ; 
 your objects and mine are so very different, though now 
 and then coinciding ; but mine have seldom any prac- 
 tical uses, at least no immediate ones, whereas yours are 
 highly and immediately beneficial. Wishing you the 
 greatest success, and wishing you and all philosophers 
 joy of the near prospect of peace, 
 
 ' I am, yours sincerely, 
 
 ' J. Priestley.' 
 
 This year's memoranda : ' Wrote " Emigration," an 
 ode.' 
 
 In the autumn of this year I spent a month at 
 Lowestoft, where the sea air and bathing agreed so 
 well with me that I do not recollect in my life ever 
 having spent a month with so continued a flow of high 
 spirits, which received no slight addition by the society 
 of a very handsome and most agreeable girl, whose 
 name I have forgotten.^ 
 
 In a letter from Dr. Burney (of this year) he rallied 
 
 ' That Arthur Young's society was equally agreeable to the other 
 sex Fanny Burney tells us. In the gossipy, ecstatic journal of her girl- 
 hood she writes : ' Last night, whilst Hetty, Susey, and myself were at 
 tea, that lively, charming, spirited Mr. Young entered the room. Oh, 
 how glad we were to see him ! '
 
 FAKMING AND EXPEEIMENTS 101 
 
 me with much wit on my culture of the earth instead 
 of the Muses. This friend of mine had a happy talent 
 of rendering his letters lively and agreeable, indeed they 
 were a picture of the man, for I never met with any 
 person who had more decided talents for conversation, 
 eminently seasoned with wit and humour, and these 
 talents were so at command that he could exert them 
 at will. He was remarkable for some sprightly story 
 or witty bon mot just when he quitted a company, which 
 seemed as much as to say, ' There now, I have given you 
 a dose which you may work upon in my absence.' His 
 society was greatly sought after by all classes, from the 
 first nobility to the mere lioinme de lettres. He dressed 
 expensively, always kept his carriage, and yet died 
 worth about 15,000?., leaving a most capital library of 
 curious books. His second wife was my wife's sister, 
 the handsome widow of a Mr. Allen, of Lynn, who in a 
 short life in commerce made above 40,000/., leaving her 
 a handsome fortune and her two daughters equally pro- 
 vided for. 
 
 This year I had a controversy in the ' Bury St. 
 Edmunds News ' with Capel Lofft, Esq.,^ on the proposal 
 which originated with the Earl of Bristol,- for building 
 a 74-gun ship and presenting it to the public. I wrote 
 
 ' A Suffolk squire, ardent Whig, and of considerable literary attain- 
 ments. At his expense was published Bloomfield's Farnier^s Boy. 
 
 ^ Frederick Hervey, Episcopal Earl of Bristol. The Annual Register 
 for 1803 has the following : 'His love of art and science was only sur- 
 passed by love of his country and generosity to the unfortunate of every 
 country. He was a great traveller, and there is not a country of Europe 
 in which the distressed have not obtained his succour. He was among 
 the leaders of Irish patriots during the American War, and a member 
 of the Convention of Volunteer Delegates in 1782. He was on this
 
 102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNQ 
 
 a paper in favour of this scheme, which so pleased 
 Lord Bristol that he complimented me on my eloquent, 
 spirited language, and he caused a numerous edition of 
 it to be printed and given away. Lofft attacked the 
 scheme as unconstitutional, I retorted, and a paper 
 war ensued which lasted for some time, and was after- 
 wards published. The Earl of Shelburne, at that time 
 Minister, wrote several letters to Lord Bristol in which 
 he appeared highly gratified by this plan. Capel Lofft 
 at the conclusion of our controversy wrote to me a very 
 polite letter, expressing his satisfaction that our names 
 should be united in the same publication. These 
 papers were read with much avidity, and established 
 the Bury paper in which they were written, to the 
 great emolument of the proprietor. 
 
 Prince Potemkin, the Kussian Prime Minister, sent 
 this year to England three young men consigned to 
 the care of M. Smirnove, chaplain to the Eussian 
 Embassy, who requested that I would fix them in my 
 immediate vicinity, in order that I might pay some 
 attention to their progress and acquisitions. This I 
 readily did, and took every means to have them well 
 instructed in the English mode of cultivating land.^ 
 
 1782. — This year Mrs. Cousmaker, sister to my 
 mother, died in her house at Bradfield. She was a 
 
 occasion escorted from Derry to Dublin by volunteer cavalry, receiving 
 military honours at every town. He died at Albano, Rome, surrounded 
 by artists whose talents his judgment had directed and whose wants his 
 liberality had supplied.' 
 
 ' By an irony of fate, Arthur Young, who had found farm after farm 
 in his own hands a disaster, was now by general acceptance the first 
 European authority on agriculture.
 
 FAKMING AND EXPEEEVIENTS 103 
 
 maiden lady who never would marry, though she had 
 several advantageous offers. She left me her house 
 and two farms, and a long annuity in the funds of 1501. 
 a year, which expired about fifteen years afterwards. 
 She had 300^. per annum of three annuities, the whole 
 of which had once been left to me, but being much 
 offended with my wife she gave half of it to another 
 person. She also left me her carriage and horses. She 
 was a very religious character ; the bequest in her wall 
 by which she left the farms to me was not expressed 
 exactly according to her mind, and she therefore altered 
 it with her own hand after executing the wall. This 
 vitiated the legacy, on consulting Lord Loughborough, 
 and he had doubts upon the question ; but upon taking 
 the opinion of several great lawyers, they declared the 
 legacy null, and that the estates lapsed to the heir of 
 law. This was John Cousmaker, Esq., of Hackney, 
 who very generously declared that he would not take 
 advantage of the error, and desired that Joshua Sharpe, 
 a celebrated solicitor, might draw up a deed, by which 
 he might make good the intention, which was 
 accordingly done. Such an instance of uncommon 
 liberality deserves to be recorded for the credit of 
 mankind. 
 
 This year the Episcopal Earl of Bristol Hved at 
 Ickworth both summer and winter, and having very 
 early called upon me after coming to the title and 
 estate, a great intimacy took place between us ; and 
 Lord B. desired me to dine with him every Thursday, 
 which I did through the whole year. Mr. Symonds, 
 Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, Sir John
 
 104 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTIIUR YOUNG 
 
 Culluin/ author of the ' History of Hawstead,' a very 
 learned antiquary, and the Eev. George Ashby, Bector 
 of Barrow,^ another antiquary, and a man of universal 
 knowledge, who for many years wrote a multitude of 
 papers in the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' being constantly 
 of the party. It was a trait in this nobleman's charac- 
 ter, which deserved something more than admiration, 
 to select men distinguished for knowledge and ability 
 as his companions. 
 
 Lord Bristol was one of the most extraordinary men 
 I ever met with. He was a perfect original — dressed in 
 classical adorning; he had lived much abroad, spoke 
 all modern languages fluently, and had an uncommon 
 vein of pleasantry and wit, which he greatly exerted, 
 and without reserve, when in the company of a few 
 select friends. When abroad, and for many years 
 afterwards, he lived in a manner that was not very 
 episcopal. He had been so long absent from Ireland 
 that the Primate wrote him three letters of remon- 
 strance, and the answer he sent him was to do up and 
 send in three blue peas in a blue bladder. The old 
 proverb symptomatic of contempt, ' Oh ! that is but 
 three blue peas,' &c., is well known. The Bishop 
 removing, he could not be forced back, and remained 
 where he was. In my life I never passed more agree- 
 able days than these weekly dinners at Ickworth. The 
 conversation was equally instructive and agreeable. 
 This eccentric man built in Ireland a large and very 
 
 ' The History and Antiqtiities of Hawstead and HardivicTce, in 
 Suffolk. The second edition appeared in 1813, with notes by Sir T. 
 Gery-Cullum. 
 
 - Author of many antiquarian treatises.
 
 FAEMING AND EXPERIMENTS 105 
 
 expensive round house, on a plan as singular as himself ; 
 and, what was more extraordinary, a repetition of it at 
 Ickworth. The shell of the body was finished and 
 covered in ; the wings scarcely begun, and nothing 
 done towards completing the centre. Above 40,000Z. 
 was expended, and it would require much more than 
 forty more to finish it on the original plan, after 
 which it would be nearly uninhabitable. Lady Bristol 
 used to call it a stupendous monument of folly ; but the 
 most extraordinary circumstance in relation to it was, 
 that he began it while he disliked the spot, from the 
 wetness of the soil, and w^ould often tell me that he 
 should never be such a fool as to build in so wet a 
 situation. It was then generally imagined that as he 
 must inherit Eushbrooke he would wait till that period, 
 and if he built at all, would do it there. It was begun 
 and carried on till the time of his death without his 
 ever having seen it ; and he often declared in letters that 
 he never would set his foot in England till it was finished 
 and furnished with all the vertu that he had collected 
 in Italy. He never did set his foot in England again, 
 for the shell of this fantastic building, and that of its 
 still more extraordinary possessor, were finished at the 
 same time, and my Lord left the whole, as if by design, 
 a burthen to his son and successor, with whom he had 
 been on the worst terms, and from whom he gave 
 away by will the very furniture of the old habitable 
 house at Ickworth. At the Thursday dinners I, of 
 course, met all who were visitors to the family, among 
 whom Lord B.'s uncle, General Hervey, was sometimes 
 present. This was another uncommon character in
 
 106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 some respects, but had not half the originahty of his 
 brother. He, too, was a most determined infidel, but 
 had so far an expectation, not only of a future state, 
 but also a kind of instinctive belief of the possibility 
 of rewards and punishments, that acting happily for 
 others, poor man, if not for himself, this half-faced 
 belief made him one of the most charitable men living. 
 His morning rides were generally amongst the poor of 
 the neighbouring parishes, amongst whom he distri- 
 buted clothing, food, and bedding, vdth money to take 
 them out of difficulties, in a spirit of liberality rarely 
 equalled, and gave away during a long course of years 
 more in charity than thousands who had ten times his 
 fortune. This instance may excite a reflection upon 
 the weakness of judging a man's .religion only by his 
 works ; for surely it would be a strange absurdity to 
 take the measure of piety in the heart by any circum- 
 stance of the conduct which would be emulated or 
 surpassed by an infidel. But what is charity when the 
 right motive is wanting ? 
 
 In my library ' is a complete edition of Eousseau's 
 works, given me by the Earl of Bristol. 
 
 About this time my friend, the Rev. Mr. Valpy,^ 
 who had for some time been Usher at the Grammar 
 School of Bury St. Edmunds, was elected master of 
 that at Reading, and a correspondence commenced which 
 lasted many years. He was a most learned, ingenious 
 and agreeable man, in so much that I greatly regretted 
 
 ' Sold by auction in December 189G. 
 
 - Richard Valpy, D.D., 1754-1836, distinguifshed scholar, voluminous 
 writer on educational works, and author of the famous Greek and Latin 
 grammars.
 
 FARMING AND EXPEEDHENTS 107 
 
 his departure, feeling most sensibly the loss of his 
 society. I have, been occasionally connected with him 
 since, and shall always hold him in great estimation 
 for his learning, his talents, and sincerity of friendship. 
 My son was under his tuition for some years. In the 
 following letter my brother describes the state of this 
 nation, which he thinks miserably bad : — 
 
 ' Eton College : Oct. 31, 1782. 
 
 * Dear Arthur, — I wrote to you three days ago, and 
 yesterday I received yours, complaining that I write 
 no politicks. If you can, I cannot think of them with 
 any degree of patience. We are a ruined people, tear- 
 ing ourselves to pieces, everyone thinking of his party 
 and himself, and no one caring for the publick, and 
 that is the truth whatever you may hear or read. 
 There is not a blockhead in England, who can only 
 read and write and some who can only sign their 
 names, of whom I could give you instances, who 
 does not think himself qualified to new model the 
 constitution. All true regard for liberty, and law, and 
 a free government is gone, and there seems to be a 
 general resolution not to be governed at all, which 
 must end in despotism. We have no Ministry, nor 
 do I see how we can have any. The whole summer 
 has been spent in enlisting recruits against the winter. 
 The friends of the old Ministry give out that Lord 
 North has the decisive votes, which I think may be 
 true. He was very lately unengaged, and, I am glad 
 to hear, has declared positively against all innovations. 
 For I am sure there is neither honesty, nor knowledge,
 
 108 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 nor abilities in this generation, to be trusted with 
 altering our constitution. There are but two modes 
 of governing — by power, or by influence. I desire to 
 be governed by influence, but not that the influence 
 may be so great as to be equivalent to power. I think 
 that the Bill,^ taking away the votes of the Eevenue 
 oflicers, will have great effect if ever executed, and am 
 against proceeding further till I see the consequences 
 of that Bill. I would annihilate the enormous plates 
 in the Exchequer, but that would not much affect 'the 
 influence of the Crown, As to increasing the Navy — 
 what do you mean ? Can you possibly increase your 
 Navy without increasing the number of your seamen ? 
 And can you increase them without increasing your 
 trade ? You have already more ships than you can 
 man. When your silly Suffolk scheme of building a ship 
 was first mentioned to Lord Keppel, he said : If they 
 could find him seamen he should be obliged to them, 
 for he had ten more ships ready if he had seamen to 
 put into them. We have got into one of those stupid 
 wars which the Tories have always clamoured for, 
 a naval war with France, without any land war in 
 which our men might die in German ditches ; we pay 
 no subsidies to German princes for defending them- 
 selves, and you see how it has succeeded. The French 
 having no diversion of their wealth to a land war are 
 superior at sea, as any man of common sense might 
 have foreseen. If your Suffolk gentry would take care 
 
 ' This Bill to disable Eevenue officers from voting in Parliamentary 
 elections was introduced April 16, 1782, and read a third time on the 
 25th ; read a third time in the House of Lords by 34 Contents to 18 
 Non-contents, See Hansard.
 
 FAKMING AND EXPERIIVIENTS 109 
 
 of their own duty and suppress the smuggHng on their 
 coast, it would be well. The Parliament will supply 
 Government with monej^ levied equally on the subject, 
 to build ships as thej" are wanted ; and Government is 
 by common law armed with power to avail itself of 
 every seaman in the country ; and that is the only just 
 and equitable way of providing a Navy. 
 
 ' I shall be in town next month, and will call on our 
 Aunt Ingoldsby. I am sorry to hear that my mother's 
 memory fails so fast ; it frightens me out of my wits 
 every time I forget anything. 
 
 ' Yours very affectionately, 
 
 'J. Young.'
 
 110 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 CHAPTEK VI 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE, 1783-1785 
 
 Birth of Bobbin — Ice baths — ' The Annals of Agriculture ' — A group 
 of friends — Lazowski — First glimpse of France — Death of my mother 
 — The Bishop of Derry — Fishing parties — Rainham. 
 
 On May 5 of this year my dear Bobbin was born.^ I 
 passed the year at Bradfield, and was much in the 
 society of many neighbouring gentlemen. At this 
 time I was a desperate bather, going into the water 
 every morning at four o'clock each winter, and with or 
 without the obstruction of a thick coat of ice, having 
 often to break it before I could bathe. All my friends 
 much condemned the practice, and assured me that I 
 should kill myself, but it became so habitual that their 
 prophecies w^ere vain. As soon as I was out of bed I 
 continued my favourite practice, walking about two 
 hundred yards to a bath I had constructed, and plunging 
 in, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather. 
 
 I had this year a severe fever, which occasioned 
 several of my friends, with all the acrimony that a 
 departure from the usual modes of life occasions, 
 
 ' ' My lovely Bobbin ' — christened Martha Ann — the adored child 
 whose loss at the age of fourteen was the great sorrow of Arthur Young's 
 life. The pet name of ' Bobbin ' originated in that of ' Robin,' which the 
 child gave herself but could not pronounce.
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FE.4NCE 111 
 
 strongly to dissuade me from persisting in my scheme. 
 I myself was firmly persuaded that it was not, as they 
 declared, the cause of my illness, and therefore when 
 I was perfectly recovered resumed the practice, which 
 I continued for many years ; and I once at Petworth, 
 at Lord Egremont's, went into the bath at four in 
 the morning, when the thermometer was below zero. 
 Upon coming out, walked into the shrubbery, and rolled 
 myself in the snow as an experiment to see the effect 
 . on my body ; it had none, except that of increasing 
 strength and activity, and was not at all disagreeable. 
 
 In January commenced one of the greatest specula- 
 tions in my life — the publication of ' The Annals of 
 Agriculture.' I had long meditated such a work, and 
 corresponded upon it with Mr. ^Miyman Baker, of 
 Ireland, who had promised communications. The plan 
 which first suggested itself was peculiar, and to the 
 exclusion of all private profit — with a constant pub- 
 lication of the printing and publishing accounts — but 
 the booksellers applied to, rejected the idea, and the 
 work appeared monthly, with very indifferent success, 
 for about a twelvemonth. The correspondence being 
 highly respectable, and no papers inserted without the 
 name and place of abode of the writer, it rose gradually 
 to the support of itself, and after a time enabled me to 
 insert a great number of plates. It would have proved 
 a very profitable publication but for the many numbers 
 which were obliged to be reprinted. Printing only 500 
 afterwards occasioned reprinting another 500, still a 
 third 500. This created so large an expense that it 
 swallowed up everything that wore the resemblance
 
 112 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 of profit, and many years afterwards I continued 
 
 reprinting various numbers for the sole object of 
 
 completing sets ; this formed a back current ; which 
 
 carried away what would have been profit. It may be 
 
 added that many of those papers written by myself, 
 
 forming perhaps a third or fourth of the whole work, 
 
 may be reckoned among my most valuable productions, 
 
 and have received the sanction of approbation, by being 
 
 translated into several foreign languages. It is an 
 
 anecdote which cannot be generally known, that two 
 
 very able letters, which came under the name of 
 
 Eobinson, the King's shepherd at Windsor, were really 
 
 the production of his Majesty's own pen, describing 
 
 what he had long been intimately acquainted with, the 
 
 husbandry of Mr. Ducket. The King took in two sets 
 
 of the work, one of which he regularly sent to that 
 
 farmer ; and in the interview which I had with his 
 
 Majesty upon the terrace of Windsor, the first word 
 
 the King said to me was : ' Mr. Y., I consider myself as 
 
 more obliged to you than to any other man in my 
 
 dominions,' and the Queen told me that they never 
 
 travelled without my ' Annals ' in the carriage. Lord 
 
 Fife informed me that he himself always had the 
 
 ' Annals ' sent him the moment they were published, but 
 
 still he always found that the King was beforehand 
 
 with him, for upon the first of the month, while the 
 
 number was unopened upon his table, riding out and 
 
 meeting his Majesty, he at once spoke to him on a 
 
 paper of his own (Lord Fife's) in that number, 
 
 showing that he had read the whole before it had 
 
 met the eye of the author.
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF FKANCE 113 
 
 Among the letters I received this year the following 
 may be particularly noted : — 
 
 From Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derry 
 
 ' Londonderry : April 23, 1783. 
 
 ' A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend, for your 
 recollection of me at so many miles' distance, and for 
 your summary Gazette of the present miscellaneous 
 state of our neighbours, but no thanks at all to you 
 for wishing me back to the foggy, fenny atmosphere of 
 Ickworth, in preference to the exhilarating and invigo- 
 rating air, or rather ether, of the Downhill. When you 
 are vapid, if ever those petillant spirits of yours are so, 
 come and imbibe some fixed or unfixed air at the Down- 
 hill, where a tree is no longer a rarity, since above 
 200,000 have this winter been planted in the glens round 
 my house ; come and enjoy the rapidity and the success 
 with which I have converted sixty acres of moor, by 
 the medium of two hundred spades, into a green carpet, 
 sprinkled with white clover. Am I not an adept in 
 national dialect ? Come and enjoy some mountain con- 
 verted into arable, and grouse metamorphosed without 
 a miracle, into men ; come and teach a willing disciple 
 and an affectionate friend how to finish a work he is 
 barely able to begin. 
 
 ' In all my leases to the tenants of the See, I have 
 providently, and with a long forecast, made a reservation 
 to myself of all the bog and mountain lands deemed 
 unprofitable. Well, these I am enabled by statute to 
 grant in trust for myself during sixty-one years. Now 
 is the moment to execute this great purpose ; the 
 
 I
 
 114 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 reserved acres amount to several thousands, and upon 
 one mountain only I have received proposals for build- 
 ing 200 cabbins (cabins) ; the limestone is at the 
 bottom of the hill, and the turf at the top. What gold 
 may not this chemistry produce, and who do you think 
 would himself submit to vegetate at Ickworth whilst 
 he can direct such a laboratory at the Downhill ? 
 
 * Can Ashby crawl — Quantum mutatiis ah illo ? I 
 shall next expect to hear of Arthur's creeping. Mure 
 I knew always to be a prince in his ideas ; I am glad 
 to hear he is able to be so in his works. Cullum 
 can dignify any subject, and interest his reader in the 
 most insignificant, so I conclude we all read even his 
 Hawstead Antiquities with pleasure and instruction. 
 But what is Symonds ' about ? not six yards round I 
 hope like Falstaff — Ipse quid agis, quae circumvolitas 
 agilis thyma ? ^ Pray ramble once more to Ireland 
 either by the proxy of a letter or in person. You will 
 ever be welcome to your affectionate friend, 
 
 'Beistol.' 
 
 This year Arthur Young, an American prisoner, 
 VTrote to me asking charity ; it deserves to be mentioned 
 that in a book called ' England's Black Tribunal ' ^ there 
 is a hst of emigrants to America in the seventeenth 
 century, at the head of whom stands the name of Arthur 
 
 ' Dr. J. Symonds, Pi-ofessor of Modern History at Cambridge, was 
 LL.D., and wrote a book, Hints and Observations on Scripture. 
 
 - The Bishop misquotes from memory. The quotation is from 
 Horace, Ep. Bk. I. iii. 21 ; agis should be audes. 
 
 ^ Published 1703, giving an account of the trial of Charles I., of 
 Montrose, &c.
 
 FIRST GLBIPSE OF FEANCE 115 
 
 Young. The following letters are from James Barry,' 
 the celebrated painter. This was a very singular 
 character. I sat to him for the portrait which he 
 inserted in his famous painting for the decoration of 
 the Society's room.^ I met him often at Dr. Burney's, 
 and alwaj^s found him to abound with original observa- 
 tions, which marked a character peculiarly his own. He 
 always seemed to me to be proud of his poverty. 
 
 ' Adelphi : April 1783. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I am very much obliged to you for 
 your kind letter, and hope your goodness will make 
 every allowance for my not having answered it sooner, 
 but of all things I hate writing at any time, more 
 particularly at present, when I had resolved to allow 
 myself some days' Sabbath, to the utter exclusion of 
 all manner of labour, even of that which was most 
 agreeable to me. I shall be sincerely obliged to you 
 for your corrected copy of my account of the pictures,^ 
 and the freer and the more extensive your strictures 
 are the more thankful I shall be ; whatever is for use 
 shall be adopted, and I will further promise you that 
 whatever may not be to the purpose shall be thrown 
 aside with as little reluctance as if I had written it my- 
 self. I expect to find you on a wrong scent in what you 
 call my violence, which you may think has been carried 
 too far, and I shall have a pleasure in setting you right as 
 
 ' Died in great poverty, 1808, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral. 
 
 ^ The Society of Arts, Adelphi. 
 
 * This apparently refers to Barry's report of the Eoyal Academy. 
 
 I 2
 
 116 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 to that matter the first time we meet. You will find 
 nothing has arisen from resentment, nothing from a 
 desire of retaliating, nothing from paltry, interested 
 views ; such motives, though I might be inclined to 
 make allowance for them in others, I should reprobate 
 in myself. It appeared to me a bounden duty to point 
 out for the common good whatever I could discover of 
 those quicksands, shoals, and rocks that obstruct and 
 endanger our viaggiatori in the belle arti, and I am 
 confident that the arts and the reputation of the 
 country will receive essential service, whenever this 
 chart (of which I have made but a rude sketch) shall 
 be perfected by some man of more information and 
 better abilities (though perhaps not of more love for 
 truth, for the public and for science) and of penetration, 
 energy, vivacity and perspicuity, to treat this matter as 
 it deserves. 
 
 ' Though I don't wish to hurry you, yet I hope your 
 copy will come soon ; I accept your terms, or rather I 
 insist upon them, but do not content yourself with 
 what you may have written in the margin, in which, 
 upon this occasion, I am sorry to believe you must be 
 straitened for want of room ; however, you can stick 
 papers between the leaves, and in charity spare not 
 the rod, as it may save the child. I have on all 
 hands got more praise than I well know what to do 
 vnth, and something else may now be more profitable 
 to me. 
 
 ' In what you say of yourself I feel for the country — 
 the loss is theirs, not yours. God Almighty has so 
 ordered matters in this world that it is praiseworthy
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 117 
 
 and honourable when genius and abilities will struggle 
 to exert themselves for the service of others ; it was for 
 this end they were given, and with the consciousness 
 of these honest and dutiful endeavours such men must 
 be contented, and, indeed, ought to be happy, as no 
 more can depend upon themselves. Others are to be 
 accountable, and to receive glory or infamy for what 
 is done on their part in the assistance or the obstruction 
 they may have flung in the way. Farewell ! 
 
 ' Yours most affectionately, 
 
 'J, Barry.' 
 
 'Adelphi: July 1783. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I am delighted with your account of 
 Ireland, 'tis v^dse, candid, bold, exceedingly humane, 
 and just what the nature of the case required. I have 
 long been sick at heart of the timid, trimming, mis- 
 takingly prudent, and palliating conduct of those 
 writers who have been liitherto quacking and dabbling 
 with the sores and miseries of that country, and was 
 without the least hope of ever seeing this matter 
 undertaken by any man of such sufficient courage, 
 philanthropy, or charity (which are indeed but dif- 
 ferent points of view of the same virtue), as inight 
 obtain for us a fair, open and entire exposition of this 
 unexampled and very melancholy case. Judge, then, 
 what a pleasure I am receiving in the perusal of your 
 book. You have, I find, probed the evil to the bottom, 
 and left me without a wish. The men of Ireland 
 are surely much indebted to you, and will, I trust, one 
 day acknowledge it, but for the present you must have
 
 118 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 patience and ought to bear with them, as the illiberality 
 or meanness you may justly complain of may fairly be 
 ascribed to an unhappy combination of circumstances, 
 owing principally to the tyrannical monopolising dis- 
 position and rascally interference of your own fore- 
 fathers, who had with the most abominable and 
 diabolical poUcy employed their whole skill and power 
 utterly to erase from the minds of Irishmen all those 
 noble and generous feelings which w^ere incompatible 
 with a servile and enslaved condition, and which ulti- 
 mately estranged them from the exercise of even the 
 ordinary vulgar virtues. 
 
 ' In situations where men are divided into large 
 bodies of tyrants and slaves, little good is to be ex- 
 pected. Their vices may differ, but they are all equally 
 remote from virtue, truth, justice, gratitude, the love 
 of excellence, or any other of those qualities which 
 constitute the real dignity of human nature. Those 
 who are attached to no country or description of men, 
 but for the ends and furtherance of humanity, by equal 
 justice and happiness, will with me rejoice and give 
 Almighty God thanks for the dissolution of whatever 
 has hitherto obstructed the growth and spreading of 
 virtue, and for that just sense of the human dignity 
 which is now diffusing itself so extensively in Ireland, 
 and gives fair prospect of a plentiful harvest (in due 
 season) of those other virtues which, though but thinly 
 scattered in England, are at present, I fear, in vain to 
 be sought for anywhere else. 
 
 ' Yours most affectionately, 
 
 ' James Baert.'
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF FEANCE 119 
 
 At this period commenced a most agreeable ac- 
 quaintance with a French gentleman who came to 
 Bury, and I must dilate a little on the origin of his 
 journey. The Duke of Liancourt ' was Colonel of a 
 French regiment, the quarters of which were at Pont 
 a Mousson, in Lorraine, to which he went every year, 
 according to the regulations of the French army. At 
 that place he accidentally met Monsieur de Lazowski,^ 
 son of a Pole, who came to Lorraine with King 
 Stanislas. The Duke was so struck with his manner 
 and conversation that he resolved to cultivate his 
 acquaintance. About that time he was in want of a 
 tutor for his two sons — not for the common purposes 
 of education, but to travel with them. He accordingly 
 engaged Lazowski to make the tour of France with 
 these lads, the Count de la Kochefoucault and the 
 Count Alexander de la Eochefoucault. The Duke 
 thought it an important part of education to become 
 well acquainted with their own country. During two 
 years they travelled over the greatest part of the 
 
 ' The friend of Louis XVI., who summoned courage to announce the 
 fall of the Bastille. ' It is a revolt?' said the King. 'Sire,' replied 
 the Duke, ' it is a revolution.' This amiable and well-intentioned man 
 leaned towards a constitutional monarchy ; finding this hopeless, he 
 emigrated, returning after exile to Liancourt (Seine and Oise), ending 
 his days among a community he had raised morally and materially. 
 Died 1827. 
 
 ^ His brother must not be wholly judged from Madame Koland's 
 portrait, penned in prison. The ' Queen of the Gironde ' no more than 
 her fellow-partisans was free from political animus. It is true that 
 Lazowski threw himself into the very heart of Sans-culottisvic, and 
 that his funeral oration (1792) was pronounced by Robespierre. His 
 alleged share in the September massacres requires stronger evidence 
 than that of his bitterest enemies at bay.
 
 120 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 kingdom on horseback. The Duke was so well pleased 
 with the conduct of Lazowski on this journey that, 
 having determined to send his sons to England in 
 order to acquire the language of that country, and, 
 generally, in compliance with the Anglomania which 
 then reigned in France, he continued Lazowski in 
 his situation and sent them all three to England. 
 Among other objects in France, Lazowski had given 
 some attention to agriculture, particularly in its con- 
 nection with political economy. On his arrival in 
 London he made enquirj^ who could most probably 
 give him information relative to agriculture, manu- 
 factures, commerce and other national objects. Among 
 others I was named to him by some person who was so 
 partial in his representations that he at once determined 
 to fix at Bury for a short time, which he understood 
 was the nearest town to my country residence. He 
 and the two young men went to the Angel Inn, from 
 thence hired convenient apartments, and enquired 
 where I resided. At that time I was absent, and Mr. 
 Symonds, understanding that two young men of fashion 
 from France were at Bury, introduced himself and 
 showed them various civilities, and when I returned 
 brought them over to Bradfield. From that time a 
 friendship between me and Lazowski commenced, and 
 lasted till the death of the latter. He was about forty 
 years of age, and in every respect a most agreeable 
 companion. He soon made rapid progress in the 
 English language, which he spoke not only w^th 
 fluency, but often with extreme wittiness. There was 
 not in his mind any strong predominant cast ; but
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FEANCE 121 
 
 the grace and facility of his manner, with suavity 
 of temper, made him a great favomite, and being 
 also highly elegant and refined, he often produced 
 impressions which were not easily effaced. From his 
 general conversation in mixed society it was not readily 
 concluded that he could or would attend wdth great 
 industry and perseverance to objects of importance. 
 But this would have been erroneous, for he exerted the 
 greatest industry in making himself a master of all 
 those circumstances which mark the basis of national 
 prosperity, and he formed in his own mind a very 
 correct comparison of the resources both of Britain 
 and France. He often expressed to me much surprise 
 at what he thought on this subject in England, and 
 declared that the ignorance of the French relative to 
 their great rival was most profound. The Duke of 
 Liancourt was highly gratified by his correspondence, 
 and after he had resided some time, first at Bury and 
 afterwards with Mr. Symonds, he was directed to take 
 the young men a tour through England and Scotland, 
 which he did. The Duke himself came over on a 
 visit to Sjrmonds while his sons and their tutor were 
 in the house. Soon after his arrival in England, 
 hearing that there were such carriages at Bury as were 
 called buggies, and desiring to make use of all sorts, he 
 ordered one to be hired to convey him and Lazowski 
 to Bradfield. On its coming to the door, Lazowski 
 perceiving that, though it was drawn by one horse 
 only, it ran upon the quarter,' he would have persuaded 
 
 ' ' That part of a horse's foot between the toe and heel, being the side 
 of the coffin.' — Farrier's Diet.
 
 122 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 the Duke not to attempt driving, as it would be 20 to 1 
 that he would overthrow it ; but the Duke, full of 
 presumption, held such prudential advice in con- 
 tempt, and, whipping away, had not gone half a mile 
 in a cross road before he overturned the carriage, and 
 in the fall dislocated his shoulder. The Duke was 
 conveyed to Sjononds. Lazowski instantly rode off 
 to inform me of the accident, and the Duke expressed 
 no more desire to drive carriages he had never seen. 
 Lazowski's connection with the Duke was not put an 
 end to when the education of his sons was finished ; 
 he was so useful that he continued his salary and an 
 apartment in the Hotel de la Eochefoucauld, Paris, 
 and I often admired the independent spirit with which 
 he lived in the family. A dinner- did not often pass 
 Vkdthout an argument between him and the Duke, 
 which was carried on with a great deal of heat on 
 both sides. On such occasions Lazowski never gave 
 up the shadow of an opinion, and being gifted with 
 more natural fluency than the Duke, he had usually 
 the better of the argument. This w^as equally to the 
 credit of both. His employment was chiefly drawing 
 up memorials upon pohtical subjects for the Duke's 
 information, who was a vain man, and, without doubt, 
 figured in conversation by this subsidiary assistance. 
 His vanity appeared in one circumstance in which he 
 attempted much more than he could perform. While 
 he was in the bath, or dressing by his valet de chambre, 
 he had three secretaries, to whom he pretended to 
 dictate at the same time. One of them told Lazowski 
 that it was scarcely credible how they were fatigued
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FKANCE 123 
 
 by his incessant blunders. Yet in France, perhaps, 
 this very attempt gave a sort of reputation. It was 
 suspected that he merely attempted this in imitation 
 of Csesar, who did the same thing, but in a very 
 different manner, it is presumed, from the D. de 
 Liancourt. With a view similar to that of retaining 
 Lazowski, he gave an apartment to Jarre, an officer 
 who had long been in the Kussian service, and after- 
 wards became famous for burning the suburbs of 
 Courtray. He was well known in England as General 
 Jarre, and placed at the head of the Military Asylum 
 at "Wycombe. While I was in France, M. Jarre 
 published an octavo volume under the title of ' Credit 
 National,' a whimsical work, in which the arguments 
 were very ill supported. Lazowski alwaj's showed me 
 great friendliness, and I returned it with great constancy 
 and truth. Among all the men I met with in France, 
 attached to the higher classes or constituting them, all 
 were infidels, and poor Lazowski of the number. He 
 never lost himself so completely as when he entered 
 into an argument upon the truth of Christianity with 
 the Bishop of Llandaff, for, though civilly done, the 
 Bishop ground him to powder. The latter, of course, 
 thought him nothing but a frothy Frenchman, like 
 most of his countrymen, with Voltaire in his head and 
 the devil in his heart, all of whom would have talked 
 the same language had they had the same opportunity. 
 Before Lazowski and his pupils had learnt English, 
 Symonds took them to Cambridge, and introduced 
 them to the Bishop, who, understanding that the young 
 men were of high rank in France, and knowing that
 
 124 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 he spoke French himself with difficulty, put on his 
 canonicals to receive his foreign guests, and, entering 
 the room with a most stately air, addressed them all in 
 Latin, liinting to Symonds the propriety, as Latin was 
 the language of that learned University, and, therefore, 
 in using it he was classically right. The Frenchmen, 
 of course, replied with plenty of bows and grimaces 
 to every learned sentence rolled out in most majestic 
 tone from the Bishop's mouth, but giving no other 
 answer. The Bishop was at last compelled to address 
 them in his broken French : ' Latin, gentlemen, is our 
 language here, but perhaps you had rather I should 
 speak in bad French than not use that language at 
 all ! ' and then relaxing his episcopal dignity, he 
 conversed with them at ease and quieted their ruffled 
 spirits. 
 
 1784. — This year I took a journey with my son 
 for farming intelligence into Essex and Kent, &c., and, 
 being at Dover, we went over to Calais just to enable 
 us to say that we had been in France. But I had 
 another motive, which was to see M. Mouron, and the 
 capital improvements that gentleman had made near 
 Calais. "We lived three or four days at Dessein's cele- 
 brated inn. M. Mouron not only showed me his great 
 farm, but explained to me every circumstance of the 
 improvements, which I printed in the 'Annals.' Some 
 years before the Empress Catherine had sent over seven 
 or eight young men to learn practical agriculture, two 
 or three of whom were fixed with my friend Arbuthnot, 
 and others in different parts of the Kingdom. They 
 were under the superintendence of the Kev. Mr. Sam-
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FKANCE 125 
 
 bosky, who wrote to me at Bradfield earnestly requesting 
 that I would go to London a.nd examine all the young 
 men, that he might take or send them to St. Petersburg. 
 This I accordingly did, and examined them very closely, 
 except one, who refused to answer any questions from a 
 conviction of his absolute ignorance. I gave a certifi- 
 cate of the others' examination, and I asked Sambosky 
 what would become of the obstinate fool who would 
 not answer. He replied that without doubt he would 
 be sent to Siberia for life, but I never heard whether 
 this happened. One of them, by much the ablest, 
 remained in England, and became in time Chaplain to 
 the Eussian Embassy, in which situation he is at the 
 present time, and held in general esteem. The intended 
 establishment of an Imperial farm never took place, and 
 after at least an expenditure of 10,000/., the men on their 
 arrival were turned loose, some to starve, some driven 
 into the army, and others retained by Russian noble- 
 men. In this wretched and ridiculous manner did the 
 whole scheme end, which, under a proper arrangement, 
 might have been attended with very important effects. 
 Prince Potemkin, one of the first noblemen in the 
 Russian Empire, must have been animated with truly 
 liberal and enlarged ideas, or he would not now have 
 sent three young men to learn practical agriculture. 
 It gave me the greatest pleasure to be able to pro- 
 mote their enquiries during a part of their residence 
 here. 
 
 1785. — This year I wrote a note in the ' Annals ' 
 relative to a great work I had long been engaged in, 
 which it may not be here amiss to insert, viz. : to collect,
 
 126 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNa 
 
 under regular heads, all the well-ascertained facts that 
 are scattered through books of agriculture, and, inter 
 alia, in other works, with those to be deduced from the 
 common practice of various countries ; to interweave 
 experiments made purposely to ascertain the doubtful 
 points ; and to combine the whole into regular elements 
 of the Science is the great desideratum at present. It 
 is a work more proper for an Academy on a Eoyal founda- 
 tion than for any individual. But as no such Academy 
 is to be looked for, and as all private societies pay their 
 attention to desultory objects, as often to those already 
 ascertained as to points in which we want information 
 the most, I undertook the work myself more than ten 
 years ago.^ 
 
 I had this year the misfortune to lose my mother, 
 to whom I was most tenderly attached, and with 
 the greatest reason, as her kindness and affection 
 for me had never failed during the course of her whole 
 life. She had been educated in the most religious 
 manner by her father, Mr. de Cousmaker, of whom 
 mention has already been made as a character 
 eminently pious, but it was not till the loss of my 
 sister, Mrs. Tomlinson, that deep affliction recalled in 
 her heart those sentiments of religion which had been 
 
 ' This project developed into one much more Iformidable than the 
 writer at this period conceived, namely, that monumental history — or, 
 rather, encyclopaedia — of agriculture never destined to see the light. 
 For three-quarters of a century the ten folio volumes of manuscript 
 garnished the library of Bradfield Hall, perhaps once in twenty years to 
 be taken down by some curious guest. What was to have been Arthur 
 Young's crowning achievement and legacy to future ages is, fortunately, 
 not wholly lost to posterity. The ten volumes are now housed in the 
 MS. department of the British Museum.
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FEA^sXE 127 
 
 SO assiduously cultivated in her youth. She was always 
 extremely fond of me, and ever eager to do what could 
 contribute to my satisfaction, both as to worldly views, 
 but especially as to my eternal interests. 
 
 The tranquil bosom of my good mother's hermitage 
 — my native Bradfield — once more opened its arms to 
 receive us, little more than to come to close the eye 
 and receive the last signs of that beloved parent. 
 Blessed spirit ! — may my hitherto restless days finish 
 as thine did, who didst meet death with the tranquillity 
 of a healthy life, and mightst have said with as much 
 justice as an Addison, ' See with what peace a Christian 
 can die.' 
 
 Upon her death this patch of landed property ^ 
 devolved to me by a previous agreement with my elder 
 brother, and by my mother's will, written at his desire 
 with his own hand. But that agreement before it 
 terminated cost me a mortgage of 1,200?. The trans- 
 action does my brother's memory too much honour 
 not to mention it. He was entitled to 2,000/., but 
 knowing the smallness of the property, and humanely 
 considering that I had a family unprovided for, that he 
 had an ample income and no family at all, he generously 
 demanded and took no more than 1,200Z. "Whether 
 such things happen among relations or strangers, 
 they should be mentioned for the credit of the human 
 heart. 
 
 My correspondence this year was, upon the whole, 
 interesting, as a few of the letters will show. From the 
 
 ' Bradfield Hall was sold on the death of Arthur Young's last 
 descendant, the late Arthur Young, Esq., in 1896.
 
 128 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Earl of Bristol, a panegyric on agriculture ; another 
 from the same, an animated defence of the Presby- 
 terians. 
 
 ' Downhill, Coleraine : Jan. 15, 1785. 
 
 ' My dear Arthur, — I am mortified, and should 
 really be ashamed to see your entertaining letter so 
 long unanswered, but that the multiplicity, as well as 
 variety of my occupations, bereave me sometimes of 
 the most pleasing ones ; from sunrise to long after 
 sunset I am not a moment idle, either in mind or 
 person, and I can venture to assure you that agricul- 
 ture, being the basis of all public and private virtues, as 
 it banishes laziness, fortifies the body, leads to fair and 
 honest procreation, provides sustenance and multiplies 
 the tenderest and most endearing ties in nature, has 
 no little share both of my time and attention. Let 
 one hundred and fifty men daily employed verify my 
 assertion ; let the rocks which disappear and the grass 
 which succeeds to them corroborate that evidence. 
 But, then, what have I to do with the English plough ? 
 Neither our soil, nor our climate, nor our labourers 
 are the same ; we are poor and you are rich ; when 
 industry has approximated a little of our wealth to 
 yours perhaps we may be tempted to adopt your 
 luxury in agriculture, unless before that you shall 
 have discovered your errors and so saved us the 
 trouble of retracting what we have not had time to 
 adopt. 
 
 ' As to my Presbyterians, I am glad you are modest 
 enough not to censure those, whom you are honest 
 enough to confess you do not know ; all the harm
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FKANCE 129 
 
 which I find in them is that they love the rights 
 of mankind, and if in pm:suing them for themselves 
 they refuse to participate with their fellow citizens, I 
 would join in your execrations, and set them a better 
 example than hitherto they have received from our 
 church. Adieu ! let me hear from you sometimes 
 when you have nothing better to do, and tell Symonds, 
 with my affectionate compliments, that I have recovered 
 my lost map of the Pontine marshes, and will send it 
 by the first opportunity. If you ever see the learned 
 and good-humoured Kector (Keverend George Ashby) 
 don't let him forget 
 
 ' Your affectionate friend, 
 
 'Bristol.' 
 
 ' Downhill, Coleraine : March 9, 1785. 
 
 ' Dear Arthur, — I have but just received yours of the 
 19th, and though I do not think my letters worth 
 paying for, yet since you do, and I have a leisure half 
 hour, have at you. And in this duel of our pens, 
 who would expect a Bishop of the Established Church 
 to be an advocate for the anti-Episcopal Schismatics, 
 called Presbyterians, whilst a man whose religion lies 
 in his plough and his garden, that is, with the Goddess 
 of the one and with the God of the other, to be so 
 zealous an opponent? My defence rests principally 
 on this point, that they have as good a right to differ 
 from me as my ancestors from our joint ancestors, 
 or the Church established above twelve hundred years 
 before. 
 
 ' As to their political principles, I think them, from 
 
 K
 
 130 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 their system of parity, and from their practice in most 
 parts of Europe, infinitely more favomrable to political 
 liberty than om's. 
 
 ' Witness Germany and Switzerland and the short 
 reign of Old Nol. 
 
 ' You say, " But their political principles never 
 became powerfully active without involving their 
 country in a civil war." And are there not two words 
 to that bargain, and does not the pot call the kettle, 
 &c. &c. '? ^ You might as well object the same to all 
 good citizens when oppressed by bad ones ; you may 
 as well object the same to the first Brutus and to the 
 second ; you may as well object it to Luther and 
 Melanchthon. Did the Presbyterians ask anything 
 unreasonable when they desired to have their nonsense 
 tolerated as well as other nonsense ? for if it be non- 
 sense 'tis paying it too great a compliment, and our- 
 selves too bad a one, to persecute it ; and if it be 
 good sense, surely, for one's own sake, as well as that 
 of our neighbours, it deserves a better reception than 
 persecution. 
 
 'When I see Switzerland and Germany pacified 
 for above 150 years, after throat-cutting for 140, by 
 the single means of a reciprocal toleration, and by the 
 Pacta Conventa of 1648,^ which allowed them to share 
 those loaves and fishes alternately monopolised by 
 each party, I must confess, if I were Frederick the 
 First of Oceana, or of Atlantis, I should not hesitate 
 to begin my reign with that system with which most 
 
 ' Proverb, 'The pot calls the kettle black.' — Bailey's Diet. 
 - The Peace of Westphalia.
 
 FIKST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 131 
 
 sovereigns are compelled to close theirs ! The rights 
 of humanity, dear Arthur, the rights of humanity 
 form a great article in my creed, and that religion, or 
 sect of religion, which can teach otherwise may come 
 from below, but surely did not descend from above. 
 
 * Believe me, our whirlwind is not past, perhaps 
 'tis only just beginning ; yet three hundred labourers 
 with their spades fill my mind's eye with as pleasing 
 and as satisfactory ideas as the whole Coleraine Bat- 
 talion with their muskets before my door. If in this 
 whirlwind I can direct the storm, so much the better 
 for humanity, but not for the lank-haired Divinity, 
 nor the frizzle-topped Divinity, nor the hocus-pocus 
 Divinity. 
 
 ' I love agriculture because it makes good citizens, 
 good husbands, good fathers, good children ; because 
 it does not leave a man time to plunder his neighbour, 
 and because by its plenty it bereaves him of the 
 temptation ; and I hate an aristocratical Government 
 because it plunders these honest fellows ; because it is 
 idle ; it is insolent ; it values itself on the merits of it, 
 and because, like an overbearing torrent, the farther it 
 is removed from its fountain head, and the less it 
 partakes of its original purity, the more desolation it 
 carries with it ; and because, like a stinking, stagnated 
 pool, it inflicts those very disorders which it was the 
 chief merit of its spring and fountain head to heal and 
 remove. 
 
 ' Adieu. 
 
 ' Ever affectionately, 
 
 ' Bristol.' 
 
 K 2
 
 132 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 My brother, the Eev. Dr. Young, Fellow of Eton 
 College, in this letter informs me that the King reads 
 my ' Annals ' and is much pleased with them, and highly 
 approves of my arguments to show that we are far 
 enough from^being in a ruined state. 
 
 'Eton College : May 1, 1785. 
 
 ' Dear Arthur, — I have two of your letters to 
 answer ; the latter directed to "Worcester, why, I know 
 not, for I never intended to be there till the beginning 
 of next month. I see no reason for your being at the 
 expense you allude to for the public, and think you 
 ought to be indemnified ; you cannot afford these 
 journeys to London, and so I would plainly tell the 
 Ministers. 
 
 ' Yesterday se'nnight as I returned from the chase 
 the King spoke to me of you in very handsome terms ; 
 I find that he reads your publications. 
 
 ' He commended particularly your recent periodical 
 work as being very useful, and was much pleased 
 with your argument to prove that we are not a ruined 
 people, but have great resources. I told him that you 
 had been sent for by Mr. Kose,^ which he did know. 
 
 * You wrote to me some time ago that you were of 
 the same opinion with Lord Sheffield, but now you 
 write that the commercial part of their measure'^ is 
 very good, but the political part is very bad. How 
 do you reconcile this, for Lord S. is against the com- 
 mercial part ? 
 
 ' George Eose, President of the Board of Trade. Died 1818. 
 '* This measure is referred to on page 137.
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FEANCE 133 
 
 ' I wish you would explain this, for I am against 
 both parts, though, I confess, no judge. 
 
 ' You ask whether I continue mj^ new trade of 
 hunting. If you think it is a profitable one you are 
 much mistaken ; so far indeed it is, that I hope to 
 take this year twenty pounds out of my apothecary's 
 bill ; I have not been for some winters so well as I 
 have been since I took to hunting, and I hope to 
 continue the trade next year, I was yesterday seven 
 hours and a half on horseback, and rode certainly 
 fifty-five miles, besides fifteen more home from Henley 
 in a post-chaise, which is pretty well at fifty-seven 
 years old. 
 
 ' I have two very fine horses ; the King, who is 
 generally but moderately mounted, will tell you the 
 two best in the hunt. 
 
 ' Why would you not call on me when you were 
 
 in town ? 
 
 ' Adieu, dear Arthur. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 ' John Young.' 
 
 From Dr. Valpy, who corrected a poem I sent him, 
 and, to my surprise, approves of my poetry : — 
 
 ' My dear Friend, — I beg your pardon again and 
 again for keeping your poem so long. Unhappily I 
 had mislaid it, and chance only recovered it. There 
 runs a vein of fancy through your poetry which stamps 
 a high character upon it, and would yom* genius 
 but stoop to the minutiae of correctness would raise
 
 134 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 you to an exalted rank in that line. Whether you will 
 approve my alterations or not I cannot tell, but it would 
 be difficult to point out more inaccuracies in the poem. 
 You obliged me much by your introductory number. 
 I had sent for one before, with a view to lend it to my 
 friends and to engage them to become purchasers of 
 the work. It is very correctly written, except that 
 sometimes you use shook as a participle. 
 
 ' Everybody here is Pitt mad. Addresses upon 
 addresses crowd the avenue to St. James's. It has 
 even been proposed to offer Mr. Pitt a seat in Parlia- 
 ment for this town if Mr. Neville can be engaged to put 
 up for the county. Our county meeting was no bad an 
 epitome of the House of Commons. We had some 
 excellent speeches. I had occasion to be at the Oxford- 
 shire meeting — a most shabby wrangle and scene of 
 illiberal confusion. I admire Mr. Pitt — and do not like 
 Fox ; but ought not a dissolution to have taken place, 
 or the people have instructed their representatives 
 rather than suffer the House of Commons to be so 
 degraded ? What are your sentiments on this unhappy 
 dissension ? Sorry, very sorry I am that you would 
 not come down to Reading. I am certain you must 
 have met with an opportunity. It was my inten- 
 tion last Christmas to have paid you a visit, but I had 
 some friends with me. Next Christmas, however, I 
 mean to see Suffolk, if possible. Cullum is still here. 
 
 ' The present state of my school is this : six-and- 
 thirty boarders and three parlour boarders, besides day 
 scholars. I have two ushers. I sometimes hear of 
 your brother, but I have not met with him. I am told
 
 FIEST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 135 
 
 he has a mortal aversion to everything that comes from 
 Oxford. 
 
 ' March 18. — I hope your family and the mater- 
 familias are in a prosperous way. Pray give my best 
 respects to Mrs. Young, and remember me to the 
 3''oung ladies and my old scholar. Something I have 
 heard of another child. One of the greatest luxuries 
 that I sigh for in life is that you lived near me. But 
 inconveniences of absence do not seem likely to be pre- 
 vented by your endeavour to come after me. Let me, 
 however, hear from you as often as you can. 
 
 * Adieu. 
 
 'K. Valpy.' 
 
 I find by memoranda that I was busied in the 
 imagination of new fish-ponds,' taking lively interest in 
 and examining how much of the low meadow at Brad- 
 field could be laid under water. What led me to this 
 folly is not easy to conceive, because I could have 
 afforded to attempt the making of an ocean as much as 
 of a pond ; but how often is the register of a life the 
 register of human folly ? 
 
 I was (this year) elected an honorary member of 
 the Royal Society of Agriculture of Paris. ^ About this 
 time I went on a farming journey to the Bakewells,^ in 
 Leicestershire ; it was a very instructive journey and 
 
 ' Arthur Young's fishing parties are described in Fanny Barney's 
 Caviilla. 
 
 • Founded 178.5. 
 
 ■' Robert Bakewell, died ITDo, a celebrated grazier. It was wittily 
 remarked that ' his animals were too dear for anyone to buy, and too fat 
 for anyone to eat.'
 
 136 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 in which I gained a great deal of valuable information, 
 I also spent several days about this time with Lord 
 Townshend ' at Eainham and his uncommonly agree- 
 able young wife, equally elegant and beautiful. During 
 my visit I had an ample opportunity of admiring the 
 noble picture of Belisarius by Salvator Eosa, a perform- 
 ance which can never be too highly commended. With 
 the agreeableness of this noble family, and especially 
 of Lady Townshend, I rendered my visit extremely 
 pleasing. 
 
 The noble Lord, to whose liberal attention I owe 
 much information, came to his estate in so high a 
 degree of cultivation, owing to the unrivalled exertions 
 of his grandfather, that little was left for him to per- 
 form ; a life of great activity and service, had the situation 
 of his property been different, would not have allowed 
 a minute's attention. These notes will, however, show 
 that Lord Townshend has not been idle at Eainham. 
 
 On my arrival there I was anxious to view that 
 part of the estate chiefly near the house, which was 
 improved by a man who quitted all the power and 
 lustre of a Court for the amusements of agriculture. 
 
 Charles, Lord Viscount Townshend, who was Am- 
 bassador Extraordinary to the States General in 1709, 
 a Lord of the Eegency on the death of Queen Anne, 
 
 ' ' Turnip Townshend,' ancestor of the Lord Townshend here named, 
 was celebrated in the famous lines — 
 
 ' Why of two brothers, rich and restless, one 
 Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun ; 
 The other slights for women, sports, and wines, 
 All Townshend's turnips and all Grosvenor's mines.' 
 
 Pope's Gth translation of Horace.
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF FEANCE 137 
 
 Knight of the Garter, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 twice Secretary of State, and Lord President of the 
 Council, resigned the seals in May 1730, and, as he 
 died in 1738, it is probable that this period of eight 
 years was that of his improvements round Rainham, 
 
 The Irish propositions ^ which were at this time 
 imder the consideration of Government meeting with 
 many unforeseen difficulties, I had a letter from Mr. 
 Hose requesting information relative to the com- 
 parative circumstances of the two kingdoms, and Mr. 
 Pitt thought the information so much to the purpose 
 that he desired Mr. Eose to write to me requesting my 
 attendance in town. I accordingly went, and gave 
 Mr. Pitt the information he wished, at the same time 
 answering an abundance of collateral enquiries, for which 
 I received a formal letter of thanks. My correspond- 
 ence with Mr. Eose recurred several times after these 
 interviews. In his third letter he requested to be 
 informed of the amount of a labourer's consumption of 
 taxed commodities, in order to ascertain what excises 
 and other taxes such consumption supports. ' I con- 
 ceive,' he wrote, ' that the articles consumed by that 
 description of people are leather, candles, soap, beer, 
 probably some spirits, and perhaps a small quantity of 
 starch. I wish also very much to know what their 
 chief diet is, and the price of the articles in the different 
 parts of the country.' ^ 
 
 ' This seems to refer to Mr. Pitt's resolutions upon the commercial 
 intercourse between England and Ireland. The debate thereon began 
 February 22, 1785. See Hansard. 
 
 - How different would be the list of a labouring man's 'necessaries ' 
 in these days !
 
 138 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNQ 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY, 1786-1787 
 
 Death of my brother — Anecdotes of his character — Dr. Burney on 
 farming — Greemvich versus Eton — Blenheim — Correspondence 
 with Dr. Priestley — County toasts — French projects — First French 
 journey. 
 
 This year my brother died. He was in the habit of 
 hunting with the King, and having heard of a very fine 
 hunter to be sold in Herefordshire, he sent his servant 
 to purchase him. It was the end of the season, but 
 the King appointing one day more for the sport, Dr. 
 Young determined to try his new horse, and he went 
 in company with another gentleman to the field. His 
 friend observed to him that his horse tripped in an 
 odd manner, to which Dr. Y. replied : ' It is the 
 last day of hunting, and I shall see how he performs.' 
 ' Take care,' said the other, ' that it is not the last day 
 of your life.' He persisted in the trial, and was for a 
 time much pleased with his horse in several leaps ; 
 in taking another it struck its own legs against an 
 obstruction, threw his rider, whose neck was instantly 
 broken. He was taken up dead and carried home. 
 Thus died my nearest relative, who was a man of 
 very peculiar talents and of most singular originality
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY 139 
 
 of character. He had a great deal of eccentric wit, 
 and was extremely beloved by many intimate friends, 
 amongst whom were several of the Townshends, Corn- 
 wallises, and the Duke of Grafton, with whom he was 
 on the most intimate terms, and was a great favourite 
 of the Duchess. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 valued him so much for his rectitude of conduct in this 
 that he determined to promote him to the best prefer- 
 ment that should fall in his gift, and I have several letters 
 from him repeating this intention. Thus ended a life 
 that promised so many advantages, for he was high in 
 favour with the King, who was pleased not only fre- 
 quently to converse with him, but to ask his opinion 
 respecting many sermons which were at that time 
 published. Thus high in expectation of further pro- 
 motion, to lose his life in so unexpected and sudden a 
 manner was indeed singularly awful and unfortunate. 
 It was a dreadful blow also to all my son's hopes, for 
 as he was educating at Eton for the Church, my 
 brother, who had his turn as Fellow of Eton and Pre- 
 bendary of Worcester in about seventy pieces of pre- 
 ferment, and had passed all by that came to give away, 
 stood high in the lists purposely with a view of 
 promoting Arthur.' There was in Dr. Young a steady 
 rectitude of principle, an absolute abhorrence of every 
 mean and unworthy action, great natural parts, and as 
 he had been Captain (I think), or very near it, of Eton 
 School, he went to King's at Cambridge a capital 
 scholar. 
 
 The following anecdote relative to my brother I 
 
 ' Arthur Young's only son, born 1709.
 
 140 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 copy from a letter to my wife, written by my old friend 
 Professor Symonds : — 
 
 ' I assure you, Madam, that I was really at a loss to 
 conjecture whether you were in earnest or not when 
 you desired an answer to your letter ; but in case you 
 were in earnest (which I can now hardly think, since 
 the question might be answered better in conversation) , 
 you must be surprised and offended by my neglect ; but 
 I defy you to have been more surprised than you will 
 be at my charging your husband with this letter. I 
 concealed from him the purport of it, but judged it 
 necessary to inform him that there was not the shadow 
 of an intrigue between us. 
 
 ' So far tHe prologue ; now for the anecdote, which 
 is just as interesting as thousands are which are daily 
 propagated. It was about two years before the divorce 
 of the Duchess of Grafton that her Grace and Lord 
 March played at " brag " for two or three hours one 
 evening at Euston ; the others — viz. the Duke and Mr. 
 Vary and Jack Young — looked over without playing at 
 all. Lord M. had been very forward in " bragging," 
 but threw up his cards afterwards when he had three 
 knaves, whether he had a presentiment that the Duchess 
 had three aces or whether he had artfully seen her 
 hand. This cowardice struck Jack Young so sensibly 
 that he fixed his ej^es very sternly on Lord M., and 
 addressed him thus : " Why ! March, thou art the 
 most dunghill Scots' peer that I ever met with." His 
 Lordship instantly arose from his chair, filled with 
 indignation, and whilst he was wavering whether he 
 should use a poker or some other instrument, the Duke
 
 FTEST FRENCH JOUENEY 141 
 
 said to him : "I find, Lord March, that my friend 
 Jack Young treats you as he constantly treats my wife 
 and me." This prudent and good-natm'ed interference 
 disarmed Lord M., and they all passed the evening 
 pleasantly. You may depend upon the truth of this 
 story, as I had it from Mr. Vary. 
 
 ' I remain, dear Madam 
 
 ' Yours, &c. &c., 
 
 'J. Symonds.' 
 
 The next anecdote was considered at the time by 
 all who heard it to redound to the credit of my brother. 
 In one of his visits to Euston he arrived unexpectedly 
 and late in the afternoon, and immediately went to the 
 room always appropriated to him to dress for dinner, 
 and thence proceeded directly into the dining-room, 
 when, to his astonishment, he perceived sitting at the 
 head of the table the notorious Nancy Parsons instead 
 of the Duchess. He instantly drew back, at the same 
 moment extending his arms to mark his astonishment. 
 The Duke went up to him with a conciliatory air, took 
 his arm and said : ' Come, come. Jack, these things are 
 always done in a hurry without consideration. I had 
 no time to make alterations or inform you. T will 
 explain afterwards.' But he only answered with a 
 shake of his head, and, shrugging up his huge shoulders, 
 retired, mounted his horse, and reached Bradfield the 
 same night, a distance of nearly fifteen miles. 
 
 It should be remembered at this time the Duke was 
 Prime Minister and the Doctor looking up to him for 
 further preferment. By this he lost a bishopric.
 
 142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 I was at Bradfield, and received an express ' from 
 Dr. Eoberts, Provost of Eton, to inform me of the 
 accident, which called me thither at once. I resided 
 there some time on account of my brother's affairs, 
 dining every day with the Provost and Fellows. On the 
 same account I was obliged to go to Worcester, where 
 he was a Prebendary and Eector of St. John's in that 
 city. Dr. Y. died without a will, as he had often told 
 me he would do. When all his affairs were settled 
 I returned to Bradfield. So sudden and dreadful an 
 accident affected me deeply ; there is something in such 
 deaths that strikes every feeling of the soul. In the 
 midst of the rapid movements of that animated amuse- 
 ment, in one moment to be hurried into another world 
 without one thought of preparation has something 
 tremendously formidable in it ; yet every one is liable 
 to deaths equally sudden, and the suggestion ought to 
 be universal : ' Prepare to meet thy God.' The misery 
 is that thousands sitting in their chairs and with ample 
 time for preparation are apt to think of any subject 
 rather than this most important of all. 
 
 Arthur Young to his Wife. 
 
 [No date, but evidently written at this period.] 
 ' As I should be sorry to keep from you anything that 
 must give you pleasure in your welfare of your children, 
 I shall report a conversation with Dr. Langford, the 
 under-master, who my brother got the Prebendary of 
 Worcester for by speaking to Lord Sidney. 
 
 ' Express, n., a messenger sent on a special errand. — Webster.
 
 FIKST FEENCH JOURNEY 143 
 
 * On his calling on me I lamented the loss— in which 
 he joined warmly — spoke highly of my brother as his 
 friend. I said that my bosom had all the feelings 
 of affection for him, but that the loss to my poor 
 boy was nothing short of ruin. He had no friend 
 left. "No," replied he, "don't say that, for give me 
 leave to say that, feeling as I do the obligations I have 
 been under to Dr. Young, I must be allowed to call 
 myself his friend. If I succeed in life I will be a friend 
 to him, and I hope his progress in his learning will 
 permit me to be so." He said more to the same pur- 
 pose, and as he is a rising man in a situation that gives 
 him power to act according to his feelings, I hope he 
 will remember it. But the account Mr. Heath gives 
 me is by no means satisfactory, and sorry I am to say 
 that Arthur seems determined to do little for himself. 
 He is now at a crisis, and sinks or swims. I gave Mr. 
 Heath three guineas that he might encourage him with 
 a crown now and then (as from himself) when he did 
 well, but don't write of that to him, and desired him to 
 write me when he was negligent. My brother's affairs 
 turn out very badly ; bills to the amount of S601. now 
 lie unpaid before me here, besides Worcester, and I 
 can see no more than 260/. to pay it. I hear a bad 
 account of the Rectory at Worcester, but suspend all 
 judgment till the whole is before me. 
 
 'A. Y.' 
 
 Two honours were this year added to my name, 
 by being elected into the Patriotic Society of Milan and 
 that of the Geographical Society of Florence. I had
 
 144 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 also a visit from a Polish nobleman, Count Kalaskowski, 
 who spent some time with me at Bradfield. The 
 letters I received this year were numerous, and many 
 of them very interesting. From the number I have 
 selected the following : — 
 
 From Dr. Burney, on reading my ' Annals ' and a 
 character of Handel. This was after he had been at 
 Bradfield. 
 
 ' August 1, 1786. 
 
 ' What have I without an inch of land to do with 
 farming ? Is it the subject or manner of treating it, or 
 both that fascinated me, when you first were so kind, my 
 dear friend, as to send me some of your " Annals of 
 Agriculture " ? I was in the midst of my winter's 
 hurricane and immersed in other pursuits, but now, 
 having conversed with some of your correspondents, 
 seen your farm, and rubbed up my old rusticity, all my 
 love for country matters returns, and I sincerely wish 
 myself a villager. You seem to have worked yourself 
 up to a true pitch of patriotism, and I think, besides 
 the instructions the essays convey, that your know- 
 ledge on the subject, and animated reasoning, and 
 admonitions, must have a national effect. Your book 
 fastened on me so much on the road that I hardly 
 looked on anything else. Mr. Symonds' essays on 
 "Italian Husbandry"' are extremely curious, and 
 furnish a species of information totally different from 
 what can be acquired from the perusal of any other 
 author. Many of the communications in the three 
 first volumes, of which I have almost read every word, 
 
 ' Published in the Annals.
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY 145 
 
 seem to me instructive, amusing, and masterly. My 
 countryman, Mr. Harris, of Hanwood, in Shropshire 
 (the birthplace of my father and grandfather), seems a 
 notable planter. As editor and chief of the Agricola 
 family, I think you merit the thanks of every English- 
 man, not onlj^ who loves his country, but who loves his 
 helly, for if your discoveries, improvements, and in- 
 structions are followed, we may certainly always find 
 upon our own island de quoi manger. 
 
 ' Now I would not have you, my dear Arthur, put 
 contempt upon my praises, as coming from a Londoner, 
 whom you may regard as a mere Cock-neigh immersed 
 in the vanities, follies, and dissipation of the Capital, 
 for then I'd have you to know that I reckon myself 
 a countryman born and bred as much as yourself. I 
 never was within the smell of sweet London till I was 
 eighteen, and then, you know, I lived during nine of the 
 best years of my life in Norfolk among the best farmers 
 in Europe. Indeed, if I were ten or a dozen years younger 
 than I am, I believe I should take your white house 
 and all the land about it you could spare, and enter 
 myself for your scholar, and run for the give and take 
 plate ; you know that I have been giving lessons all 
 my life ; it is now high time I should take some. As 
 to London, if it were not for a few friends whom I 
 sincerely love, and for its vicinity to several branches 
 of my family, I would take half a crown never to see 
 its sights or hear its sounds again. 
 
 ' My friend, honest Arthur, who is a very ingenious, 
 good-natured lad, will deliver to you a copy of my 
 account of the " Commemoration of Handel ; " it is not 
 
 L
 
 146 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 SO good a one as I wish to send, though the best in my 
 possession. I beg when you have nothing better to do 
 that you will read it without too strong prejudices against 
 Old Handel ; for though he is called a Goth by fine 
 travelled gentlemen, accustomed to more modern music 
 and to posthumous refinements, yet candour and true 
 knowledge must allow that he was the greatest man of 
 his time, and that he had a force and majesty that 
 suited our national character, and when you look at 
 the list of his works you will allow that his resources 
 were wonderful. His own performance on the organ 
 was perhaps more superior than that of any inhabitant 
 of this country, even than his compositions. Upon 
 the whole, though I am far from wishing to put an 
 extinguisher upon every other candidate for musical 
 fame, yet it would be the height of injustice not to 
 allow that this country was much obliged to his genius 
 and talent, and that the late performances of his pro- 
 ductions do honour to the cultivation of musick in this 
 kingdom, as well as to our national gratitude. 
 
 ' I beg you will present my affectionate compliments 
 to Mrs. Young, and best thanks for the hospitality and 
 kindness with which she treated us at Bradfield ; and 
 pray give our hearty love to the gentle, sweet, and 
 amiable Miss Bessy. 
 
 * And believe me to be, with very sincere regard, 
 ' Your affectionate 
 
 ' Charles Burney.' 
 
 From John Symonds, Esq., on the examination of 
 the boys at Greenwich School for speaking Latin.
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY 147 
 
 Gold medal &c. given to master and boys. [A curious 
 letter.] 
 
 ' St. Edmund's Hill : December 1786. 
 
 ' My dearest Friend, — I returned hither yesterday, 
 and shall go to Euston on Thursday to pass five or six 
 days there. The Bishop of Peterborough will return 
 with me, but whether on Wednesday or Thursday se'n- 
 night I know not, but I will send you a line soon after 
 I get there, and I hope you will keep yourself free from 
 engagements those two days. You may possibly have 
 seen or heard of a remarkable circumstance that does 
 equal honour to the Society of Arts and to Greenwich 
 School. 
 
 ' The Society decreed a gold medal to that school- 
 master who should teach his boys to speak the best 
 Latin. This was claimed last week by the school- 
 master of Greenwich.^ Sir William Fordyce and my 
 friend Professor Martin were appointed Examiners. 
 More, the Secretary, requested Bishop Watson to at- 
 tend, who excused himself, as he was obliged shortly 
 to leave London. Five boys attended with their 
 master. The Examiners had prepared a great number 
 of questions such as boys maybe supposed to understand. 
 These were put in Latin and answered in Latin without 
 hesitation. The boys were then ordered to withdraw 
 into a private room together, and to make an original 
 composition in Latin without the help of a dictionary. 
 This they all performed in half an hour. Then the 
 Examiners asked numberless questions in English, 
 which were answered immediately in Latin. The gold 
 
 ' Dr. Egan, Royal Park Academy.
 
 148 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNa 
 
 medal was given to the schoolmaster, and five silver 
 ones of equal value to the five boys, who were pretty 
 much upon an equality, and what is surprising is that 
 not one of the five had learned Latin longer than two 
 years and a half, and the eldest of them was not above 
 thirteen years. You may be certain that this is true, 
 as I saw it in a letter from Martin to his brother-in- 
 law, the Vice-Chancellor, and he concludes it by say- 
 ing " that they all spoke Latin with fluency, propriety, 
 and elegance." Were I possessed but of a small portion 
 of the fire with which you are animated, I should cry 
 out with a generous indignation, " Blush, ye proud 
 seminaries of Eton and Westminster," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 ' My compliments aux Folonais. 
 
 ' I am now set down in earnest to renew acquaint- 
 ance with my Italian agricoUori. 
 
 ' Ever affectionately, 
 
 ' John Symonds.' 
 
 In a Westerly Tour I made this year, amongst 
 numerous other places I visited Blenheim, and made 
 the following memorandum : — 
 
 * Viewed the pleasure ground at Blenheim, the 
 enclosed part of which consists of 200 acres, with the 
 water near 300. It can scarcely be too much admired ; 
 the whole environ of the water is fine, various in its 
 feature, with the character of magnificence everywhere 
 impressed. The cascade scenery, viewed independently 
 of the new improvements, is extremely pleasing, and 
 indeed wants nothing but a deeper and more um- 
 brageous shade for an accompaniment. The new
 
 FIRST FEENCH JOURNEY 149 
 
 walks, caves, fountains, and statues do not, however, 
 seem entirely calculated to add to the beauty of the 
 scenery. The most splendid view is from the walk 
 leading from the cascade to the house. There are two 
 points nearly similar, where are benches ; the water 
 fills the bottom of the vale in the style of a very noble 
 river ; few, indeed, in the kingdom exceed it. "We may 
 conjecture that if Brown, in the exultation of his 
 heart, really said that the Thames would never pardon 
 his superb imitation for exceeding the original, it was 
 the view from one of these benches that inspired the 
 sentiment. The proud waves that roll at your feet ; 
 the declivity steep enough to make the water and every 
 contiguous scene more interesting to the eye ; the 
 opposite shore, a hill spread with wood that hangs with 
 forest boldness to the water ; the whole is formed to 
 make an impression on the mind. No ill-judged 
 decoration weakens by dividing the effect ; no intru- 
 ding objects hurt the simplicity of the scene. I know 
 not any artificial scene that is finer. The concluding 
 one where the water expands is great, but I think 
 inferior to this. But to return 
 
 [Here the narrative breaks off.'] 
 
 It appears this year ' that I was engaged in a 
 pursuit entirely new to me, that of making many new 
 and pneumatic experiments on expelling gas from soils, 
 manures, and various other substances, in order to 
 
 ' The writer's memory is at fault here. His correspondence with 
 Dr. Priestley is dated 1783. The letters, however, are given here, as 
 otherwise they would not be intelligible.
 
 150 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 ascertain whether there was any connection between 
 the quantity and species of such gas (from Geist, German 
 for ghost, spirit. Authority, B. of Llandaff, see Newman's 
 ' Trans, of Boerhave's Chemistry ') and the fertihty of the 
 soils from which my specimens were selected. It seems 
 that I prosecuted this enquiry with diligence ; and 
 as it was my commencement in chemistry, I corre- 
 sponded upon the subject with Dr. Priestle}^, and went 
 to Cambridge for the conversation of Mr. Milner, then 
 Professor of Chemistry in that University. The result 
 of my experiments was very remarkable, for I decided, 
 after a very careful deduction from the result of all my 
 trials, that there existed a very intimate, and almost 
 unbroken, connection between the fertility of land and 
 the gas to be expelled from it. This was an entirely 
 new discovery belonging to me only, and it has been 
 quoted by many celebrated chemists in a manner which 
 showed that they considered me as the origin of it. I 
 sent a detail of my trials to the Eoyal Society, through 
 the hands of Mr. Magellan,^ as my paper contained 
 some eudiometrical experiments made with the eudio- 
 meter invented by that philosopher. Mentioning to a 
 friend what I had done, ' You have been very foolish,' 
 observed the friend, ' for depend upon it your paper 
 will never get into the " Philosophical Transactions." ' 
 Expressing my surprise, I demanded the reason. 
 / Why, know you not,' he replied, 'that there is a most 
 inveterate hostility between Sir J. Banks and Magellan, 
 
 ■ Mr. Magellan. This gentleman, often mentioned in A. Y.'s corre- 
 spondence as descendant of the great Portuguese discoverer, seems to 
 have attained some proficiency — even eminence — in science.
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOUENEY 151 
 
 from a violent quarrel, and Sir J. is not a man to 
 permit anything to be printed that comes through 
 hands offensive to him, especially as the paper is to the 
 credit of Magellan's instrument ? ' The event proved 
 the truth of this prediction, but this did not prevent 
 my labours being duly appreciated by those who were 
 the most competent judges. In the pursuit of these 
 trials I gradually established and furnished a laboratory, 
 sufficient for my own enquiries, at about 150Z. expense. 
 
 From Dr. Priestley 
 
 ' Birmingham : Jan. 27, 1783. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — There is no person I should serve with 
 more pleasure than you, because there is no person 
 whose pursuits are more eminently useful to the w^orld. 
 You alone have certainly done more to promote 
 agriculture, and especially to render it reputable, in 
 this country than all that have gone before you. But 
 the little I might do to aid your investigations will be 
 reduced to a small matter indeed by my distance from 
 you. 
 
 ' All that I should be able to do with water would 
 be to expel by heat all the air it contains, and then 
 examine, by nitrous air, how much phlogiston that air 
 contains, but it is very possible that the fitness of 
 water for irrigating meadows may depend upon some- 
 thing besides the phlogiston it contains. Experiment 
 alone can determine these things. I never heard before 
 of the inference, you say, has been drawn from my 
 doctrine with respect to the use of light in vegetation.
 
 152 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 I know of no use that light is of to the soil. The whole 
 effect is on the living plant, enabling it to convert the 
 impure air it meets with in water or in the atmosphere 
 into pure air. When that end is effected that water 
 is of no further use to it. Plants will not thrive unless 
 both their leaves and roots be exposed to air in some 
 degrees impure. This I have fully ascertained, but I 
 am afraid that the doctrine is not capable of much 
 practical application. 
 
 ' I know of no method of conveying phlogiston to the 
 roots of plants but as combined with water, and this 
 seems to be done in the best way by a mixture of putrid 
 matter. Water will not imbibe much inflammable air. 
 I find volatile alkali to contain much phlogiston. It is 
 indeed almost another modification of the same thing. 
 
 ' Since my last, I have hit upon various methods of 
 converting water into permanent air. It is sufficient 
 to give it something more than a boiling heat. If I only 
 put an ounce of water into a porous earthen retort, I 
 get a hundred ounce measures of air from it, and when 
 I have, in this manner, got near an ounce weight of air 
 from the same retort, it has not weighed one grain less 
 than it did. 
 
 ' I shall be glad to hear the result of your experi- 
 ments, and am truly sorry that I can do so little for you. 
 
 ' J. Peiestley.' 
 
 ' Birmingham : March 31, 1783. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I received from Mr. More ' two bottles 
 of water, one marked X, which Mr. Boswell informed 
 
 ' Secretary to the Society of Arts.
 
 FIEST FEENCH JOUENEY 153 
 
 him was from the spring mentioned in his " Treatise 
 on Watering Meadows," and another without any 
 mark from a spring arising in a bed of sand, and I 
 examined them immediately. I fomid the former to 
 contain air much purer than that of the atmosphere ; 
 but the latter air was much worse, that is, phlogisti- 
 cated ; a candle could hardly have burned in it. This 
 last I should think to be the better spring for the 
 watering of meadows, or perhaps it might have been 
 better corked ; for on the 19th, though I put the corks 
 in again immediately, but without any cement, I 
 found the air in both very pure, more so than the 
 purest before, and hardly to be distinguished, and they 
 were so this day when I examined them again. They 
 should be examined on the spot. The air in the spring 
 from the sand was much warmer than that in my pump 
 water, or than that of water in general. But water ex- 
 posed to the open air soon loses the phlogiston it contains. 
 
 ' Perhaps much of the effect of water on meadows 
 is that, at this time of the year, it comes out of the 
 earth considerably warmer than the roots of the grass. 
 What think you of this '? 
 
 ' I expect to set out for London this day three 
 weeks, and shall stay there about a fortnight. I 
 should be glad to meet you there, when we shall 
 find an hour's conversation better than all our corre- 
 spondence. Wishing you success in all your laudable 
 pursuits. 
 
 ' I am, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Yours &c. &c. 
 
 ' J. Priestley.'
 
 154 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 At Chadacre, six miles from Bury, resided John 
 Plampin, Esq.' who had three daughters, all, at this 
 time, unmarried and at home. I was intimately 
 acquainted with them. Two of these ladies were much 
 distinguished by their beauty, and reigned as toasts 
 throughout the county : Sophia married afterwards to 
 the Kev. Mr. Macklin, and Betsy married in 1794 to 
 Orbell Eay Oakes, Esq. of Bury. I introduced my 
 friend Lazowski to these ladies, and he was much at 
 Chadacre, admiring not a little the youngest of them. 
 They persuaded their father to give a ball, at which the 
 Duke of Liancourt, his two sons, Lazowski and myself 
 were present, and the evening passed with uncommon 
 hilarity till the rising sun sent us home. Mr. Symonds 
 afterwards gave a weekly ball when the Frenchmen were 
 with him, and these parties were uncommonly agreeable. 
 Early in the spring of 1787 I received a lehter from 
 a friend at Paris, Mons. Lazowski (who had resided two 
 years at Bury, much to my amusement and satisfaction, 
 with the two sons of the Duke of Liancourt) , to inform 
 me that he was going with the Count de la Eoche- 
 foucault to the Pyrenees, and proposed my being of 
 the party ,^ 
 
 ' Liancourt : April 9, 1787. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I was at Liancourt when I heard from 
 you the last time, so that I was very uneasy upon the 
 bill which you had drawn upon M. de Vergennes, who 
 could not be informed by me about it, but very happily 
 
 ' An old Suffolk family. Captain Plampin, mentioned in the French 
 travels, is noticed in the new Dictionary of National Biography. 
 - M. Lazowski's broken English is given as we find it.
 
 FIEST FEENCH JOUKNEY 155 
 
 my letter to him went at a proper time, and it has 
 been paid. Nothing wants now but to have turnips, as 
 your Enghsh wit whispers it. But we have another 
 matter to settle together, if you are not now incumbered. 
 I told you by the last that it could be, but I would 
 travel this summer. The case is that the Count is, for 
 the sake of his health, obliged to go to Bagneres-de- 
 Luchon, in the Pyrenees, to drink those waters ; 
 he asked from me to be his companion, and his rela- 
 tions seemed to be glad of it. I did therefore comply 
 with his demand, and we are going about the middle of 
 May, which is the time just of your coming over to 
 France. Now will you come with us ? Such proposi- 
 tion is not a foolish one. We will pass by a part of 
 France in going, and come back by another part, so 
 that you will see almost the two-thirds of this kingdom. 
 You will learn the French ; with us everything will be 
 explained to you ; in short, I will be with you, and 
 that is enough, I hope. That part by which you will 
 pass through is not an uninteresting one. Look upon a 
 map. You will pass through the Limousin and Toulouse 
 in going, and in coming back by Bordeaux, &c. ; the 
 Pyrenees are very worth to be seen, and, besides, if 
 nothing very extraordinary prevents it, we intend to 
 go to Barcelona in Spain, in order to see the Catalogue,' 
 the finest province after that travel. I must not tell 
 you that I shall be another Arthur here for you, not 
 that I presume to say that you will find in me an 
 Encyclopaedia living as I did in you, but your friend, and 
 therefore to your commands in Paris and everywhere. 
 
 ' Catalonia.
 
 156 AUTOBIOGKAPHi' OF AKTHUK YOUNG 
 
 Our manner of travelling is very convenient to you 
 also ; we go with our own horses, you will have one, 
 my servants will be yours, nothing therefore shall 
 be too much expensive. Have you your horse ? Is 
 it possible to come over with him at a proper time '? 
 If not, do write to me a word, and the Count and I 
 will do our utmost to get one cheap enough, between 
 fifteen and twenty pounds. If you cannot be ready 
 here for the 15th of May, we will expect five or six 
 days, but you see that it is impossible to expect more, 
 since the Count must drink the waters ; in two words, 
 you seemed to wish to see this kingdom, never you 
 will have such an opportunity ; if I am obliged 
 to stay at Bagneres, nothing will prevent you to 
 make some excursions in the environs, and you will 
 speak French very well. The whole depends of your 
 family business. If you cannot now, then you will 
 wait till September, and we will be at Paris ; but you 
 must give greatest of attention to it, and as soon as 
 your mind will be fixed upon anything pray do v^ite 
 to me. "Wliat devil are you doing about the notables ? 
 {sic) 1 suppose you know my mind about the whole by 
 my letter.' M. de Calonne is exiled, so is M. Necker. 
 What w411 be the result I do not know, but the notables 
 have missed the way, and they know nothing of the 
 matter ; but public business must give way to what I 
 make a proposal to you, it is question of nothing else 
 but to travel together a thousand miles, without more 
 expense but that you would spend anywhere, &c. &c. 
 
 ' It has been found impossible to include this letter from want 
 of space.
 
 FIEST FKENCH JOURNEY 157 
 
 SO you may go to the devil if you don't speak well 
 of me and my prospect. My best compliments to M. 
 Symonds &c. &c. chiefly Lady Gage and Sir Thomas. 
 
 ' Yours for ever, 
 
 ' Ly. 
 ' Do not forget to write and to speak about your 
 horse, whether you will bring yours, or if we must 
 get one for you.' 
 
 This was touching a string tremulous to vibrate. I 
 had so long wished for an opportunity to examine 
 France. In the survey of agricultm^e which I had 
 taken in England and Ireland, of about 7,000 miles, I 
 had calculated, from facts, the rent produce and resources 
 of those Kingdoms, and I had often reflected on the 
 importance of knowing the real situation of France ; 
 the effect of Government ; the state of the farmers, of 
 the poor — the state and extent of their manufactures 
 with a hundred other enquiries certainly of political 
 importance ; yet strange as it may seem not to be found 
 in any French book written from actual observation, 
 all that I was before able to learn having been composed 
 in some great city without travelling beyond the walls. 
 I should accept a very unsatisfactory work upon sheep, 
 written by Mons. Cartier, employed and paid by Govern- 
 ment. I had but little time given me to consider of 
 the proposal, but I wrote to learn if they travelled post, 
 because I previously determined in that case not to go. 
 And, further, I requested to know if I were to travel at 
 any other expense than that of myself and horse. The 
 answer was that they travelled with their own horses.
 
 158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 and did not propose making more than twenty or 
 twenty-five miles a day ; that my expense would be 
 merely what I stated, and mostly in a cheap part of 
 the kingdom. This most agreeable plan I instan- 
 taneously acceded to, and soon set out for France 
 on horseback. At Dover, being detained, I copy the 
 following note on that expedition : — 
 
 ' Tuesday, May 15, 1787, Dover. — Had the packet 
 sailed this morn as I expected I should not have 
 scaled, as I never did before, Shakespeare's Cliff. By 
 the way it is by no means so formidable as I expected 
 from it. I think the look down from its perpendicular 
 position very striking, and when I reflected how much 
 more it must be from the summit, the reflection, 
 perhaps, injured the principal effect {sic). This is a 
 proof that we ought never, when a pow^erful impression 
 is wished, to advance to the principal point gradually. 
 It should come upon us at once ; nor should I 
 have seen Mr. Harris's drill plough,' which I liked 
 much better from seeing it than from the print. But 
 I principally should have wanted time to run over my 
 accounts, to review the debts and credits of several 
 loose memoranda, and find from the result that I had 
 not acted imprudently or unguardedly in omitting the 
 necessary preparations to such a journey. My dear 
 child, my lovely Bobbin, I left in perfect health, the 
 rest of my family well and provided for in every respect 
 as they themselves had chalked out, the ' Annals ' lodged 
 in the hands of a man on whose friendship and abilities 
 I could entirely confide. Revolving these circumstances 
 
 ' A sort of plough for sowing grain in drills.
 
 FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY 159 
 
 in my mind gave me pleasure, so that I could hardly 
 regret in the evening the day which in the morning 
 I had pronounced lost. At night I went into a bye 
 boat ^ and had a villainous passage of fourteen hours. 
 Nine hours rolling at anchor had so fatigued my mare 
 that I thought it necessary for her to rest one day, but 
 next morning I left Calais. 
 
 'November 8. — Wait at Desseins three days for a 
 wind, Dover, London, Bradfield, and have more pleasure 
 in giving my little girl a French doll than in viewang 
 Versailles.' ^ 
 
 The journey to France cost me 118/. 15s. Id. 
 Things bought, 20Z. 17s. ; books, %l. 16s. M. 
 
 This year I had a long visit at Bradfield from M, 
 Bukaty, nephew to the Polish Ambassador, a heavy, 
 dull man with a Tartar countenance. His intention 
 was to learn agriculture, but he made a poor progress. 
 My correspondence this year contained much variety, 
 and I have reperused many of the letters with much 
 pleasure. In the number were the following : — 
 
 From Sir J. Sinclair ^ on clothing for sheep, w^hich he 
 sent and desired me to buy. I did so, and the rest of 
 the flock took them I suppose for beasts of prey, and fled 
 
 ' A chance or passing boat. 
 
 - As Arthur Young's letters, with trifling excisions, are incorporated 
 into the famous travels, I do not give them here. His anxiety about 
 Bobbin is ever apparent. ' Give Bobbin a kiss for me. God send her 
 well,' he writes to his eldest daughter Mary ; and, in another letter, 
 'Remember me to your mother, and tell Bobbin I never forget her.' 
 ' The Robin,' or Bobbin, was now five years old. 
 
 ' Statist, political and agricultural writer; born 1754, died 1835. 
 Sat in Parliament for several constituencies, and took an active part in 
 political and scientific movements ; was also a voluminous writer.
 
 160 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 in all directions, till the clothed sheep jumping hedges 
 and ditches soon derobed themselves. 
 
 'Whitehall: April 11, 1787. 
 
 ' Sir, — I went yesterday to Knightsbridge, and have 
 ordered the canvas for covering the sheep, v^^hich will 
 be ready next week, and I shall be glad to know how 
 it can be best forwarded. 
 
 ' My idea is to put the coverings on immediately 
 after the sheep are shorn, when I imagine it would be 
 comfortable instead of distressing to the animal. That 
 the experiment may have full justice done I send you 
 three covers of oil skin, three of pretty strong unoiled 
 canvas, and two done over with Lord Dundonald's tar. 
 If lambs are apt to die of cold, would it not be of use to 
 them ? 
 
 ' I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 ' John Sinclair.' 
 
 From Mr. Symonds, an account of his tour in the 
 West &c., of the King and Queen's visit to Whitbread's 
 Brew House ; duties to the Crown, .52,000/. per annum 
 for the brewery alone. 
 
 ' Sunning Hill : .July 12, 1787. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I wrote to you from Cornwall, and 
 hope you received the letter which was directed to Creil. 
 I am returning from a tour through Devonshire, where 
 I visited Mount Edgecombe, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, 
 Torbay, Dawlish and Exmouth. At Exeter I passed 
 ten days with my old friend the Bishop, Dr. Koss, and 
 however I may have lost my time in other things I
 
 FIEST FRENCH JOUENEY 161 
 
 certainly was not deficient in my religious duties, for 
 during the ten days I attended divine service nineteen 
 times, taking in his Lordship's private chapel and the 
 cathedral. 
 
 ' After visiting most of the fine seats in Somerset- 
 shire &c. including Lord Eadnor's famous triangular 
 house, I came to Salisbury, where I met several old 
 acquaintances, and among the rest Mr. Windham, who 
 published Doddington's Diary, and who permitted me 
 to look over the vast collection of Doddington's private 
 correspondence, and to copy what I pleased. 
 
 ' From Salisbury I came hither, having made nearly 
 a thousand miles in my gig, without suffering the least 
 inconvenience, either from weather or accident. Could 
 I do better than to end, as it were, my tour with a visit 
 to the " Monarch's and the Muses' Seats " ? 
 
 ' The only public news that you can now think of 
 abroad is whether we are to have peace or war ; but I 
 have heard here from very good authority that Thurlow, 
 Lord Stafford, and Mr. Pitt are for peace, and that 'tis 
 thought the latter will resign if things take a different 
 turn. 
 
 ' Whitbread expended not less than 15,000?. in 
 entertaining the King and Queen at his brewery. They 
 left off working it three days before — new clothes — the 
 floor carpeted, and three or four sets of china made on 
 purpose at Worcester after the most beautiful models 
 of Sevres, that the Royal Family might be entertained 
 separately, though in the same rooms. The King asked 
 Whitbread what he paid for duties to the Crown, and 
 his Majesty was not a little surprised to hear that he 
 
 M
 
 162 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 paid 52,000/. for the Brewery alone. You will say all 
 that is kind for me to the Count and Lazowski. 
 Madame de Polignac ^ &c., together with the French 
 Ambassador, have been at the Terrace, where they 
 were received by the King and Queen. At Bath the 
 French ladies broke the standing rules by all going to 
 the ball much too late, and on foot, which is not common, 
 and one danced in coloured gloves. 
 
 ' You and I shall agree about the Liancourt Plough 
 as well as most other things. The Duke's ideas of 
 farming resemble those of Mons. Baron, whose self- 
 conceit is exceeded only by his ignorance, and who 
 must inevitably starve, if he had to gain his bread by 
 farming, and practised for himself. 
 
 ' Adieu. Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 'J. Symonds.' 
 
 ' The Prince and Princess de Polignac, after receiving countless 
 honours, privileges, and substantial favours from Louis XVI. and the 
 Queen, were among the first to desert them. The present head of this 
 ancient house married a daughter of Mr. Singer, inventor of the sewing- 
 machine.
 
 163 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 TRAVEL AND INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS, 1788-89-90 
 
 The Wool Bill — Sheridan's speech — Count Berchtolcl — Experiments — 
 Second French journey — Potato-fed sheep — Cost of housekeeping — 
 Chicory — Burnt in effigy — Correspondence — Third French journey 
 — With Italian agriculturists— Bishop Watson and Mr. Luther — 
 Correspondence — Literary work — Illness — The state of France. 
 
 Early in the spring I was deputed by the wool growers 
 of Suffolk to support a petition against the Wool Bill - 
 which at that time made much noise in the agricultural 
 world ; and in which I united with Sir Joseph Banks,^ 
 who was deputed by the county of Lincoln for the 
 same purpose. I was most strenuous in the cause. By 
 this Bill the growers of wool were laid under most 
 insufferable restraints by its patrons the manufactm-ers, 
 under the false pretence which had upon so many 
 occasions been listened to by the Legislature, that 
 immense quantities of wool were smuggled to France ; 
 on the gross fallacy of which they made good use, in 
 taking those measures which answered their only design, 
 that of sinking the price. 
 
 ' A Bill prohibiting the exportation of wool passed the House of 
 Commons, May 15, 1788. 
 
 - President of the Royal Society, and supporter of the cause of agri- 
 culture and science ; died 1810.
 
 164 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 I applied to many of the leading members of both 
 Houses of Parliament, but to very little effect. Those 
 who deputed me were very desirous that I should see 
 Mr. Fox on the subject ; and Sir Peter Burrell, who 
 was also greatly hostile to the Bill, and acted at that 
 time as Lord Great Chamberlain of England at the 
 trial of Mr. Hastings, recommended me to take an 
 opportunity of the managers for the Commons, waiting 
 at that trial to desire to speak with Mr. Fox in the 
 manager's box ; and with this view gave me a pass 
 ticket for the whole trial, by means of which I could be 
 at the bar ready to serve such an opportunity when it 
 offered. These tickets were sold at twenty guineas 
 each ; and this afforded me many opportunities of much 
 entertainment. I accordingly saw Mr. Fox, and found 
 him by no means inclined to patronise any opposition 
 to the Bill. All that could be done was to make him 
 a master of certain important facts of which he was 
 ignorant, and which did seem to have some little weight 
 with him. It may here be observed that as I was walking 
 one day in Fleet Street with my pass ticket and a 20/. 
 note in my pocket book, I was hustled unskilfully by 
 a knot of rascals, who picked the book out of my 
 pocket, but I missing it instantly, luckily observed it 
 on the pavement near my foot, and seized on it 
 immediately, and the rascals went off at once. By 
 means of this ticket I was present when Mr. Sheridan 
 made the speech that rendered his eloquence so cele- 
 brated.^ I was examined at the Bar of the Houses of 
 
 ' ' Then came the Oude case, that lasted no less than twenty-one 
 days, and ended by a speech from Sheridan on which great labour and
 
 TEAYEL AND INTEKNATIONAL FEIENDSHIPS 165 
 
 Lords and Commons, and published two pamphlets on 
 the subject of the Wool Bill. 
 
 But notwithstanding all the opposition that was 
 made to the measure, after moderating some of the 
 most hostile clauses the Bill passed ; but the manu- 
 facturers experienced so determined and vigorous an 
 opposition that they would hardly engage again in any 
 similar attack upon the landed interest. In the course 
 of this business I experienced a strange instance of 
 roguery in an Ipswich attorney named Kirby. This 
 man was appointed secretary and receiver of the 
 Suffolk subscriptions for supporting the expense of 
 opposing the Bill. He paid the reckoning twice at the 
 ' Crown and Anchor ' when a few persons dined there ; 
 and after that, under various pretences, when money 
 was to be paid ; and on a moderate computation put 
 more than 100/. into his own pocket. I was unwilling 
 to believe it, but upon his death a few years after it 
 was found that he was one of the greatest knaves the 
 devil ever created. 
 
 My deputation by the county of Suffolk to represent 
 it, in opposing the Bill at the bar of the two Houses of 
 Parliament, in the same manner as Sir Joseph Banks, 
 a highly eminent character for influence and affluence, 
 was deputed by the county of Lincoln, did me much 
 honour, and shows that a prophet may sometimes 
 be esteemed, even in his own country. The reader 
 who is desirous of becoming acquainted with this 
 
 pains had been bestowed. This speech had been looked forward to as 
 rivalling the great Begum speech of the same orator ' (Knight). Is not 
 A. Y. here thinking of the great Begum speech of an earlier session ?
 
 166 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 portion of the history of wool in England may consult 
 my Question of Wool — my speech that might have been 
 spoken — my Reasons against the Bill, and various other 
 papers by myself, inserted in the ' Annals.' 
 
 The opposition certainly would have been successful 
 if Mr. Pitt had not found what so many ministers 
 have experienced before — that the trading interest at 
 large is a hundred times more active than the landed 
 interest ; for very few counties exerted themselves on 
 this occasion. Had half of them acted like Suffolk 
 the Bill would have been inevitably lost, and had I 
 not been a resident in Suffolk that county would 
 have slept with the rest. It may not be amiss to 
 observe that a pamphlet was published, entitled a 
 ' Letter to Arthur Young, Esq., on the Wool Bill, by 
 Thomas Day,' Esq.,' from which the following is an 
 extract : — 
 
 ' If we are delivered from the present danger, I know 
 no one who has so great a claim to the public gratitude 
 as yourself. As soon as the storm began to gather, your 
 active eye remarked the curling of the waters and 
 the blackening of the horizon, while all our other 
 Palinuruses were quietly slumbering around. Distin- 
 guished, therefore, as you long have been for literary 
 talents, you have now added a nobler wreath, and a 
 sublimer praise to all you merited before.' Mr. Day 
 in this letter calls my opposition to the Bill ' A noble 
 stand in defence of the common liberties.' 
 
 ' The author of Sandford and Merton died 1789 from the kick of a 
 colt, which he had refused to have broken in on account of the cruelty 
 usually involved in the process.
 
 TEAVEL AND INTEKNATIONAL FEIENDSHIPS 167 
 
 ' April 22. — I was examined on the Wool Bill in 
 the House of Commons. It was a most hard-fought 
 battle between the manufacturers and the landed 
 interest ; the Bill laid heavy shackles on every move- 
 ment of wool near the sea coast, and was opposed 
 with great resolution, both by Sir Joseph Banks and 
 myself. 
 
 * We opposed it both in the Commons and the 
 Lords, both being examined at the Bar of the two 
 Houses ; the manufacturers on this occasion were so 
 hotly opposed that Sir Joseph thought they would be 
 quiet in future. I was of a different opinion, being- 
 convinced that they never would omit any opportunity 
 of imposing their shackle on that insensible, torpid, 
 and stupid body " the landlords of Britain." ' 
 
 About this time Count Leopold Berchtold • visited 
 me at Bradfield. But part of the time which he spent 
 in Suffolk (I being absent) was at the ' Angel ' at Bury, 
 where he lived an extraordinary life of retirement and 
 economy. He daily went out, and employed the whole 
 day in writing and reading. Such temperance has 
 scarcely been known. He drank neither wine nor 
 beer, and would dine upon a potato or an egg. 
 
 He told the landlord of that inn that he could not 
 live in the manner of other travellers, but that he 
 might charge what he pleased for his apartments. He 
 was a most extraordinary personage. His father had 
 a considerable estate in Bohemia, and one reason for 
 
 ' Died 1809. One of the most active members of the Royal Humane 
 Society ; fell a victim to his devotion in attending the sick and wounded 
 Austrian soldiers on the Held of Wagram.
 
 168 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 the son's travelling over a great part of the world was 
 the extreme disgust he took at the measures of the 
 Emperor Joseph II., which were oppressive and ruinous 
 to the nobility &c., constantly changing his ill-formed 
 political schemes. He had lived in the principal 
 countries of Europe long enough to become a master 
 of their languages, in every one of which he printed a 
 work which he conceived might be useful to the in- 
 habitants. AVhen at Bradfield he was working hard 
 to learn Arabic, as he proposed passing from England 
 to Morocco, thence to Egypt and Arabia. This jour- 
 ney afterwards he executed, and returned home to 
 Bohemia through the greatest part of the Turkish 
 Empire ; and, after escaping a thousand dangers, as 
 he was going to Vienna was murdered by banditti. 
 
 He was very tall and graceful in his person, of a 
 handsome, expressive countenance, and as elegant as if 
 he had passed his whole life in a Court. Though in- 
 vested with the Order of St. Stephano by the Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany, Leopold, he never wore it in England, 
 as his father being alive made it necessary for him to 
 live economically. His conversation was intelligent 
 and pleasing, his knowledge almost universal. He 
 travelled much on foot ; and once through France or 
 Germany — I forget which — when he was beset by three 
 or four robbers ; but he assumed so much firmness in 
 his manner, with so resolute and determined an air, 
 and with so threatening an attitude of defence, that, 
 after a pause, the robbers retired, thinking it best to 
 let him alone. He had a sabre or some other weapon, 
 and said that they might have had the worst of it if
 
 TEAYEL AND INTEKNATIONAL FEIENDSHIPS 169 
 
 they had made the attack, as he had before been set 
 on in the same way more than once. 
 
 His first business in every country was to study 
 unremittingly till he had perfectly learnt the language, 
 as without this he considered men and women but as 
 cows and sheep. He then applied himself with sin- 
 gular assiduity to understand those branches of human 
 industry or political economy for which the country 
 was most celebrated, and for this purpose applied to 
 those who were most able to satisfy his inquiries. He 
 was introduced to me by Anthony Souga, the Imperial 
 Consul at London, who gave him the highest possible 
 character. When he had registered these inquiries 
 and printed a book in the language, he left the country 
 for some other. 
 
 The grand object of Ct. B.'s investigations and 
 inquiries seemed to be not so much the good of the 
 countries he visited, as to possess himself of a great 
 mass of that sort of knowledge which might be most 
 useful in adding to the w^elfare and happiness of the 
 inhabitants of that estate to which he was born, and 
 which was a very extensive property. He spent some 
 time with me in Suffolk gleaning agricultural in- 
 formation, intending to apply it to the farmers and 
 peasants of his paternal estate and of his own favourite 
 Bohemia, from which he often lamented that he was 
 driven by the folly and tyranny of Joseph II. It was with 
 great concern that I heard of his very unfortunate and 
 untimely death about ten years after leaving England. 
 He was about thirty-six years of age when in Suffolk, 
 was possessed of various and uncommon powers, built
 
 170 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 mentally and bodily on a great scale, talked English 
 like a native, walked like a giant, and was of all the 
 multitude of foreigners who frequented my house the 
 most persevering and the most intelligent. 
 
 This year I made some experiments on the dis- 
 temper in wheat called the smut, which were amongst 
 the most satisfactory and decisive that I ever found, 
 and in which I corrected some errors of Mr. de Tillet,' 
 and proved, too clearly to be doubted, the proximate 
 cause and prevention of that disease. 
 
 It is almost intolerable, after experiments so de- 
 cisive, that so many men, through ignorance of what I 
 had done, should for a long time have been bewildering 
 themselves upon the same subject, and continuing to 
 do so to the present day, publishing, too, the greatest 
 errors. These experiments are inserted in the ' Annals.' 
 
 This year I set out on my second journey to 
 France in the month of July. I made this alone, my 
 cloak-bag behind me ; and I did not travel thus an ^ 
 hundred miles before my mare fell blind. I have 
 heard and read much of the pleasure of travelling; 
 how it may be with posting — avant-couriers preparing 
 apartments and repasts — I know not. Let those 
 who enjoy such comfort pity me, who made 3,700 
 miles on a blind mare ! and brought her (humanity 
 would not allow me to sell her) safe back to Bradfield. 
 I claim but one merit — that of practising in the midst 
 of all this folly the severest economy in travelling. 
 
 In the winter Mr. Macro took a seat in my 
 postchaise on a farming tour across Essex and into 
 ' See vol. X. of the Annals of Agriculture. ^ Sic.
 
 TEAVEL AND INTEENATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS 171 
 
 Sussex, where we spent a day or two with Lord 
 Sheffield. 
 
 In this tour I learned that General Murray had 
 4,000 South Down sheep, and that he fed them with 
 potatoes. This was sufficient. To come into the 
 country on the search for sheep and potato intelligence, 
 and not to see such a man, would not be to make a very 
 wise figure when we returned home. But I had not the 
 honour to be known to the General. No matter ; 
 4,000 sheep fed on potatoes were an object before 
 which form must give way. I wrote a card, stating 
 our pursuit, and wishes to have it gratified, desiring 
 leave to view his flock. Those who know the General's 
 liberality and passion for agriculture will not want to 
 be told what the answer was. We spent five days in 
 his house, and found it the residence of hospitality and 
 good sense. 
 
 Mrs. Murray had resided nine years in the island 
 of Majorca, being the daughter of the English consul. 
 She gave me many particulars relating to that island, 
 and, among others, that the climate was by far the 
 finest she had ever experienced. She never was for a 
 single hour either too hot or too cold, nor ever saw a 
 fog ; but the people were unpleasant, ignorant and 
 bigoted. 
 
 I was always very regular in keeping accounts, but 
 do not often mention them in this detail ; I may, how- 
 ever, just observe that I seemed to have been no bad 
 economist, as the total expense of house, garden, stable, 
 servants, and keeping a postchaise with not a little 
 company, cost in four months 911. 2s. Sd., or at the
 
 172 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 rate of 291^. 6.s. 9d. per annum ; how it was done 
 I forget. If such an expense be compared with the 
 present times ' it will show the enormous difference, 
 arising principally from the desperate increase of taxa- 
 tion, which has crippled so many classes of the king- 
 dom ; but I had a large farm in my hands. On being 
 at London, some time after, I went to Esher and 
 spent a day with Mr. Ducket, examining his farm with 
 great attention ; he dined with me at the ' Tun,' and 
 I had a very interesting conversation with him to a late 
 hour, upon all the points of his husbandr}-. 
 
 In this year I first introduced the cultivation of 
 Cichorium Intybus ^ at Bradfield, and registered it in 
 the ' Annals of Agriculture ; ' it was at first upon a 
 small scale, but sufficient to convince me of the vast 
 importance of the plant. I brought the seed from 
 Lyons in France, and gradually extended the culture 
 till I had above one hundred acres of it ; the utter 
 stupidity of the farming world was never more apparent 
 than in their neglect of this plant, so repeatedly re- 
 commended in the 'Annals.' The Duke of Bedford 
 kept ten large sheep per acre on a field of it. 
 
 The following letters were among others received 
 this year : — 
 
 From B. H. Latrobe, Esq., on my being burnt in 
 effigy at Norwich by the manufacturers {in re Wool 
 Bill), a very lively letter. 
 
 ' Written about 1816. 
 
 - Wild chicory or succory, used by the French as a winter salad, and 
 in the adulteration of coffee.
 
 TEATEL AND INTEENATIONAL FEIENDSHIPS 173 
 ' Stamp Office, Somerset Place : May 22, 1788. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — We have been waiting for your arrival 
 in town patiently for the week past, and I am afraid 
 we must now make up our minds to wait patiently a 
 great deal longer, as the passing of the Wool Bill has 
 not been able to bring you to town. By the word We 
 I mean my brother, our friend the lord of slaves,' 
 myself, and I dare say it includes fifty other people 
 whom I have not the honour of knowing. We have 
 been three days past laying our heads together to find 
 out some method of doing you honour in effigy in order 
 to make up to you in some measure the disgrace you 
 have undergone (as is creditably reported about town) 
 of being burnt in effigy by the wool manufacturers at 
 Bury. My brother is for procuring your effigy, and 
 after having crowned it with a wreath composed of 
 turnip roots, cabbage leaves, potato-apples, wheat-ears, 
 oats, straws, &c., and tied with a band of wool, thinks 
 it ought to be placed upon its pedestal (being the 
 volume of Virgil's " Georgics ") to be worshipped by 
 the real patriots ; Mr. Huthhausen thinks a plain 
 ribbon a sufficient honour for a man whose ideas can 
 admit of the belief of slavery in Silesia ; and, as for 
 myself, I am of opinion that a man whose life has been 
 devoted without fee or reward to the service of the 
 public has so great a reward arising from the con- 
 sciousness of having done good, and so just a claim to 
 honour, that I shall not trouble my head about methods 
 to increase it. But I must beg your pardon for this 
 
 ' Kefers (see below) to a work by Baron Huthhausen on the servi- 
 tude of the Silesian peasantry.
 
 174 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNG 
 
 lady-like chat, though your having been burnt in effigy 
 is enough to make any pen run wild. ... I could 
 wish that a favour I have to beg of you were not 
 inconvenient.' 
 
 [The writer requests that some remarks of his 
 own on the book named above may be inserted in the 
 
 * Annals.'] 
 
 From Edmund Burke, Esq., on an application I 
 made to him relative to the Wool Bill. [Unfortunately 
 no copy can he found of this letter^ 
 
 Sir Joseph Banks gives me joy of being burned in 
 effigy at Norwich (Bury ?) on account of my opposition 
 to the Wool Bill :— 
 
 ' Soho Square : May 13, 1788. 
 
 'Dear Sir, — With this you will receive the "In- 
 structions given to the Council against the Wool Bill." ^ 
 
 ' I have corrected the whole, but I fear you will find 
 it miserably deficient in point of composition, but as I 
 am not ambitious on that head I mean to be satisfied 
 if I am intelligible. 
 
 ' I give you joy sincerely at having arrived at the 
 glory of being burned in effigy ; nothing is so conclusive 
 a proof of your possessing the best of the argument. 
 No one was ever burned if he was wrong — the business 
 in that case is to expose his blunders — but when argu- 
 ment is precluded firebrands are ready substitutes. 
 ' Believe me, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Yours faithfully, 
 
 'J, Banks.' 
 
 ' For this article see Annals of Agriculture, vol. ix. ]). 479.
 
 TEAVEL AND INTERNATIONAL FEIENDSHIPS 175 
 
 1789. — I had yet work to do in France ; the survey 
 of that kingdom was not completed in the journej's of 
 the two preceding years. I did not hesitate therefore, 
 but as soon as business at home would permit me to 
 be absent I set out on my third expedition, June 2, 
 and went to Paris in the diligence. As the carrying 
 specimens of remarkable soils and of manufactures, 
 wool, &c. was so inconvenient, I made this journey in a 
 chaise. Through the kindness of the Duchess d'Estissac 
 (de Rochefoucauld) I was most agreeably received at the 
 Hotel de la Rochefoucauld, and as the States General 
 were assembling I went thither to the Duke's apartment, 
 where I met many persons of note, such as the Duke 
 of Orleans, the Abbe Sieyes, Rabaut St. !^tienne,' &c. 
 and was present at an interesting debate in the National 
 Assembly. I spent some time at Paris, which I quitted 
 on my third journey on June 28. I felt much regret on 
 taking leave of my excellent friend Monsieur Lazowski, 
 whose anxiety for the fate of his country - made me 
 respect his character as much as I had reason to love 
 it for the thousand attentions I was in the daily habit 
 of receiving from him. Mj^ kind protectress the 
 Duchess d'Estissac had the goodness to make me 
 promise that I would again return to her hospitable 
 hotel when I had finished the journey. 
 
 At Toulon I sold my horse and chaise, as I had been 
 informed that I could not thus travel with safety in 
 Italy. I embarked at Toulon to save one or two stages, 
 
 ' Son of a Protestant pastor of Nimes, member of the Constituent 
 Assembly; guillotined 1784. See Letters of Helen Maria Williams. 
 * His country by adoption ; Lazowski was a Pole.
 
 176 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 which gave me an opportunity of viewing the fine 
 harbours of that port. On leaving Nice I went by a 
 vetturino to Turin, and was fortunate in making the 
 acquaintance of some of the gentlemen that accom- 
 panied me. At that capital I was introduced to 
 various lovers of the plough, and received much valu- 
 able information. From this place I went to Milan, 
 where through the kind attentions of the Abate 
 Amorette, a true lover of agriculture and a friend of its 
 professors, I was introduced to a variety of persons 
 who afforded me much intelligence and accompanied me 
 to the seat of the Count di Castiglioni, sixteen miles 
 north of the city, with whom I passed sufficient time 
 to give me an opportunity of remarking the country 
 life of an Italian nobleman of high consideration. 
 
 From Milan I went to Lodi through one of the 
 finest scenes of irrigation in the world. At the latter 
 place I assisted in the whole operation of making a 
 Lodesan, called Parmesan cheese in England, and 
 thereby learnt a few circumstances in that manufacture, 
 which I afterwards applied with success in making 
 cheese in Suffolk. At Lodi I attended the opera, where 
 the Archduke and Archduchess with the most splendid 
 company were present, and it gave me particular 
 pleasure to find such a house so filled in a little town 
 quite dependent on cows, butter and cheese. 
 
 At Bergamo I was electrified by the fine eyes of 
 an Italian fair, and just as I was making a nearer 
 approach, impeded in it by the sudden appearance of 
 her husband. 
 
 At Verona I viewed its celebrated amphitheatre 
 
 ' Abbot.
 
 TKAVEL AND INTEENATIONAL FELENDSHIPS 177 
 
 and gained some agricultural intelligence, then on to 
 Vicenza and Padua, where I stayed some days, having 
 introductions to several professors, then by the canal 
 to Venice, where I employed several days in viewing 
 that singular place and numberless curiosities to be 
 found in it. It fully answered my expectations. 
 
 At Bologna I was so fortunate as to meet Mr. 
 Taylor, of Bifrons, in Kent, with his very agreeable 
 family. By him I was introduced to such of the nobility 
 of the place as had a taste for farming, which, with 
 some excursions in the vicinity, enabled me to under- 
 stand the agriculture of the district. 
 
 Thence I travelled to Florence, where my time was 
 divided between agriculture and the Tribuna, that is, 
 between Farmers and Venuses. 
 
 I was here introduced to many celebrated characters 
 and to others able to give me valuable agricultural 
 information. At home we had a very pleasant party, 
 and abroad our ej^es were feasted with all that Art or 
 Science could produce. 
 
 Quitting Turin [on the return journey] I joined 
 company with Mr. Grundy, a considerable merchant, 
 from Birmingham. We crossed over Mont Cenis on 
 our route to Lyons.' 
 
 During the winter of this year I met Dr. Watson 
 several times at my friend Symonds', and shall here 
 copy a private note I made on that celebrated character. 
 
 I was well acquainted with him for some years 
 before he was made a Bishop as well as long after. 
 
 ' ' January 30, 1790. To Bradfield, and here terminate, I hope, my 
 travels.' — Travels in France, Bohn's Library. 
 
 N
 
 178 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 Nor is it strange that I should be assiduous in culti- 
 vating a connection with a man of such extraordinary 
 powers, who had a most peculiar felicity in bringing 
 all the stores of a richly furnished mind to bear as 
 occasion required in conversation. His memory was 
 wonderfully retentive, and he had the art of speaking 
 upon subjects with which he was not well acquainted 
 without betraying any ignorance. He had a clear, 
 logical head, great promptness of application, and the 
 utmost fluency of expression, but sometimes with an 
 affectation of enunciation in a delicate manner which 
 did not at all become the native sturdiness of his dis- 
 position. He had a mathematical calculating head, 
 which enabled him readily to apply scientific researches 
 to the ordinary purposes of life. His style was always 
 uncommonly perspicuous. The King once said to him, 
 ' I know not how it is, my Lord, but when I read any 
 of your publications I am never for one moment at a 
 loss for your meaning, whereas in reading the works of 
 other very able men their want of clearness often makes 
 me doubtful.' ' Sir,' replied the Bishop, ' we are very 
 assiduous at Cambridge to study Euclid and Locke.' 
 Almost from being made a Bishop he became a dis- 
 gusted man, because he never could procure a trans- 
 lation, and it was supposed that the Queen was 
 influenced against him by Bishop Porteus, who had not 
 so high an opinion of him as many others. He was 
 once speaking to Porteus in praise of Locke's ' Eeason- 
 ableness of Christianity,' and said in the course of con- 
 versation, ' I presume, my Lord, you are of the same 
 opinion.' But Porteus, who had not been able to get
 
 TEAVEL AND INTEENATIONAL FKIENDSHIPS 179 
 
 in a word for some time, with a firmness not perhaps 
 common with him when conversing with such a man 
 as Watson, said, ' Indeed, my Lord, I am quite of a 
 different opinion ' — then left the room abruptly. 
 
 Watson disapproved of his daughter learning Latin, 
 but was very assiduous to procure her translations of 
 the Classics. Upon coming to the University, or not 
 long after, he found himself very deficient in Classical 
 learning, and applied to recover lost time with inde- 
 fatigable attention. He was tutor to Mr. Luther, of 
 Essex, at Cambridge, and was useful to him in the 
 great contested election for that county. Soon after, 
 Luther, as was supposed from motives of economy, 
 went to France, and, in his absence, some malignant 
 reports were spread to his disadvantage. Watson saw 
 the great importance of trampling upon them imme- 
 diately ; not trusting to any correspondence, he went to 
 Paris, and represented to him the necessity of instantly 
 returning and showing himself in every company that 
 was possible. Luther felt the propriety of the advice, 
 and directly returned vdth the Doctor, whose conduct 
 upon this and many other occasions made such an 
 impression on his mind that he left him a good estate 
 in the very heart of the Earl of Egremont's at 
 Petworth, so that part of it joined not only the park, 
 but the garden. To purchase this estate was a very 
 great object to Lord E., and the Bishop, not liking to 
 ask too high a price in the years' purchase for the land, 
 made a valuation of a great quantity of young timber 
 on what would be the future value of the trees, and by 
 this means contrived to have a very great price for the 
 
 N 2
 
 180 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 estate. It was too great an object to Lord E. to be 
 refused ; but the Bishop did not escape without censure. 
 
 Count Leopold Berchtold published this year his 
 ' Hints to Patriotic Travellers,' which in a very hand- 
 some manner he dedicated to me. My correspondence 
 was somewhat numerous. I could give a long list, but 
 shall only mention the following : — 
 
 From Count Bukaty, Polish Ambassador, invitation 
 from the King of Poland.^ 
 
 ' Holies Street : May 27, 1789. 
 ' Sir, — I acquit myself of my old debt of gratitude 
 which I owe you in returning my sincere thanks for 
 all the kindness which my nephew has experienced from 
 you and your family during his residence at Bradfield 
 Hall. I left him in Poland to spread your name 
 and superior merit, which is already so well known 
 and justly admired all over Europe. Your well- 
 deserved fame reaching his Majesty the King of 
 Poland, and his brother, the Prince Primate, makes 
 them wish to see you once in that country, whose 
 natural riches consisting in agriculture might be 
 essentially improved by your transcendent knowledge 
 therein. It was already their intention to establish 
 there a Society of Agriculture, had it not been for the 
 present political circumstances, which necessarily take 
 up all their time and attention. I would be exceed- 
 
 ' This letter is interesting as written by the last representative of 
 that unhappy country in England. We read in Knight's History of 
 England, vol. v., that, on the reassembling of Parliament after the 
 partition of Poland no allusion whatever was made in the House of 
 Commons to that event. The final partition treaty was signed in 1795 
 by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
 
 traat:l and inteknatioxal friendships 181 
 
 ingly happy, Sir, when you will be present in Town in 
 
 order to have some conversation with you on the 
 
 subject. In the meantime, I take the liberty to ask 
 
 your favour in informing me where I could get the 
 
 machine for separating corn from chaff, whereof the 
 
 drawing was brought to Poland by my nephew ? 
 
 ' I have the honour to be, with the greatest 
 
 respect, 
 
 ' Sir, your most obedient, &c., 
 
 ' F. BUKATY, 
 ' Envoy Extraordinary of Poland.' 
 
 From Dr. Burney 
 
 ' Chelsea College : Oct. 20, 1789. 
 
 ' My dear Friend, — I have begged a corner of this 
 sheet from your daughter Bessy to congratulate you on 
 your safe arrival on Classic ground after the perils and 
 dangers of Gothic ground. How insipid will the 
 history of the present times in this last country render 
 all other history ! And what weight will it not give to 
 what has been long called the history of Fabulous 
 times ! The Poissardes are but the Amazons of the 
 present day, and the leaders at the attack of the 
 Bastille the Hercules and Theseus. The fetching 
 the King, Queen, and Eoyal Family from Versailles, 
 and the total demolition of the ancient government of 
 the Kingdom, have no type in history or fable, ancient 
 or modern. The nobles and clergy indiscriminately 
 stripped of their honours and property, not to give it to 
 others of the same rank and class, but to the mob, who 
 are helping themselves to whatever they like, and
 
 182 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 destroying whom and what is not honoured with their 
 approbation in a more successful and effectual way than 
 our AVat Tyler or Jack Straw ever intended, and which 
 would have astonished even J. J. Rousseau had he 
 been living, in spite of his ideas of an egaliU de con- 
 dition. But whether a totally levelling scheme can be 
 rendered permanent in a great Empire or no, time, not 
 experience, can show. I used to think la hi des ijliis 
 forts only existed among savages, and that in Society 
 there were tall minds as well as tall bodies, but none 
 such have as j^et appeared in France. But let us talk 
 of Italy, where I found no want of tall minds, even in 
 these degenerate days. I am glad you seem to like the 
 farming of the Milanese. I was particularly struck 
 with it all through Lombardy, and think j^ou will find 
 even among the peasantry shrewdness, industry, and 
 ingenuitj^ In all the great cities I found philosophers, 
 mathematicians, and scholars, as well as musicians ; 
 these last, indeed, make more noise in the world, and, 
 being travellers, spread their own fame into remote 
 countries, while the drone and scientific part of a nation 
 are seldom heard of out of the w^alls of their colleges 
 or towns till after their decease. Indeed, almost all 
 those I knew personally nineteen years ago in Italy 
 are now no more ! Padre Boccaria at Turin, Padre 
 Boscovich at Milan, and Padre Sacchi. This last, I 
 believe, is still living. But Count Firmian is dead, to 
 whom I and every English traveller was much obliged 
 by his hospitality and kindness. You probably owe the 
 same obligation to his successor, with whose name even 
 I am unacquainted. If you go to Padua you will
 
 TEAVEL AND INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS 183 
 
 probably stop at Verona, where there are always men 
 of learning and science. But you must not judge of 
 the present state of musick in any part of Italy unless 
 you remain there during the Carnival. At other times 
 (except at the great fairs) the principal theatres are 
 shut, and the others supphed with such rifif-raff as our 
 Sadler's Wells during summer. If Guadagni had been 
 living, you would have him at Padaa, and if I had not 
 engaged him to the Pantheon, Pachierotti, whom we 
 expect here in a few days. Pray go to the church of 
 Sant' Antonio on a festival ; there Tartini used to lead 
 and Guadagni sing. If Padre Valetti is living, the 
 Maestro di Capella, pray present my compliments to 
 him and enquire after the sequel of his Treatise. I 
 have as yet only seen the first part. I likewise beg to 
 be remembered to Signor Marsili, the Professor of 
 Botany, and Padre Columbo, the Professor of Mathe- 
 matics : the first was some time in England and speaks 
 our language ; the second was the great friend of Tartini, 
 and left in possession of all his manuscript papers. 
 Enquire what is become of them, and try to get intelli- 
 gence of the disposal of Padre Martini's papers, books, 
 and sequel of his ' History of Musick ' at Bologna. 
 Enquire likewise when you meet with intelligent 
 musical people what are the defects of the newest and 
 best of the great Italian theatres. No plan is, I beheve, 
 as yet adopted for rebuilding ours. Le Texier has a 
 model made with many conveniences and more magni- 
 ficence than our former theatre could boast, but 
 whether it will be adopted, or whether it is to be 
 washed that a Frenchman should ever have the manage-
 
 184 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 ment of an Italian opera, I know not. However 
 partial he or his countrymen may seem to German and 
 Italian musick, I know by long observation that they 
 are totally ignorant of, and enemies to, good singing, 
 without which what are the two or three acts of an 
 opera but intermezzi or act tunes to the ballets ? I 
 perceive, however, that, amidst all the horrors of Paris, 
 they suffer Italian operas to be performed in Italian 
 and by Italians, which were never allowed before, 
 except at Versailles ; but these are only burlettas ; 
 serious operas so performed might have some effect 
 on the national taste in singing. But les Dames des 
 Halles, their excellencies Mesdames les Poissardes, 
 furnish them with " other fish to fry " at present ; so I 
 shall say no more of France, but that I pity most 
 sincerely every honest man who has the misfortune to 
 be resident in that distracted kingdom. 
 
 ' God bless you, my dear Sir, and give you health 
 and spirits to enjoy your rational and useful enquiries. 
 
 ' Charles Burney.' 
 
 [The follovnng extracts from Arthur Young's letters 
 home, and letter to his darling Bobbin, then aged five, 
 are worth giving. With very slight excisions all letters 
 to his daughter Mary are incorporated in the ' French 
 Travels.'] 
 
 ' Lyons, Dec. 28, 1789. — Symonds says Arthur 
 has set off very well at Cambridge, which I am very 
 glad to hear. God send him understanding enough to 
 know the value of these four years there, which are 
 either lost absolutely or applied to the amelioration of
 
 TEAVEL AND INTEENATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS 185 
 
 all his life after. French and Italian or German after 
 four years at Cambridge may qualify it for anything.' 
 
 From another letter to the same : — 
 
 ' I found here your Mother's two letters, of which I 
 can hardly make head or tail ; according to custom they 
 are so cross written and so crammed and topsy-turvy, 
 that, like the oracles of old, they may he made to speak 
 whatever is in the reader's head, alley croaker (sic) or 
 " Paradise Lost " are all one.' 
 
 From a third letter, dated Florence, November 18, 
 1789 :— 
 
 * I received here a letter from you, and two from your 
 Mother ; yours is dated October 17, one of hers the 30th, 
 the other no date, and not a word of Bobbin in it. 
 ^Vhat a way of writing, and this to a man 1,400 miles 
 from home. I am greatly concerned for Mr. Arbuthnot, 
 though his silence made him dead to us from the time 
 he went to Ireland. I never knew a family which was 
 the centre of every mild and agreeable virtue so 
 shattered into nothing by a man's failure. I have long 
 and often regretted that period. ... I took 100/. with 
 me, and it lasts exactly six months, buying books 
 included. . . . Good night. Thank God, Bobbin is 
 well ; give her a kiss.' 
 
 To his youngest Daughter, Martha (Bobbin) 
 
 ' Moulins : August 7, 1789. 
 
 ' My dear Bobbin, — I fully expected to have heard 
 from Mary here, and to have known how my dear little 
 girl does, but I was much disappointed and found no 
 letter from England.
 
 186 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNQ 
 
 ' I think it high time to enquire of you how you pass 
 your time — what you do — how Mr. Mag (the pony) 
 does, and the four kittens ; I hope you have taken care 
 of them and remembered your Papa wants cats. Do 
 the flowers grow well in your garden? Are you a 
 better gardener than you used to be ? The Marq. de 
 Guerchy's little girls have a little house on a little hill, 
 and on one side a httle flower garden, and on the other 
 side a little kitchen garden, which they manage them- 
 selves and keep very clean from weeds — Bobbin would 
 hke much to see it. 
 
 ' I have passed through perils and dangers, for a 
 part of the countrj^ is infested by 800 plunderers in 
 arms, yet have burnt in only one district near Macon 
 twelve chateaus ; but I am now passed the worst and 
 hope to escape at last with whole bones. I have a 
 passport, and am carried to the Bom'geois guard at all 
 the towns. 
 
 ' Pray, my little girl, take care, and keep clear from 
 weeds the row of grass I sowed in the round garden, 
 on right hand about ten yards long, but don't take up 
 anything like grass. And if the two willows which I 
 brought last year 1,000 miles from France are alive yet, 
 give them some water ; one is by the hole, and the 
 other by Arthur's garden — I made little mounds around 
 them. You do not know, my little Bobbin, how much 
 I long to have a walk with you at Bradfield. It is a 
 sad thing I have no letter here ; I shall have none till 
 Clermont. I desire a particular account of my farm 
 to be sent here. 
 
 * I have been ill from heat and fatigue, and had a
 
 TRAVEL AND INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS 187 
 
 sore throat, but by care and an antiseptic diet I am now, 
 thank God, quite well. 
 
 ' What do you think of the French at such a 
 moment as this with a free press '? yet in this capital of 
 a great province there is not (publickly) one newspaper 
 to be seen ; at a coffee house, where twenty tables 
 for company, not one. What blessed ignorance. The 
 
 Paris m have done the whole, and are the only 
 
 enlightened part of the K . 
 
 ' Adieu, my dear B. 
 
 ' I am, yours affectionately, 
 
 ' A. Y.' 
 
 [In a note A. Y. writes :] 
 
 ' I found Madame la Comtesse de Guerchy a very 
 pleasant, agreeable woman, and among other trifles 
 which occurred at their house was an expedition into 
 the kitchen to teach me to make an omelette, the 
 operation attending which occasioned no little merri- 
 ment both in the kitchen and parlour. I succeeded 
 pretty well.' ' 
 
 1790. — All this summer I was employed in pre- 
 paring my [French] Travels for the press. In October 
 I had a violent fever, which brought me to the brink of 
 the grave. I made a minute of that illness in the 
 following words : ' From almost the bed of death, it 
 pleased the Divine Goodness to raise me up, and I 
 remember it was in perfect hardness of heart and free 
 from all true or grateful feelings. I was in a state of 
 
 ' The passage occurs in the small raemorandurn-book from which I 
 have occasionally quoted particulars o yearly expenses, <fec.
 
 188 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 blindness and insensibility, on which I reflect with 
 horror and amazement.' ' 
 
 I cannot speak of the ingratitude of my heart to God 
 at this period but in the strongest terms, as it amounted 
 to a degree of insensibility quite unaccountable. I fear 
 that not one thought of God ever occurred to me at that 
 time, and I doubt whether [it was so], while one evening 
 I had resumed the habit of prayer, that is, of those 
 formal prayers which an unconverted person may repeat 
 without any real devotion ; and yet during my delirium 
 the physician afterwards told me that I one day broke 
 forth into one of the most eloquent and sublime prayers 
 he ever heard, to his utter astonishment. 
 
 During my recovery I wrote that melancholy review 
 of my past life, which is printed in the ' Annals.' 
 
 ' Vol. XV. 1791, My Own Memoirs.
 
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 189 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PATRIOTIC PROPOSALS — 1791-92 
 
 Illness — Correspondence with Washington — The King's gift of a ram — 
 Anecdotes — Revising MSS. — Patriotic proposals — Death of the Earl 
 of Orford — Agricultural schemes— Correspondence. 
 
 The year opened with a continuation of that severe 
 illness which had confined me for some months. The 
 following notes are from a journal I kept at that time : — 
 
 This year my daughter Elizabeth married the 
 Rev. Samuel Hoole, son of the celebrated John Hoole, 
 translator of Tasso and Ariosto. He is a very sensible, 
 moral man of strict integrity, and always behaved to my 
 daughter with much tenderness. 
 
 This same year my correspondence ' opened with 
 General Washington. Having been applied to to pro- 
 cure some implements for his husbandry, I wrote 
 to him offering to procure any article in that line which 
 he might have occasion for, and accordingly afterwards 
 sent him many, amongst others the plan of a barn, 
 which he executed, and is represented by a plate in the 
 ' Annals of Agriculture.' 
 
 ' These letters were sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Co., London, 
 December 189G.
 
 190 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 This year his Majesty had the goodness to make 
 me a present of a Spanish Merino ram, a portrait of 
 which I inserted in the ' Annals.' 
 
 How many millions of men are there that would 
 smile if I were to mention the Sovereign of a great 
 Empire giving a ram to a farmer as an event that 
 merited the attention of mankind ! The world is full 
 of those who consider military glory as the proper 
 object of the ambition of monarchs ; who measure regal 
 merit by the millions that are slaughtered ; by the 
 public robbery and plunder that are dignified by the 
 titles of dignity and conquest, and who look down on 
 every exertion of peace and tranquillity as unbecoming 
 those who aim at the epithet great, and unworthy the 
 aim of men that are born the masters of the globe. 
 
 My ideas are cast in a very different mould, and I 
 believe the period is advancing with accelerated pace 
 that shall exhibit characters in a light totally new, 
 and shall rather brand than exalt the virtues hitherto 
 admired ; that shall place in full blaze of meridian 
 lustre actions lost on the mass of mankind ; that shall 
 pay more homage to the memory of a Prince that gave 
 a ram to a farmer than for wielding the sceptre obeyed 
 alike on the Ganges and on the Thames. 
 
 I shall presume to offer but one other general obser- 
 vation. When we see his Majesty practising husbandry 
 with that warmth that marks a favourite pursuit, and 
 taking such steps to diffuse a foreign breed of sheep 
 well calculated to improve those of his kingdoms ; 
 when we see the Eoyal pursuits take such a direction, 
 we may safely conclude that the public measures which,
 
 PATRIOTIC PROPOSALS 191 
 
 in certain instances, have been so hostile to the agri- 
 culture of this country, have nothing in common with 
 the opinions of our gracious Sovereign ; such measures 
 are the v^/'ork of men, who never felt for husbandry ; 
 who never practised it ; who never loved it ; it is not 
 such men that give rams to farmers. 
 
 October 21. — A letter to-day from General Washing- 
 ton — Gracious ! from the representative of the Majesty 
 of America, all written Vvith his own hand. Also one 
 from the Marquis de la Fayette desiring my assistance 
 to get him a bailiff that understands English ornamental 
 gardening ; for both he gives fifty louis ^ a year — this 
 is a French idea to unite what never was united, and, 
 when gained, reward it with wages little better than 
 a common labourer. 
 
 October 24. — Dined yesterday at Sir Thomas Gage's 
 to meet the Miss Fergus's and Dr. and Mrs. Onslow. 
 This Dr. was the youngest son of the late General 
 Onslow, brother of my godfather, the Speaker, in 
 whose family my dear mother was for many years upon 
 the most intimate footing of private friendship. 
 
 When a boy I was frequently at his house, and well 
 remember having this Arthur, a child, on my knee. 
 Mrs. Onslow mentioned how much she had heard Mr. 
 Boswell talk of my works. I fancy Boswell, from some 
 things I heard of him, and it seems confirmed by 
 various passages in his ' Life of Johnson,' has a sort of 
 rage for knowing all sorts of public men, good, bad, and 
 indifferent, all one if a man renders himself known he 
 likes to be acquainted with him. Mrs. Onslow reported 
 
 ' Louis cVor at this time worth 24 francs. — Littri.
 
 192 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 to me the following conversation which took place at 
 the Prince's table : — 
 
 The Prince of Wales, with a large company dining 
 with him, said, ' The three greatest coxcombs in 
 England are in this room. Here is my friend Hanger,' 
 the Duke of Queensberry must come in for the second ; ' 
 he made a pause, enough for the company to stare for 
 the third, and added, ' for the third, it is certainly 
 myself.' 
 
 When Sir W. Courtenay asked Lord Bute for a 
 peerage, he carried his pedigree with him. Lord Bute 
 examined and pretended to be a good judge of those 
 things. He told Mr. Symonds that nothing could be 
 clearer or more unquestionable than his descent lineally 
 from Louis le Gros of France, the relationship with 
 the House of Bourbon which occasions the mourning 
 of a day in the Court of France for the death of a 
 Courtena5^■- Lord Bute told him his demand of a barony 
 was too modest, and that he should be a Viscount, which 
 he was accordingly-. 
 
 October 26. — In preparing my Travels [in France] 
 for the press, I experience strongly the importance of 
 an author's having composed so much more than he 
 means to print as to be able to strike out largely. 
 
 My agreement with Richardson was to have six 
 shillings a volume for all sold of one guinea quarto 
 volumes, but when Backham's compositor came to cast 
 
 ' The well-known Colonel George Hanger, afterwards fourth Lord 
 Coleraine. ' He served in the Army during the American War, and was 
 afterwards a distinguished character in high society. Wrote his Life, 
 Adventures, and Opinions.^ — Annual Register, 1824. 
 
 - See on this subject Gibbon's Rome, vol. xi. ch. Ixi.
 
 PATEIOTIC PEOPOSALS 193 
 
 off the MS. he found enough for two large quarto 
 volumes, since which discovery I had to strike out just 
 half of what I had written ; and the advantage will be 
 very great to the work. I read the books as they are 
 wanted for the press again and again, reducing the 
 quantity every time till I get it tolerably to my mind, 
 but yet not to the amount of half. The work is certainly 
 improved by this means, and I am strongly of opinion 
 if nine-tenths of other writers were to do the same 
 thing their performances would be so much the better ; 
 for one reads very few quartos that would not be 
 improved by reducing to octavo volumes. 
 
 November 23. — I was five days last week at the 
 Duke of Grafton's, Admiral, Mrs., and two Miss Pigots 
 were there — she [Mrs. P.] is sister to the Duchess, 
 the Admiral is a very worthy man — Mr. Stonehewer 
 there also, and old Vary. I spent two days in taking 
 the level of the Duke's river for four miles, in order to 
 see how much land he might water, and the improve- 
 ment his estate is capable of is very great indeed. 
 The character of this Duke is original ; he is uncom- 
 monly sensible, there is no stuff in him ; he is cold, 
 silent, reserved, and even at times sullen, and he is 
 removed from all that ease and suavity which render 
 people agreeable ; yet there is such a solid under- 
 standing, and so much learning and knowledge on 
 certain topics, that one must value him in spite of 
 our feehngs. 
 
 Very little of the conversation interesting enough to 
 be worth recording. I was also at a new club which 
 
 o
 
 194 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 Kuggles ' has instituted at Melford, which might have 
 been an agreeable thing had there been half a dozen only. 
 
 The following are [among] the letters preserved this 
 year : — 
 
 From Dr. Burney, congratulations, pleasant anec- 
 dotes, and an account of a large auction of books, &c. : — 
 
 ' Chelsea College : Jan. 7, 1791. 
 
 ' My dear Arthur, — The precipice on which you 
 have so long been scrambling for life seems to be more 
 dangerous than any one of those which I had to 
 encounter from Sarzana to Genoa or Genoa to Final. 
 In the first of these scrambles during three days and 
 three nights on a mule without bridle (except that of 
 Jack Ketch) or saddle, I had a torrent called the Magra 
 roaring in my ears at a perpendicular distance of eight 
 hundred or a thousand feet, and, in the second, the 
 Mediterranean, during a storm which no vessel could 
 weather. In the darkest night I ever saiv, with the 
 artificial lights of our lanterns extinguished by the 
 violence of the wind, at every twenty or thirty yards 
 the pedino (a man on foot to guide the mule) cried out, 
 "Alia montagna ! alia montagna, Signore ! " which 
 was an admonition to alight and crawl on all fours 
 over broken roads on the ridge of a precipice. 
 
 ' Now let 77ie play the pedino' s part to your worship, 
 and admonish you to be very careful how you travel 
 in the perilous way to health which you have still to 
 pass, after your escape from the great precipice ; for 
 
 ' Th. Ruggles, author of a History of the Poor, reprinted afterwards 
 from the Annals of Agriculture. Many passages were omitted, in 
 accordance with the wishes of Pitt. — Lowndes.
 
 PATEIOTIC PROPOSALS 195 
 
 which escape, as an Italian would say, " to me ne con- 
 gratulo non meno con me medesimo die con voi." 
 
 'Bat besides congratulating you on your amend- 
 ment, I have for some time wished to tell you that in 
 the Paitoni catalogue of Italian books now selling 
 by auction at Eobson's room, there are many on 
 Natural History and Agriculture. Now as you have 
 dipped into Italian literature and farming, it struck me 
 on seeing the catalogue that there may be several 
 works that you would wish to purchase, particularly 
 as the Italian books of Science have hitherto sold at 
 this auction for almost nothing. I purchased nearly 
 fifty volumes of poetry and miscellanies, and my bill 
 did not amount to five pounds. The books are in ex- 
 ceeding good condition, and most of them such as have 
 never appeared before in the Osburn, Payne, or Eobson 
 catalogues. I am inclined to think that this sale will 
 enrich future catalogues in our country for many years 
 to come. Indeed I was so tired of eternally meeting 
 with the same book over and over again that I had no 
 longer patience to read them. 
 
 ' If you see any you wish I will get them purchased, 
 but as neither your Bibliomania nor mine has ever 
 raged to such a degree as to wish to buy in at any 
 price, it will be necessary to say that v/e mean not to 
 vie with those who being more curious in books than 
 authors procure them at any price to look at and not 
 to read. A rich acquaintance of mine, and a customer 
 of old Tom Payne, has often bought books in languages 
 of which he knew not a single word, merely because 
 they were beautifully bound or very scarce.'
 
 196 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 From another letter : — 
 
 ' I have not time nor space to lengthen my letter, or 
 I should tell you of a long conversation I had last 
 Sunday at Lady Lucan's blue-stocking conversazione 
 with Lord Macartney about you. He has just come 
 from Ireland and wanted to know whether you were 
 recovered — whether you come to London this winter, 
 as he wished to communicate some memorandums he 
 made in perusing your "Irish Tour" while he was in 
 Ireland. He is a charming man, to my mind. 
 
 ' Poor Fanny ^ has -feeen very ill indeed, and we 
 have been in expectation of her coming to nurse, but 
 she will risk the dying at her Majesty's feet to show 
 her zeal before she can be spared, I suppose. 
 
 ' I have had the great Haydn here, and think him 
 as good a creature as great Musician. As to operas, 
 the Pantheon advertises to open as a theatre ; it is the 
 most elegant in Europe, Pacchierotti says, but it has 
 great enemies. The Haymarket folks have not yet 
 obtained a licence, at which they affect surprise, though 
 they were told so before their building was a foot high. 
 Old Mingotti is come over with her scholar Madame 
 Lobo, the intended first woman of the Haymarket. It 
 will be a busy and memorable season in the history of 
 tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee quarrels. 
 ' Adieu ! 
 
 ' Believe me, 
 
 ' Yours very affectionately, 
 
 ' Charles Burney.' 
 
 ' Dr. Burney's daughter, Madame d'Arblay.
 
 PATEIOTIC PEOPOSALS 197 
 
 ' Chelsea College : Sept. 21, 1791. 
 ' My dear Friend, — I am quite ashamed of not 
 answering yom* kind and hearty letter of invitation 
 sooner. But a listless and irresolute disposition has 
 made my mind for some time past as flimsy as a dish- 
 clout, and I must confess that I have invariably " left 
 undone those things which I ought to have done " — 
 "for there was no health in me," indeed, not enough 
 to enable me " to do many things which I ought not to 
 have done." Original sin and depravity just enabled 
 me to read when I should have ivritten, and to lie 
 in bed when I should have got up, &c. I wished to 
 commit other guess crimes than those, to have rambled 
 over a great part of the kingdom and revelled with 
 distant friends. But prudence, in the shape of rheuma- 
 tism, and in many other hideous shapes, prevented me. 
 Yet, in spite of all these admonitions, I had a month's 
 mind to accept of your hospitable offer. But we 
 have guests at our apartments now, my two aged 
 sisters, and, when they depart, winter will begin to 
 show his sour face and chain me to my chimney 
 corner till after Christmas, when I shall be unfettered, 
 merely to be dragged into the hurry and din of London, 
 which are every year more and more insupportable. I 
 have long ceased to like the country, except in long 
 days and fine weather, and, in winter, prefer London 
 with all its horrors and fatigues to rural amusements. 
 Indeed, autumn with all its golden glow and variegated 
 charms for landscape painters is to me a constant 
 memento mori, with its withered leaves tumbling about 
 my ears ; and all my most severe attacks of rheuma-
 
 198 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 tism have been during the equinoctial winds and 
 rains ; so that I am afraid of trusting myself far from 
 home at this season of the year, as one can be sick 
 and cross nowhere so comfortably as at home. 
 
 ' Having scribbled my apology, I must now hasten 
 to congratulate you and Mrs. Young on the marriage 
 of our dear and worthy girl Bessy.' The match, indeed, 
 is not splendid for either in point of circmnstances ; 
 but they are quite as likely to scramble happily through 
 life, with good hearts and wishes limited to their means, 
 as the richest peers and peeresses in the land, who 
 generally outlive their income, be it what it will, and 
 have mortifications incident to pride and disappointed 
 ambition which little folk know nothing about. They 
 (I mean our young couple) have my hearty benediction 
 and good wishes. A man without famil}^ attachments 
 is an awkward and insulated being, but a woman 
 without a mate is still more insignificant and helpless ; 
 and, having become adventurers in the matrimonial 
 lottery, I sincerely hope they will gain a prize in the 
 fortuitous distribution of such happiness as reasonable 
 mortals have a right to expect. 
 
 ' I dare not venture on French politics. What a 
 marvellous period in the history of that nation ! I 
 think the clergy and many worthy people of the lower 
 class of nobility have been cruelly used, and that the 
 mob is at present too powerful and insolent. Too 
 much has been promised them, and nothing short of an 
 agrarian law will satisfy them. The word tax, taille, 
 
 ' Arthur Young's daughter Elizabeth, the first wife of Rev. Samuel 
 Hoole.
 
 PATRIOTIC PROPOSALS 199 
 
 impost, are carefully avoided in the National Chart. 
 But they must be levied under some denomination or 
 other, and, I fancy, " contribution " will be as detestable 
 a term in France, ere long, as " free-gift " was in England 
 during the last century. I wish the worthy people of 
 France may enjoy the rational liberty which seems 
 now in their power, but I question whether the in- 
 habitants of that kingdom in general will deserve the 
 ample liberty which is offered them, or know how to 
 use it. I think them so fickle and frivolous that I should 
 not be surprised if in a few years they were as tired 
 of their new Government as the English at the death of 
 Oliver Cromwell. In the meantime what has happened 
 in America and France will shake every sovereignty upon 
 earth. The French Guards laying down their arms when 
 ordered to fire on the mob will make mobs formidable 
 things in every country, for whenever a similar defection 
 happens a revolution must be the consequence. 
 
 ' I am sorry not to be able to give your friend, Mr. 
 Capel Lofft, an account of any Lyre in modern times 
 having been in use that has been constructed, strung, 
 and tuned on the principles of the antients. In- 
 numerable volumes have been written on their division 
 of the scale and genera. Kircher, indeed, calls a Vielle 
 a hurdy-gurdy, Lyra mendicorum. And a Viol da 
 Gamba, with additional strings and new tuning, was 
 in the last century called a Lyra-Viol. Mace,' 
 Playford,^ Simpson,^ I believe, and others describe this 
 
 ' Th. I\Iace, author of Music^s Monument. 
 
 2 T. Playforcl, author of Music's Delight, dc, 1668, 1676. 
 
 ' C. Simpson, author of The Division Viol, 1687.
 
 200 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 instrument. But though many modern instruments 
 have had the honour of being called Lyres, yet none 
 of them resemble the antient in their form or in the 
 manner of playing them. The Mandoline is the only 
 modern instrument played with anything like a plectrum. 
 Vicenzio Galileo, the father of Galileo, in his tract, 
 " Delia Musica antica e moderna," published at Florence 
 1602, speaks much of the similarity of the antient 
 Lyre and Cythara, but gives more proof from antient 
 authors of their difference than identity. He tells us, 
 however, that " the modern Harp, which is nothing but 
 the antient Cythara with many strings, was brought 
 into Italy from Ireland." Now the Irish harp is a 
 single instrument of few strings, partly brass and 
 partly steel, and of such small compass as to admit no 
 bass, being confined to mere melody. Carolan, the 
 celebrated modern Irish Bard, played only the treble 
 part of tunes. And it seems to me as if this simple 
 instrument resembled the antient Lyre and Cythara 
 more than any other modern instrument with which I 
 am acquainted. Pray tell Mr. Lofft that I have exa- 
 mined Bonanni's description of all the musical instru- 
 ments that are known, with engravings of them all, 
 but found nothing satisfactory about a modern Lyre. 
 This book was published at Eome 1722. I have 
 likewise looked into Ceruti's new edition with correc- 
 tions, 1776, without success. 
 
 ' I am, my dear friend, 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 ' Charles Burney.'
 
 PATEIOTIC PROPOSALS 201 
 
 From Dr. John Symonds on the political state 
 of the country — an account of a conference between 
 Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Grafton :— 
 
 ' Bates' Hotel, Adelphi : April 19, 1791. 
 
 ' My dear Young, — Hope you will not expect to hear 
 me talking on Agriculture ; of that you will have a 
 sufficient taste from seeing the wonderful knowledge 
 exhibited by all the House of Commons in the Corn 
 Bill. You will look for something on politics, though 
 the newspapers themselves sufficiently show the straits 
 to which Mr. Pitt is driven ; for his majority is such 
 as will ruin any Minister if a war be unpopular ; 
 and had the American war been so at first, it is not 
 probable that Lord North would have dared to pursue 
 it, though he was so strongly supported in Parliament. 
 
 'The truth is, some of Mr, Pitt's bosom friends 
 absolutely refuse to vote with him on this occasion. 
 Among these are Wilberforce and Banks. The Duke 
 of Grafton desired his son-in-law, Mr. Smith, to tell 
 Mr. Pitt he wished to have some conversation with 
 him ; Mr. Pitt very politely came and staid half-an- 
 hour, and the Duke used every argument he could 
 think of to convince him, both of the impolicy and 
 injustice of the war, " that the augmentation of taxes 
 coming upon the neck of the cessed ones, and malt tax. 
 which made a great noise, would occasion universal 
 discontent, if not worse effects ; that we ought to lay 
 no stress upon the promises of a Turkish Ministry and 
 advantages in the Turkey trade, which must chiefly 
 accrue to France from her situation, and other causes ;
 
 202 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 that what we could do in the Baltic was merely to burn 
 a few villages and distress individuals, as the Russian 
 fleet would lie securely among rocks, that Russia 
 appeared to act with moderation in desiring to retain 
 Ockzakow only ; and that to plunge this nation into a 
 vast expense, merely to serve the Ejng of Prussia's 
 views, when we could obtain no benefit from it, would 
 expose the Ministry to very great censure, more 
 especially as we entered into it as volunteers, not being 
 obliged to it by the terms of the Treaty." Other things 
 which his Grace said I omit, as every argument has 
 been used in the House of Commons. The conference 
 ended as conferences of this sort generally do — each of 
 them kept to his opinion. 
 
 ' You observe probably in the papers, that on Baker's 
 motion, Pole Carew moved the previous question and 
 contended " that the interests of all are closely connected 
 even in respect to things not stipulated by treaty." 
 This judicious doctrine was first advanced by the 
 Chancellor, and Mr. Pitt defended in his speech on 
 Baker's motion. According to this doctrine, there is 
 no difference between defensive and offensive treaties ; 
 all the writer's de jure gentium should be burnt, and, 
 indeed, most of the European treaties also ; and it is 
 certain that under such circumstances England ought 
 never to make an alliance on the Continent unless a 
 Continental war were actuallj^ broken out ; otherwise 
 she could not foresee the consequences to which she 
 would be exposed. 
 
 * Charles Fox said in his speech on Baker's motion 
 " that Mr. Pitt dared not to enter into the war, and that
 
 PATRIOTIC PROPOSALS 203 
 
 he kept a majority together at present by his assurance 
 that there would not be one." 
 
 ' This is, perhaps, the case ; but however it may be, 
 it is certain that Faukner, Clerk of the Council, is sent 
 to Berlin, and most persons think with a view of 
 showing the King of Prussia the impossibiHty of 
 persuading this country to enter into a Eussian war. 
 Had Mr. Pitt felt the pulse of the Parliament and 
 people before he delivered the King's message, he 
 would have saved his credit, though he might have 
 been blamed ; but he has now run into the horns of a 
 dilemma, as the logicians call it. If he prosecute the 
 war, he will infallibly be ex-Minister, and bad conse- 
 quences are to be apprehended in a country oppressed 
 by taxes and heated by political pamphlets ; if he give 
 it up, he will lose all his influence in the eyes of Europe, 
 and teach foreign Courts that no confidence is to be 
 placed in an English Minister. His friends lament very 
 much this last circumstance. 
 
 ' Adieu ! 
 
 ' John Symonds.' 
 
 A circumstance in the exploits of my public career 
 which made, perhaps, a more general impression than 
 any other event of my life, was the proposal in 1792 
 for arming the property of the Kingdom in a sort of 
 horse militia. My first suggestion of this idea was in 
 May (of that year). Should any have claimed it, or 
 should any hereafter form such a claim, it ought in 
 truth and strict candour to be absolutely rejected. The 
 proposal was more formally made in August of the
 
 204 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 same year in the ' Annals,' vol. xviii. p. 495, under the 
 title of French events.' In the end of 1792 and the 
 beginning of 1793 these papers were collected and 
 much enlarged in a pamphlet entitled, ' The Example 
 of France,' &c. which ran speedily through four 
 numerous editions, and excited a very general attention. 
 The author was publicly thanked in resolutions of 
 associated assemblies, and my great plea of a horse 
 militia produced almost immediately three volunteer 
 corps of cavalry, which multiplied rapidly through the 
 Kingdom. It is not known that any persons or any 
 bodies of men ever laid claim to a priority in this idea ; 
 accordingly my health was the first toast given for being 
 the origin of those corps, which, when assembled, had 
 this opportunity of publicly declaring their opinion. 
 The scheme took with astonishing celerity, and became 
 the parent of a measure of a very different complexion, 
 which was putting arms into the hands of thou- 
 sands without property, and upon whose allegiance and 
 constitutional principle but little reliance could be 
 placed. Government received demands for arms to the 
 amount of above 700,000 men. The Ministers were 
 alarmed, and saw too late the consequence of their 
 own blindness and incapacity. They refused their con- 
 sent, in many cases without properly discriminating 
 between men with and without property, and felt 
 themselves in so awkward a position that it is no 
 wonder their conduct continued void of any steady 
 adherence to the principle of the original proposition. 
 
 ' See the Travels in France, Bohn's Library, p. 335 et seq., for the 
 views therein set forth.
 
 PATRIOTIC PEOPOSALS 205 
 
 Had my plan not only been adopted but carried into 
 execution, strictly upon the principles I had explained, 
 we might from that moment to the present have had a 
 horse militia, absolutely mider the command of Govern- 
 ment, numbering from 100,000 to 200,000 men, which 
 might, by progressive improvements, have been matured 
 into a force efficient for every purpose. It is very seldom 
 that so private an individual can by a happy thought 
 become the origin of a system which, had my principles 
 been steadily adhered to, would have been attended 
 with inconceivable benefit, and none of those evils, real 
 or imaginary, afterwards attributed to volunteers in 
 general. 
 
 The pamphlet rendered the author exceedingly 
 popular among all the friends of government and 
 order, and as unpopular among the whole race of 
 reformers and Jacobins. I was not content with the 
 mere theoretical idea, but in my own person put it 
 into practice, and enrolled myself in the ranks of a 
 corps raised at my recommendation, in the vicinity of 
 Bury [St. Edmunds], and commanded by the present 
 Marquis of Cornwallis, then Lord Broome, having 
 with this intention learnt the sword exercise at London 
 of a sergeant, who was eminently skilled in it. My 
 example was followed by gentlemen of fortune, several 
 of whom were also in the ranks and refused to be 
 officers. This was a part of the plan of particular 
 importance, for had gentlemen accepted only the 
 situation of officers, the spirit of entering the corps 
 among yeomen, farmers &c. would have been much 
 cooler ; but when they saw their landlords, and men of
 
 206 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 high consideration in the neighbourhood, in the same 
 situation, their vanity was flattered, and they enrolled 
 themselves with great readiness, and the great object 
 of property of such importance in case of revolutionary 
 disturbance was thus secured. 
 
 Some years afterwards, being at the Duke of 
 Bedford's at Woburn, I sat at dinner by a gentleman 
 of great property, captain of a troop of yeomanry, who 
 told me that whenever his troop met he always drank 
 my health after the King's, for being the undisputed 
 origin of all the yeomanry corps in the kingdom, 
 possibly arising from extracts from my writings on the 
 subject having been much circulated in the newspapers. 
 
 This year my valuable and very sincere friend, the 
 Earl of Orford, died. The public papers that have 
 announced the death of this noble lord have recorded 
 the ancestry from which he was descended, tbe heirs 
 of his honours, and the inheritors of his wealth, and 
 have dwelt upon the titles that are extinct or devolved, 
 together with all the posts and employments that are 
 vacant. To me be the melancholy duty of noting what 
 is of much more moment than the descent of a peerage 
 or the transfer of an estate — the loss of an animated 
 improver ; of one who gave importance to cultivation 
 by a thorough knowledge of political economy, and 
 bent all his endeavours towards making mankind 
 happy by seconding the pursuits of the farmer and 
 the enquiries of the experimentalist. I leave the 
 lieutenancy of a county, the rangership of a park, 
 and the honours of the bedchamber to those in whose 
 eyes such baubles are respectable. I would rather
 
 PATEIOTIC PEOPOSALS 207 
 
 dwell on the merit of the first importer of Southdown 
 sheep into Norfolk ; on the merit of sending to the 
 most distant regions for breeds of animals, represented 
 as useful, not indeed always with success, but never 
 without liberality in the motive ; on the patron and 
 friend of the common farmer, not the lord of a little 
 circle of tenants, but the general and diffusive 
 encourager of every species of agricultural improve- 
 ment. Nor did he associate with the useful men 
 because he was not qualified for the company of higher 
 classes, for his mind was fraught with a great extent 
 of knowledge ; it was decorated by no trivial stores 
 of classical learning, which exercised and set off the 
 powers of a brilliant imagination, and thus qualified, 
 alike for a Court or an Academy of Science, he felt no 
 degradation in attending to the plough. By the death 
 of this noble personage the ' Annals ' have lost a 
 valuable correspondent, and their editor a warm friend. 
 Not-^'ithstanding the immense list of Peers, seven or 
 eight only have become correspondents in this work. 
 The insects of a drawing-room, the patrons of faro, the 
 luminaries of Newmarket, are spared ; while the hand 
 of death deprives the farmer of a friend, Norfolk of a 
 protector, and England of a real patriot. 
 
 Lord Loughborough was the Judge at the Summer 
 Assizes this year at Bury, and I being on the Grand 
 Jury, he sent a note to inform me that he was alone at 
 his lodgings, and desired me to come and chat with him. 
 This I did, of course, and in our conversation he men- 
 tioned that there was an estate of 4,400 acres of land 
 in Yorkshire on the moors, in the vicinity of Paitley
 
 208 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Bridge, to be sold for 4,000/., that it was chiefly freehold, 
 and enclosed with a ring fence, also that there was a 
 neat shooting-box on it built by the Duke of Devon- 
 shire, who hired the grouse. I assured his Lordship 
 that he must be mistaken, for it was impossible that 
 such a tract of land under several circumstances which 
 he named could be on sale for half an hour without being 
 purchased. He answered that nobody would buy it, as 
 the land was all moor or peat, and covered with ling, but 
 that some neighbouring farmers gave, he believed, 100/. 
 per annum for the whole as a walk for mountain sheep. 
 I told him that it seemed so extraordinary to me that 
 I would go immediately to view it. He said the proper 
 persons to apply to to view it were Sir Cecil Wray, Dr. 
 Kilvington, and another gentleman. I accordingly went 
 immediately to Yorkshire, and, taking up my quarters 
 at Paitley Bridge, enquired till I found a person who 
 knew the whole estate perfectly well, and engaged 
 him early the next morning in order to make the 
 tour of the w^hole property. It appeared to me to be 
 wonderfully improvable, and that very considerable 
 tracts to the amount of some hundred acres w^ere 
 palpably capable of irrigation and improvement, evi- 
 dently applicable from the case of a small water- 
 course for conducting the water to an old smelting 
 mill, but long neglected. This course had overflowed 
 and converted the ling, over about fifteen acres, to 
 grass. I asked my conductor what this grass would 
 let for with a small cottage and stable for cows ; he 
 said, ' Certainly fifteen shillings an acre.' It was 
 sufficiently evident that improvements might be
 
 PATRIOTIC PROPOSALS 209 
 
 wrought at a very small expense, and that building 
 was remarkabl}'^ cheap, from every material except 
 timber being found on the spot, and lime at a small 
 distance. There was a small farm in cultivation to 
 produce oats, and the appearance not unfavourable. 
 As I knew that a land surveyor well acquainted with 
 all this country resided at Leeds, I determined to go 
 thither to bring him over to view, and give his opinion 
 as to the value of the property. This I did, brought 
 him over in a postchaise, and rode with him over the 
 principal part of the estate. His opinion confirmed 
 my own, nor must I forget to mention that this estate 
 was to be purchased without money as it was offered 
 on its own security in mortgage. 
 
 In the enclosure of this immense waste, called 
 forest, there were two allotments purchased by the 
 proprietors, one of 1,638 acres, and another of 1,113, in 
 all 2,751 acres, which were a copyhold tenure, at a small 
 fine certain. In addition to which they hired, at the 
 same time, on a long lease, 1,614 acres more, being an 
 allotment to the King, at a rent of 50Z. in money, and 
 501. to be laid out on improvements. The whole, 
 situated half-way between Knaresboro' and Skipton, 
 I found walled in ; three farm-houses built, with barns 
 and offices of various sorts, and lands annexed, and 
 partly subdivided, to the amount of about 400 acres ; 
 the remaining 4,000 in one vast waste. These farms 
 produced the rent of 44/. 5s. The game was let at 301. 
 with the use of a handsome shooting-box, sufficient for 
 the residence of a small family. Peat dug from the 
 bogs produced from 6/. to 8/. a year ; and the great 
 
 p
 
 210 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 waste was let at 100/. a year, which, for 4,000 acres, is 
 at the rate of sixpence per acre. The annual rental 
 was therefore about 1811. per annum. From these 
 circumstances it appeared clear to me that the pur- 
 chase could not well be an unfavourable speculation. 
 2,750 acres (throwing the leasehold entirely out of the 
 question) for 4,400/. is exactly 32Z. an acre fee simple 
 for land that paid a mere trifle in poor rates and land 
 tax,^ and tithe free ; it did not seem therefore to be 
 necessary that the produce should amount to three 
 shillings, for if the rent was reckoned only at one 
 shilling it was but thirty-two years' purchase. I 
 determined, therefore, to make it, and concluded the 
 transaction as soon as possible. 
 
 My plan was, to let my farm in Suffolk, of about 300 
 acres, and transfer the capital, with some additions, 
 to the gradual improvement of this large tract ; and, 
 in doing this, I should have begun with one fa.rm on 
 the Southern extremity, near the turnpike road, of 
 three or four hundred acres, let separately for 20/. a 
 year, but all a waste, and, in addition to this, have run 
 a watering canal from one of the streams, till from 
 100 to 200 acres were below the level, walling such 
 tract in. Thus prepared, I found myself at last in a 
 situation to realise the speculations I had so long been 
 busy in — when a new scene of a very different kind 
 opened upon me — but of that hereafter. 
 
 The following are the letters of this year reserved. 
 From J. Symonds, Esq., an account of the Duke of 
 Grafton's illness : — 
 
 ' All the public charges on 4,000 acres amounted only to lil.
 
 PATEIOTIC PROPOSALS 211 
 
 ' Euston : Jan. 30, 1792. 
 
 ' So you tell me that I know not how to stay at 
 home ! but this is a visit of pure friendship, for the 
 duke likes very well to chat with me, though he is so 
 nervous as hardly to bear with strangers. Yesterday 
 Lord Clermont, who is very intimate with him, came 
 hither, but he was too much for the duke, and had he 
 not gone away this morning, the duchess would have 
 hinted it gently to him. What would you do with 
 such nerves ? 
 
 'Last night, intead of reading a sermon or charge, 
 I read to the whole company (by the duke's desire) 
 your essays on the police of corn and capital em- 
 ployed in the French husbandry, with which he had 
 been so pleased. Lord Clermont, who has lived much 
 in France, and though a man of pleasure, had inquired 
 much into the state of that country, was not more 
 dehghted than surprised with them. "Well, then," 
 said the duke, " as you like them so much and intend 
 to buy the book, recommend it as much as possible 
 to your friends in the great world." This he engaged 
 to do. His Lordship gave a pressing invitation for 
 you and I to pass two or three days with him ; he 
 fixed upon the month of May, which will suit me, and, 
 I hope, you. 
 
 ' As an inducement I was to tell you that he has 
 marled four hundred and fifty acres with a hundred and 
 twenty loads an acre — this is an object. 
 
 'J Symonds.'
 
 212 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 J. AV. Coke, Esq., M.P., proposing some laws for the 
 benefit of the poor in their present distress : — 
 
 ' Holkham : Oct. 23, 1792. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I have no better motive to urge for 
 addressing myself to you upon the subject of this letter 
 than that I knov;^ of no man so v^ell qualified as your- 
 self to give me the information I stand in need of, 
 should my plan be thought practicable and useful by 
 you, otherwise I should take shame to myself to intrude 
 for a moment on your time, which I esteem so precious, 
 as it is always most usefully employed in the most 
 laudable pursuits. 
 
 ' Having turned my thoughts much of late to the 
 most probable causes of the discontent among the 
 lower classes of people in this country, I find that the 
 high price of provisions, especially of bread, has been 
 invariably the motive assigned by them whenever they 
 have assembled in a tumultuous manner. And this is 
 not surprising, as the existence of a poor man's family 
 must depend upon that last-mentioned necessary article, 
 most truly his staff of life. It is surely, then, the 
 interest, as well as the duty, of the landed proprietors 
 to endeavour by every means that can be devised that 
 the poor may never suffer in this respect. Now, it 
 has occurred to me that perhaps a Bill might be framed 
 to fix an assize on flour according to the average price 
 of wheat. 
 
 ' That millers should be obliged to grind for all 
 persons at a certain sum per bushel instead of toll ; 
 persons being at liberty to inspect their corn whilst
 
 PATKIOTIC PROPOSALS 213 
 
 grinding, and that allowance should be made to millers 
 for any alleged deficiency in grinding". All complaints 
 10 be heard in a smnmary way before a Justice of the 
 Peace, and the complaint to be made within six days. 
 The average price of wheat to be taken from the nearest 
 market at the discretion of the Justice. Penal clauses 
 should also be enacted against millers adulterating 
 wheat and mixing water with the meal to increase its 
 weight. 
 
 ' These loose hints I submit to your superior 
 judgment and better information ; but, from my own 
 observation, I do suspect the poor suffer greatly from 
 the shameful practices and combinations of the millers, 
 which I should be proud to check by bringing a Bill 
 into Parliament as one of the representatives of the 
 great arable county, should you approve the idea and 
 would have the goodness to lend me your assistance in 
 framing the Bill. 
 
 ' I must also mention another cruel grievance to 
 the poor, that there is no legal restraint on shopkeepers 
 in villages respecting their weights and measures. 
 
 ' Could no means be devised to protect the buyer 
 from the artifices of the seller without injury to the 
 latter in their honest gains ? Why might not magis- 
 trates have the power of punishing for short weights 
 and measures, complaint to be made within six 
 days? 
 
 * I remain, dear Sir. 
 
 ' Yours very sincerely, 
 
 'J. W. Coke.*
 
 214 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 From Dr. Burney on my ' Travels ' and his own 
 engagements : — 
 
 ' Chelsea College : July 17, 1792. 
 
 ' My dear Friend, — Your very kind and hearty 
 invitation to Bradfield came at a time when I was 
 utterly unable to answer it. I was just emerged from 
 the sick room into daily hurry and business, for which 
 I was but little fit, and am still detained here by an 
 unusual number of engagements for this time of year, 
 the end of which I am not able to see. If my patiejits 
 had walked off as early as I wished them, or if, like 
 other doctors, I could have them put to their long 
 home by a dash of my pen, I really believe I should 
 not have been able to resist the lure you threw out ; 
 but now, if I am able to travel, or fit for any house 
 but my own, I have two positive engagements on mj^ 
 hands of long standing : the first to Mickleham, to 
 my daughter, Phillips, where I promised, as soon as 
 I could pronounce myself a convalescent, to go and 
 complete my cure ; the other is to Crewe Hall, in 
 Cheshire, whither I have been going more than twice 
 seven years ; and at which place I was so sure of 
 arriving last Aug\ist, that my correspondents, at my 
 request, addressed their letters to me there. This 
 year the claims upon me and Fanny have been so 
 powerfully renewed by Mrs. Crewe that nothing but 
 increased indisposition can resist them. She has 
 promised to carry us down by slow journeys, and, if it 
 should be necessary for me to go to Buxton for my 
 confounded rheumatism (which, though less painful, 
 atill deprives me of all use of my left paw), she will
 
 PATEIOTIC PROPOSALS 215 
 
 even accompany me thither. My poor wife is also in sad 
 health, and we are neither of us fit for anything but to 
 con ailments with those who are as old and infirm as 
 ourselves. But we send you a splinter ^ from us, before 
 we were quite broke up and unfit for service. It is 
 not sufficient to improve your fire of a wet day, but 
 may perhaps be of some little use in the way of 
 kindling. 
 
 ' I thank you heartily for your very interesting book 
 of " Travels." It is in public perusal of an evening, and 
 has fastened on us. The parts of France which you 
 have traversed were to me almost unknown. I never 
 saw the Loire or the Garonne. No one can accuse you 
 of drowsiness, like old Homer and such folks ; you are 
 always awake, and keep your readers so. We are now 
 in the midst of that most astonishing of all events, the 
 French Revolution, and like your narrative extremely. 
 Though an enemy to the old tyranny, you neither 
 reason about the rights of man like Wat Tyler or 
 even Tom Payne. You saw coming on all the evils 
 which anarchy has occasioned. You have long seen 
 the futility of theory without practice among French 
 agriculturists, and the political philosophers who think 
 themselves wiser than the experiences of all antiquity, 
 and not content with anything already done, must 
 needs set about inventing an entire new government, 
 and you see what a fine mess they have made of it. 
 
 ' Yours ever, 
 
 ' Charles Burney.' 
 
 ' His daughter Sarah, the writer of several ingenious and interesting 
 works. — A. Y.
 
 216 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 From Miss Burnej', afterwards Mdme. d'Arblaj^, 
 writing on some traits of my character, &c. : — 
 
 ' Chelsea College : July 17, 1792. 
 
 ' Nay, if you talk of your difficulties in fabricating 
 an epistle to me, please to consider how much greater 
 are mine in attempting to answer it. You ! a country 
 farmer, the acknowledged head of " the ooily art loortli 
 cultivating ,'' as you tell us, — the contemner of every 
 other pursuit, the scorner of all old customs, the defier 
 of all musty authorities, the derider of all fogrum 
 superiors, — in one word a Jacobin. You afraid ? and 
 of whom? a Chelsea pensioner? One who, maimed 
 in the royal service, ignobly forbears, spurning royal 
 reparation ? One who, though flying a court, degene- 
 rately refrains from hating or even reviling kings, 
 queens, and princesses ? One who presumes to wish 
 as well to manufactures for her outside, as to agriculture 
 for her inside ? One who has the ignorance to reverence 
 commerce, and who cannot think of a single objection 
 to the Wool Bill ? One, in short, and to say all that is 
 abominable at once, one who in theory is an aristocrat, 
 and in practice a ci-devant courtier ? 
 
 ' And shall a creature of this description, the willing 
 advocate of every opinion, every feeling you excommu- 
 nicate from "your business and bosom," dare to write 
 to you"? Impossible ! 
 
 ' Whether I shall come and see you all or not is 
 another matter. If I can I will. 
 
 ' P.S. Will Honeycomb says if you would know any-
 
 PATEIOTIC PEOPOSALS 217 
 
 thing of a lady's meaning (always providing she has any) 
 when she writes to you, look at her postscript. Now 
 pray, dear sir, how came you ever to imagine what you 
 are pleased to blazon to the world with all the confidence 
 of self-belief, that you think farming the only thing 
 worth manly attention ? You, who, if taste rather than 
 circumstance had been your guide, might have found 
 wreaths and flowers almost any way you had turned, as 
 fragrant as those of Ceres.' 
 
 My reply : — 
 
 ' You, " the willing advocate of every feeling I 
 excommunicate from my bosom," knew you had thrown 
 so bitter a potion into your letter that you could not 
 (kind creature !) help a little sweetening in the post- 
 script ; but must there in your sweets be some alloy ? 
 Could you not conclude without falling foul of poor 
 Ceres '? 
 
 * Your letter, or rather your profession of faith, is 
 one of the worst political creeds I remember to have 
 read ; you see no merit but beneath a diadem. In 
 government a professed aristocrat, in political economy 
 a monopolist, who commends manufactures, not as a 
 market for the farmer, but for the much nobler purpose 
 of contributing to adorn your outside ; and who can 
 attain not one better idea of the immortal plough than 
 that of giving some sustenance to your inside. But, by 
 the way, is not that inside of yours an equivoque ? Do 
 you mean your real or your metaphorical inside, your 
 ribs or your feelings ? If you allude to your brains, they 
 are by your own account a z^ooZ-gathering. Do you
 
 218 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 mean your heart, and that the philosophical contempla- 
 tion of so pure an engine as the plough is the sustenance 
 of your best emotions ? How will that agree with the 
 panegyrist of a court and the satirist of a farm ? Or is 
 it that this inside of yours is a mere bread and cheese 
 cupboard, which, certes, the plough can furnish ? Or is 
 it a magic lanthorn full of gay delusions, lighted by 
 tallow from the belly of a sheep ? Till you have settled 
 these doubts, I know not which you prefer, manufac- 
 tures for improving your complection, or agriculture 
 for farming your heart. Nor must you wonder at such 
 questions arising while you use terms that leave one 
 in doubt whether you mean your head or your tail. I 
 know something of the one ; the other is a metaphor. 
 Though there is high treason against the plough in 
 almost every line of your letter, yet the words If I can 
 I will are not in the spirit that contains the Eleusinian 
 mysteries ; they bring balm to my wounded feelings.'
 
 219 
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 THE BOARD OF AGEICULTURE, 1793 
 
 The Board of Agriculture — Secretaryship — Residence in London — 
 Twenty-five dinners a month — The King's bull— The Marquis de 
 Castries — ' The Example of France ' — Encomiums thereof — Corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 The most remarkable event of this year was the 
 ostabHshment of the Board of Agricultm:e.^ I found 
 that Mr. Pitt had determined that I should be secretary, 
 and Mr. Le Blanc, of Caversham, informed me that 
 this new board was established with a view of rewarding 
 me for my ' Example of France.' In a conversation 
 with Lord Loughborough on the attendance required, 
 he remarked, * You may do what suits yourself best, I 
 conceive, for we all consider ourselves so much obliged 
 to you that you cannot be rewarded in a manner too 
 agreeably.' If the appointment of secretary be con- 
 sidered, as it has been by many, a reward for what I had 
 effected, it was not a magnificent one ; the salary, 4001. 
 per annum, would have been desirable had it left me 
 more time in Suffolk, but when I found a very strict 
 attendance attached to it, with no house to assemble in 
 
 ' By Act of Parliament, 1793.
 
 220 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 except Sir John Sinclair's, and in a room common to 
 the clerks and all comers, I was much disposed to 
 throw it up and go back in disgust to my farm ; but 
 the advice of others and the apprehension of family 
 reproaches kept me to the annoyance of a situation 
 not ameliorated till Sir John was turned out of the 
 Presidentship by Mr. Pitt, and the Board procured a 
 house for itself. 
 
 My letter to Mr. Pitt, asking for the secretaryship 
 of the new Board of Agriculture : — 
 
 ' Bradfield Hall : May 20, 1793. 
 
 ' Sir, — I am informed by Lord Sheffield and Sir 
 John Sinclair that the establishment of a Board of 
 Agriculture is determined. 
 
 ' It has been the employment of the last thirty years 
 of my life to make myself as much a master of the 
 practice and the political encouragement of agriculture 
 as my talents would allow. I have examined every 
 part of the kingdom, and have farming correspondents 
 in all the counties. 
 
 ' It is impossible I should know what is your in- 
 tention in relation to the office of the secretary ; but 
 the same wisdom that established the Board will, 
 without doubt, give such an appointment to that 
 office as may fill it in a manner the best adapted to 
 the business. 
 
 ' Should I be happy enough to appear in your eyes 
 qualified for such a post, and you would have the 
 goodness to name me to it, it might lessen the anxieties 
 of a life that has been passed in the service of the
 
 THE BOAED OF AGRICULTUEE 221 
 
 national agriculture ; and I should feel with unvarying 
 gratitude the obligation of the favour. 
 
 ' I have the honour to be, sir, with the greatest 
 respect, 
 
 ' Your most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 'Akthur Young.' 
 
 My reply to George Rose, Esq., on his communica- 
 ting to me Mr. Pitt's approbation of my appointment : — 
 
 ' Bradfield Hall : May 30, 1793. 
 
 ' Sir, — It is with pleasure that I acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter, as it shows that, whatever may 
 be the result of the present business, my exertions 
 have met vdth the approbation of Government, whose 
 public-spirited and laudable views I have long been 
 solicitous to second. 
 
 * The salary you mention is, I confess, less than I 
 imagined would be assigned to the office, but its being 
 adequate or not depends entirely on the circumstances 
 of attendance, duty, residence, &c. If these be 
 arranged on a footing any way liberal, the sum is 
 equal to my desires ; and I shall in that case accept the 
 office with pleasure. If, on the contrary, these points 
 be so fixed as to overturn my present pursuits in life, 
 they would render a larger salary less valuable to me 
 than the sum you mention. 
 
 * From the nature of the Board, intended to consist, 
 as I understand, of members of the two Houses, with 
 the objects in view, I take it for granted that the points 
 above mentioned may, without the least impediment to 
 the business, be easily arranged.
 
 222 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 ' Trusting in this entirely to Mr. Pitt and yourself, 
 I beg your good offices that, if I should have improperly 
 expressed my meaning, you will do me the justice to 
 rely on the integrity of my views, and not imagine me 
 eager in making a bargain for profit with a great and 
 liberal benefactor. 
 
 ' I have the honour to remain &c. 
 
 'Aethur Young,' 
 
 What a change in the destination of a man's life ! 
 Instead of becoming the solitary lord of four thousand 
 acres, in the keen atmosphere of lofty rocks, and 
 mountain torrents, with a little creation rising gra- 
 dually around me, making the black desert smile with 
 cultivation, and grouse give way to industrious popula- 
 tion, active and energetic, though remote and tranquil, 
 and, every instant of my existence, making two blades 
 of grass to groiv where not one was found before — 
 behold me at a desk in the smoke, the fog, the din of 
 Whitehall. ' Society has charms ' — true ; and so has 
 solitude to a mind employed. But the die is cast, and 
 my steps may still be said, metaphorically, to be in the 
 furrow. My pleasures are of another sort ; I see daily 
 a noble activity of zeal in the service of the national 
 husbandry in the President — of that happy effort of 
 royal patriotism, commendable and exemplary ; and I 
 see in so many great and distinguished characters 
 such a disinterested attention to the public good, and 
 such liberality of spirit in promoting it, that the view 
 is cheering, whether in a capital or a desert. 
 
 The two situations were incompatible with each
 
 THE BOAED OF AGRICULTURE 223 
 
 other. I therefore advertised the estate for sale ; and 
 nothing proves to me how very ill understood waste 
 lands are in this kingdom than the advertisement 
 being repeated near a twelvemonth before I could sell 
 it with much less profit than I had reason to expect. 
 So large a contiguous tract, in many respects so 
 eligible for improvement, I thought would have been 
 a favourite object with numbers ; as to the ignorance 
 of those who vietved and rejected it, I can only pity 
 them. 
 
 The attention I received from individuals was, 
 however, very flattering, for I find, by an old memo- 
 randum book, that I dined out from twenty- five to 
 thirty days in the month, and had, in that time, forty 
 invitations from people of the highest rank and con- 
 sequence. Here I copy a memorandum made at the 
 time : August 21, 'I feel an advancement of a certain 
 kind since the publication of my Travels, well calculated 
 to add agreeably to a new sphere in life by means of 
 this new Board ; but how it will turn out is not easy to 
 conjecture, and my " Example of France : a Warning 
 to Great Britain" ^ is applauded in a manner of which 
 I had not the slightest conception. The Ministry 
 commend it most highly, and express themselves in [a 
 way] truly gratifying to my feelings. The last time I 
 was in town, the Chancellor dwelt on the idea of how 
 much they were all obliged to me, and treated me as 
 a man that 77iust be gratified when I was explaining 
 my wish to reside but little in London. And Kose's 
 
 ' This recantation of Arthur Young's former democratic utterances 
 was published in June 1793.
 
 224 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 report from Mr. Pitt was equal ; his own expression 
 was that I had beat all rivalship and produced the 
 most useful work printed on the occasion, &c. Thus 
 I come with all the advantages I could wish — and I 
 could see in every eye and hear from every tongue of 
 numbers to whom Sir John Banks introduced me on 
 the Terrace at Windsor that I was considered as one 
 to whom the nation was obliged. The King spoke to 
 me, but not so graciously as some years before ; and this 
 brought to my mind a visit which Mr. Majendie and 
 his brother, the Canon of Windsor, paid me at Bradfield, 
 when the latter asked me in a very significant manner 
 whether I had not said something against the King's 
 bull, as it was commonly reported that I had fallen 
 foul of his Majesty's dairy ; so I suppose the man who 
 showed me the cattle reported to the King every word 
 I had said of them, and possibly vdth additions. Who 
 is it that says one should be careful in a court not to 
 offend even a dog? However, Sir J. Sinclair reported 
 to me some days afterwards that his Majesty had ex- 
 pressed to him great satisfaction at my appointment to 
 the secretaryship of the Board. 
 
 About this time I met Sir John Macpherson, from 
 Bengal, but now from Italy. He came by the Ehine ; bad 
 a conversation with the King of Prussia on my ' Tra- 
 vels,' which his Majesty was reading, and commended 
 greatly. He saw also the Marshal de Castries,' who 
 was hkewise reading them, and praised me in the 
 highest terms. Sir John Macpherson told him that he 
 
 ' Marquis de Castries and Marechal of France. Joined the Emigres 
 on the Revolution, and served in Conde's army.
 
 THE BO.^D OF AGRICULTUKE 225 
 
 had found my accounts of Lombardy so uncommonly 
 just and accurate that he intended seeing the author 
 as soon as he arrived in England. ' Tell him, then,' 
 said the marshal, ' that I did not know France till 
 I read his admirable work, which astonishes me for its 
 truth, and extent and justness of observation ; ' and the 
 next day he wrote to him pointing out an error of 
 mine in the passage relating to his opening the French 
 West Indies to foreign navigation. No man can speak 
 in higher terms of a book than Sir John does of this. 
 He says it is the best that ever was published. It is 
 something whimsical that the ladies should tell me it 
 is as entertaining as a romance, and that statesmen 
 should praise it for its information. Faith ! I had 
 need be flattered to be kept in good humour — losing 
 my time doing nothing in London in August. 
 
 September 9. — Dined at Pinherring's, the American 
 ambassador ; he is a gentleman-like man ; but for his 
 company, though this was a great entertainment, there 
 was such a motley group as would be difficult to find ; 
 they were so indelicate as to call for a war vdth 
 England. 
 
 I preserved the following among letters of this 
 year : — 
 
 From the Countess of Bristol 
 
 ' January 4, 1793. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — In spite of a bad cold, which makes 
 me very heavy and ill qualified to write to un homme 
 d'espi-it, I must say a word or two in answer to your 
 letter, and also assure you that the one you enclosed 
 
 Q
 
 226 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 for Lord Bristol was forwarded by the same post to his 
 agent in town. 
 
 'Do I recollect reading your "Travels"? Yes, 
 certainly, and the great pleasure and instruction I 
 received from them ; but the approbation, I assure you, 
 came from a better quarter, or I should not have 
 presumed on its being worth your acceptance. How- 
 ever that may be, I am much pleased with the effect, 
 and fairly confess that I did wish to set yom- pen 
 a-going, because you had experience and facts to write 
 upon, and that I knew your warm colouring would 
 suit the picture — in short, I saw you were a convert. 
 I wished you to make others, and if I have been the 
 least instrumental by awakening the spark in you, I 
 shall feel that I am not wholly useless to the commu- 
 nity where providence has placed me. I think everybody 
 with talents is called upon, particularly at this time, to 
 use them for the good of their once happy country, and 
 I know of no one better qualified than yourself to 
 employ your eloquence usefully. 
 
 ' The pamphlet you mention, of an earnest address 
 to farmers, was brought to me amongst others, and I 
 immediately said it was yours — but pray rescue it from 
 its mangled state and print it again as it was written. 
 I flatter myself that you intend to send me the " Exam- 
 ple of France : A "Warning to Britain," for which, I 
 assure you, I am very impatient. 
 
 ' I write from Lord Abercorn's, and wish I could 
 hear anything, but upon every subject there is at this 
 moment an awful pause. It is hoped that the Alien 
 Bill may be passed to-morrow, it is so much wanted,
 
 THE BOAED OF AGEICULTURE 227 
 
 and that the wretched state of the French armies and 
 their dissentions at home may make it unnecessary for 
 us to declare war. Three Prussian officers of rank 
 have been arrested for treasonable correspondence with 
 Dumouriez, which, they say, is to explain the Duke 
 of Brunswick's retreat ; and now it is supposed that 
 Custine's army cannot escape him. 
 
 ' I saw two gentlemen who were in Paris a fortnight 
 ago, and who told me that the treasury would hold out 
 very little longer, that bread was scarce, commerce 
 destroyed, and the people either in fury or despair, the 
 whole town affording a melancholy scene of poverty, 
 distrust and disorder — houses shut up, public buildings 
 destroyed, churches turned into warehouses, &c. &c. 
 
 ' For want of better materials I send you a print 
 which I think is not a bad one, considering the double 
 part Mr. Fox has acted. I thank jou for enquiring 
 after my daughters. Lady Erne is not yet returned from 
 Hampshire, Lady Elizabeth is with the Duchess of 
 Devonshire at Florence, and Lady Louisa is here, and 
 desires her compliments. 
 
 ' I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 ' E. Bristol.' 
 
 From the same 
 
 ' Bruton Street : March 20, 1793. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I have just seen in the True Briton of 
 this morning that the thanks of the association at the 
 "Crown and Anchor" were voted to you for your last 
 publication, which, I assure you, gives me great plea- 
 sure ; at the same time it reminds me that I have 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 too long deferred mine, but which I now beg you will 
 accept. I like it very much, and think it is admirably 
 well WT-'itten, and calculated to inform the ignorant and 
 deluded of their real danger. I should have told you 
 so long ago, but waited ta hear the opinions of those 
 from which I thought you would receive more satisfac- 
 tion ; and I can now assure you that your pamphlet is 
 much liked by Lord Orford and several others of good 
 judgment. And I think you may, without flattery, 
 consider yourself as one of the means which has 
 rescued this glorious country from the destruction 
 which was preparing for it. 
 
 ' There are great events impending just now. I pray 
 God to direct them for our good. 
 ' I am, dear sir, 
 
 ' Your sincere humble servant, 
 
 * E. Bristol.' 
 
 From Lord Bristol (Bishop of Derry), objections to 
 my proposal for selling all lambs at Harrington Fair. 
 
 ' Ratisbon : .Jan. 17, 1793. 
 
 ' My dear Arthur, — Why will you make me a 
 request with which I cannot in prudence comply ? 
 And why must I say No to a man whom I wish only to 
 answer with Yes ? You are as great a quack in farming 
 as I once was in politics, and therefore, knowing the force 
 of the term, I must be on my guard against you. 
 
 ' No reform, dear Arthur, at this time of day. 
 Ipswich has an old prescriptive right to our lambs — we 
 have sold them well at that market ; buyers are accus-
 
 THE BOAED OF AGRICULTUEE 229 
 
 tomed to it ; have their connections there of every 
 kind ; may very possibly not come to Horningheath for 
 many years. Let the buyers advertise that they v^^ish 
 to change the market, and I, though a great heretic 
 against most establishments, will be none against them. 
 Adieu ! magnanimous Arthur. Reserve your prowess 
 for a greater object than distressing poor Ipswich by 
 bereaving it of its ancient patrimony. 
 
 ' We have a sheep fair here, too, at Eatisbon, but 
 of old horned rams, and not of young Suffolk lambs. 
 
 ' Yom's cordially, 
 
 'Bristol.' 
 
 From Thomas Law, Esq., who resided long in 
 Bengal, on the application of the Corn Laws. 
 
 ' Weymouth Street : Jan. 5, 1793. 
 
 ' Sir, — I have fortunately obtained the perusal of 
 your " Travels," and the sentiments conveyed therein so 
 totally coincide with my observations of eighteen years 
 upon the extensive continent of Asia, that, upon your 
 arrival in town, I shall be happy to convey to you any 
 information in my power respecting the agriculture of 
 Bengal, Behar, and Benares. 
 
 ' When a member of a grain committee during a 
 drought, I pursued your system, which coincides with 
 that of Adam Smith, viz. : All our object was to 
 prevent impediments to the free transport of corn, 
 being convinced that it would be removed from an 
 abundant province to one which was less productive, 
 and, like water, find its level, and that the interest of
 
 230 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AKTHUE YOUNG 
 
 merchants would convey it from cheap places to dear 
 ones, and thus promote the general good. I could 
 impart to you many fatal instances of the intervention of 
 powers by fixing the price and by forcing corn to market. 
 ' I can show you the thanks of a resident who 
 presided in the capital of an extensive district 
 threatened with a famine, and who wrote to me asking 
 my opinion upon the following propositions : First, 
 " Shall I raise subscriptions to supply the poor with rice 
 at this crisis?" Answer, "You will thereby not only 
 encourage a concourse to your city of persons whose 
 expectations will be deceived, as their numbers will 
 exceed the amount of your gratuities, and you will 
 thereby destroy many ; but you will enhance the price 
 in the city." Secondly, " Shall I compel the granaries to 
 be opened, and fix a moderate price ? " Ansiver, " By no 
 means. You will thereby deter the merchants from 
 bringing grain to market, and will thereby starve your 
 inhabitants. Your power can only extend to a certain 
 limit, and within that the merchant will not enter. If 
 supplies are coming to you, those who have grain for 
 sale will have advice of it, and hurry their grain to 
 market ; but if you compel them, you will stop all 
 imports by such forcible interference. Have you 
 calculated at what price the merchant buys at a 
 distance, at what expense he brings it, &c. ? In short, 
 you have the choice of the alternative — whether for a 
 day or two you will submit to want, and then be 
 relieved by the exertions of those who always hasten 
 to a good market ; or whether you will gain popularity 
 for a day or two by a compulsory expenditm-e of the
 
 THE BOARD OF AGEICULTUEE 231 
 
 quantity within your grasp, and then fall a martyr to an 
 exasperated starving people." He adopted the first, and 
 thanked me in the strongest terms. 
 
 ' About that time, when Government intended to 
 purchase grain to supply certain places, I protested 
 against it, because those places would entirely rely 
 upon Government management ; for no merchant 
 would convey to places where Government by a sudden 
 import might overflow the market — if London were to 
 be supplied with every want by a contract or monopoly, 
 the effect is easily foreseen. 
 
 * In respect to a fixed land tax, I can show you 
 some very satisfactory papers upon the subject ; as I 
 had to contend against some very able advocates for 
 periodical equalisation, and at length have obtained a 
 fixed land tax for ever. In Asia we have metayers, as 
 in France ; we have surveyors of the crop. In short, 
 to a gentleman of your philosophic and agricultural 
 turn I may prove a welcome referee. To the manj" 
 pertinent questions you will put, you will, no doubt, 
 find many deficient replies, for I am conscious of 
 having omitted much. Unluckily I had never seen 
 your able productions, and had too often to find the 
 truth by the experience of error. 
 
 ' Many serious evils may be prevented if a person 
 of your influence could have conveyed to Asia your 
 sentiments upon taxation, the corn, trade, &c., for the 
 perusal of the several servants entrusted with the 
 charge of vast districts with numerous industrious 
 subjects. If Necker committed such palpable mistakes 
 after so much experience, must not young men in the
 
 232 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 company's service be subject to fatal errors where the 
 instruction of books is not always to be attained, or 
 the advice of the well-informed, as in Europe ? 
 * I remain, with respect, sir, 
 
 ' Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 ' Thomas Law.' 
 
 From the Eight Hon. Edmund Burke, highly 
 praising the ' Example of France ' : — 
 
 ' Mr. Burke thanks Mr. Young for his most able, 
 useful and reasonable pamphlet. He has not seen 
 anything written in this controversy which stands 
 better bottomed upon practical principle, or is more 
 likely to produce an effect on the popular mind. It is, 
 indeed, incomparably well done. We are all very much 
 obliged to Mr. Young, and think the Committee ought 
 to circulate his book. 
 
 ' Duke Street, St. James's : March 5, 1793.' 
 
 From Dr. Burney, on my ' Example of France,' &c. : — 
 
 ' Chelsea College : May 12, 1793. 
 
 ' My dear Friend, — I cannot let Mrs. Young return 
 without sending you my best thanks for the second 
 edition of your excellent pamphlet. Indeed, if I were 
 singular in approbation of it, you might think me a 
 cleverer fellow than I shall seem among the crowd of 
 your admirers. What is a single name in a list fifty 
 yards long '? And if I were to tell you what numbers 
 of first-rate judges have spoke well of your performance, 
 I should want more room than Mr. Sheridan's friends
 
 THE BOARD OF AGEICULTURE 233 
 
 at Glasgow. I shall only just specify those who would 
 be at the head of a complete list, if I had time to 
 make one : Mr. Burke, Lord Orford, who, on my 
 asking him if he had seen your pamphlet, pointed to 
 it, " There it is ; I read nothing else ; " Mrs. Montagu 
 the same ; a large party of bluestockings at Lad}^ 
 Hesketh's all agreed that your book and Hannah 
 More's " Chip " ' were the best on the subject. AVhen 
 I made Mrs. Crewe read the first edition, she wrote me 
 word that she had perused it with great attention, and 
 that she found it contained stubborn facts, to each of 
 which she should say with the grave-digger, " Answer 
 me that and unyoke." Last week, in a note she sent 
 me from Hampstead, she says : " Mr. Arthur Young's 
 pamphlet makes a great noise, and, I think, I never 
 knew any book take more ; it is reprinted, you know, 
 with additions." In the communication of the latter 
 information she got the start of me ; the second 
 edition could not have been out three days but you 
 are meditating a third. I like your additions to the 
 second much, particularly what concerns the reform 
 of Parliament. 
 
 ' I wish you could overhaul Grey's speech as well 
 as Charles Fox's on that subject, and in an appendix 
 expose the weakness and inconsistence of both. Only 
 observe how both confess that there was danger to our 
 constitution " from opinions favourable to the principles 
 and measures of France," after so stubbornly and 
 pertinaciously denying in Parliament the existence of 
 any such danger ; challenging Government to prove it, 
 
 ' Village Politics, by Will Chip, 1793 ; price 2d.
 
 234 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 and saying that " the Proclamation, call of Parliament, 
 Alien and Traitorous Correspondence Bills, were mere 
 Ministerial juggles" to increase influence, diminish 
 liberty, and encourage excess of loyalty. " But," says 
 Mr. G. " that danger must now be much lessened, as 
 all approbation of those principles, or imitation of that 
 example, is now improbable, totally discredited, and re- 
 moved from all political speculation and practice. ' ' What, 
 then, is all the defence of France and Frenchmen by 
 the Opposition ? And why is every measure condemned 
 in Parliament that tends to put an end to their anarchy 
 and ambition ? Why is war against them so censured ? 
 Why is it always called the war of kings and despots ? 
 Why is the Minister so importuned to make peace 
 with regicides and assassins, determined to force, if 
 possible, every nation upon earth to adopt their 
 measmres? Mr. Grey repeats in his speech, "All dread 
 of the example is completely removed, and that none 
 could suppose him, or any other party in this country, 
 favourable to that example." WTiat is this but open 
 falsehood ? Mr. Fox allows that " there was a party 
 whose wild theories certainly aimed at an impracti- 
 cable perfection, that could only have been pursued by 
 means subversive of every part of our constitution." 
 Yet there never was any danger ! Mr. G. says, in 
 express terms, " that his motion extended to an altera- 
 tion in the present government of the country." But 
 he had no specific plan ready of his own, or that he 
 chose to father. But as all the petitions he and Mr. 
 Sheridan brought in for a reform demanded nothing 
 less than universal suffrage, and as these gentlemen
 
 THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 235 
 
 either drew up or approved the contents of these 
 petitions, we may easily judge what was the general 
 plan of our Jacobins, if they could have had the 
 tinkering of the constitution. 
 
 ' Grey seems to me a silly fellow, with a greater 
 wish than abilities to do mischief. Charles Fox's 
 speech is more a panegyric on the constitution than on 
 his friend's motion. When every man is left to him- 
 self to reform an old constitution or make a new one, 
 no two will be found of a mind on the subject. Sherry's 
 speech was nothing to the purpose. There was no 
 attempt of the phalanx which I so much dreaded, as 
 the doubling our tiers etat. Thank God, their great 
 gun ha,s flashed in the pan ! The mountain has laboured 
 in vain. You know I hope that the gang in Parliament, 
 like Egalite's creatures in the " Convention," is called 
 the Mountain. And it has been called by a punster of 
 the party Mount Sigh-on. I fear the war will be long and 
 bloody ; and how it will end who can tell ? Nothing 
 but a vigorous prosecution of the war can save the 
 whole civilised globe from destruction. After dis- 
 daining in the House the principles which they had 
 suggested and encouraged out of it, I should not 
 wonder if the Scotch and English petitioners for 
 reform on the basis of universal suffrage should mob 
 and September their friends the demagogues whenever 
 they can catch them. I don't love mischief, but I do 
 cordially wish something of that kind were to happen. 
 ' Adieu. 
 
 ' Ever yours sincerely, 
 
 ' Chaeles Burney.'
 
 236 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 From Dr. Symonds, high encommms of my ' Ex- 
 ample,' &c. 
 
 ' Prince of Wales Coffee House : A.pril 8, 1793. 
 
 ' Traveller Coxe ^ desired me to tell you how 
 charmed he was with your pamphlet ; nay, he had 
 begun to write five or six lines to you, but thought 
 afterwards it was taking too great a liberty. One 
 thing, however, he wishes you to expunge in your 
 next edition, viz. : a reflection on Sunday schools as not 
 being founded on truth. You must not be surprised 
 at this, for he is a zealous patron of them, and has 
 explained the Catechism in print for that purpose. 
 Wherever I go I hear j^our "Example of France" 
 spoken of in the highest terms as to the matter. 
 
 ' Everyone agrees that no political writer whatever 
 has set the representation of property in so clear and 
 just a light. Bishop Douglas, who has written many 
 good pamphlets, and is therefore the best judge, makes 
 no scruple to declare frequently that you deserve 
 from Government a most ample reward ; but we both 
 wish, as well as others, for your sake, that the second 
 edition may be printed more correctly. 
 
 ' You should come to town and be presented, or, at 
 least, take an opportunity to walk on the Terrace at 
 Windsor, where you would not fail of being marked 
 out. Bishop Watson's appendix has rendered him 
 rectus m curia. A few days ago he was at Court, 
 talking with Lord Dartmouth, who mentioned the 
 word philosophy, which the King overhearing, came 
 
 ' William Coxe, 1747-1828, author of Travels into Poland, Russia, 
 Sweden, and Denmark, &c. &c.
 
 THE BOARD OF AORICULTUEE 237 
 
 to the bishop, and said, ' I have read the best sort of 
 philosophy, my lord, in your sermon and appendix, 
 which has wonderfully pleased me." The bishop, of 
 course, made his bow, and then the King went on, 
 " You write so concisely and so forcibly, that everyone 
 must be convinced bj^ your argmuents ; " on which the 
 bishop replied, " I like. Sir, to step forward in a 
 moment of danger." The King rejoined, " You have 
 shown a good spirit, and it could not be done in a better 
 manner." Should the last volume of " Clarendon's 
 Letters " come in your way, I would advise you to 
 read the famous one from Sir John Colepeper to 
 Secretary Nicholas ; which is always esteemed as a 
 wonderful instance of political sagacity, as it foretold 
 that the Restoration would be accomplished by Monk ! 
 But I think there is another part of this letter which 
 shows equal sagacity, viz. : his desiring that Charles 
 would not send over any foreign troops into England, 
 as this measure would not fail of uniting the English 
 against him ; whereas, if they were left to themselves, 
 he would always have a strong party, and must sooner 
 or later be restored. I am fully convinced of the truth 
 of this reasoning ; and of what use is history unless it 
 be considered as a school for modern politicians ? 
 
 ' Why did you not let me know whether your 
 second edition had gone to the press or not ? Before 
 I left Cambridge I saw a gentleman who told me that 
 Sir William Scott had mentioned in a letter to one of 
 his friends there that it was by far the most convincing 
 and best pamphlet that had been published. 
 
 ' All I could wish is that you had not stigmatised
 
 ^38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 all reformers with the name of enemies to the state ; 
 or, at least, you intimated it. I was always myself an 
 enemy to reform in Parliament, and continue to be so ; 
 yet I know some warm advocates for it, who mean as 
 well to the benefit of this country as you can possibly do. 
 
 ' Dr. Hardy and Sir Henry Moncrief (a Scotch 
 ■clergyman) are come to solicit a Bill for the enlarging 
 of the stipends of the Scotch clergy. They do not 
 apprehend much difficulty in carrying it through the 
 Houses, though the addition must be supplied out of 
 the tithes in the hands of lay proprietors. Hardy is 
 Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Edinburgh — a 
 most sensible man, with great liberality of mind. Sir 
 Henry is a polished man, and likewise a man of business. 
 I hope to see them both at St. Edmund's Hill, and you 
 must meet them. You should get Hardy's pamphlet, 
 the "Patriot," published in Scotland on the present 
 emergency ; there are in it many excellent things. 
 
 ' You seem in your letter to be still apprehensive of 
 ■some plots and insurrections. 
 
 ' Plot ! Plots ! was the catch-word in King 
 Charles II. 's time. Sir H. Moncrief and Dr. Hardy 
 laughed at Dundas's account of the political riots in 
 Scotland. They absolutely denied the existence of them 
 — considered them as political ; and when you read 
 Hardy's pamphlet, you will see that he would not have 
 failed setting them forth if they had deserved any con- 
 sideration. 
 
 ' Adieu ! I should not have come to London had it 
 not been on account of my ecclesiastical foundling. 
 
 ' John Symonds.'
 
 THE BOAED OF AGEICULTUKE 239 
 
 From Dr. Sijmonds 
 
 ' September 1, 1793. 
 
 * My dear Sir,— I do not wonder that you smiled at 
 the affected secrecy of Macpherson concerning the 
 Censomento. The book to which he alludes cannot be 
 the " Bilancio dello stato," &c., which was written to 
 please Count Firmian. I knew well the gentleman 
 who wrote it and gave it to me, as I often met him at 
 dinner at the count's. 
 
 * Sometimes he was too decisive. One day he said 
 at the count's table that the Bresciano contained 800,000 
 inhabitants now. As Count F. knew that I had just 
 come from Brescia, and had not lost my time there, he 
 asked me what number there was ; on which I told him 
 that there were 376,000 according to a census taken a 
 few years before. The count smiled, and looked very 
 attentively on Carpani (for that was the author's name), 
 who never liked me so well after that day, nor had 
 Count Firmian so high an opinion of him. You possibly 
 may not know the history of Sir John Macpherson. 
 He offered the Duke of Grafton, when he was at the 
 head of the Treasury, a vast collection of jewels, by 
 order of tlie Nabob of Arcot, which the duke absolutely 
 refused, and Bradshaw, his secretary, also. Sir John, 
 thinking that the nabob would not believe that he had 
 offered the present, published for his own vindication 
 the answers of the duke and Bradshaw, for which he 
 was turned out of the company's service, as he was 
 pursuing an interest then opposite to its interests. 
 
 ' Scotch influence not long after restored him. You
 
 240 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 will find the letters in Lind's appendix to the defence 
 of Lord Pigot. You are now, of course, so much of a 
 politician as not to be surprised (shall I say disgusted ? ) 
 at Macpherson's conduct. The opinion of the King of 
 Prussia as to your book I value not a straw ; but that 
 of the Marshal de Castries certainly carries with it 
 great weight. 
 
 ' He is one of the few who adhered to Necker from 
 gratitude, when the latter was turned out of his post 
 about ten years ago ; and I heard a very good character 
 of the marechal when I was last in France. St. Paul, 
 as you and the duke are pleased to call him, is finished, 
 and the preface is on the stocks.' 
 
 ' AVhy do you wish Clarke had commented on the 
 Epistle to the Romans ? Locke and Taylor have done 
 it admirably ; and easy as you may think the Gospels 
 are, they have been rendered much more so by Clarke. 
 
 ' What do you mean by saying that the Gospels 
 want no explanation ? St. John is extremely difficult 
 in some parts, notwithstanding Clarke's paraphrase ; 
 and I think, with Markland, that he is as yet very far 
 from being perfectly understood. Adieu ! 
 ' I remain, 
 
 ' Ever your sincere friend, 
 
 'John Symonds.' 
 
 ' Evidently an allusion to some work of the writer.
 
 241 
 
 CHAPTEK XI 
 
 THE SECKETAEYSHIP, 1794-95-96 
 
 The Secretaryship and its drawbacks — Social compensations — Illness and 
 death of Elizabeth Hoole — Letters of Jeremy Bentham and others — 
 A visit to Burke — Home travels — Enclosures. 
 
 The Board of Agriculture, meeting in February, 
 arranged the President's plan for the attendance of 
 their officers. By these laws all the officers of the 
 Board were bound to attend, with no other exception 
 than the months of August, September and October, 
 with one month at Christmas and three weeks at 
 Easter. These laws, ready cut and dried when the 
 Board met, were adopted with no other alterations 
 than such as the President himself had made in them, 
 previously to their being presented at the meeting. 
 Lord Hawke had examined the rules and orders of 
 many societies, and found that in all letters communi- 
 cations were addressed to the Secretaries, and answers 
 given by them. Sir John Sinclair struck this out, and 
 directed all such communications to be to the President 
 (himself), and for him also to sign all letters. This at 
 once converted the Secretary into nothing more than 
 a first clerk. I saw not at first the tendency of the 
 alterations ; but I soon felt their effect. All letters 
 
 R
 
 242 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 were dictated by the Secretary and written in a book ; 
 this book was altered and corrected at the will of the 
 President, and such alterations made as in respect of 
 agriculture were absurd enough ; the whole done in such 
 a manner as not to be very pleasing. 
 
 In addition to this, Sir John Sinclair gave the 
 Board the use of his house, which ensured another 
 circumstance hostile to my feelings. There was only 
 one room for transacting the business, by the Secretary, 
 Under-Secretary, two clerks, to which Sir J. after added 
 the constant attendance of an attorney, for assisting in 
 the business of a general Enclosing Act, about which 
 the President busied himself some years in vain. As 
 I was determined to pass all the vacations at my farm 
 in Suffolk, six journeys of myself and servants became 
 necessary, and caused a considerable expense. I also 
 was compelled to hire lodgings at the expense of two 
 or two guineas and a half per week, and when I 
 experienced the full career ' of all these circumstances, 
 I deliberated repeatedly and carefully with myself, 
 whether it would not be cheaper to me to throw up 
 the employment. Long after, upon review of the 
 whole, I was amazed that I had not done it, more 
 especially as my plan for settling on the moors in 
 Yorkshire was offered to my choice. I was infinitely 
 disgusted with the inconsiderate manner in which Sir 
 John Sinclair appointed the persons who drew up the 
 original reports, men being employed who scarcely 
 knew the right end of a plough ; and the President 
 one day desired I would accompany him wdth one 
 
 ' Career, general course of action or j)roeedure.^Webster.
 
 THE SECEETARYSHIP 243 
 
 of these men, a half-pay officer out of employment, 
 to call on Lord Moira to request his assistance in 
 the Leicestershire Report, when this person told his 
 Lordship that he was out of employment and should 
 like a summer's excursion. To do him justice, he did 
 not know anything of the matter. Still, however, he 
 was appointed, and amused himself with his excursion 
 to Leicester. But the most curious circumstance of 
 effrontery was, that the greater number of the reporters 
 were appointed, and actually travelled upon the business 
 before the first meeting of the Board took place, under 
 the most preposterous of all ideas — that of surveying the 
 whole Kingdom and printing the Reports in a single 
 year ; by which manoeuvre Sir John thought he should 
 establish a great reputation for himself. Consequently 
 by his sole authority, who could not possibly know 
 whether the members of the Board would approve or 
 not such a plan. I was a capital idiot not to absent 
 myself sufficiently to bring the matter to a question, 
 and leave them to turn me out if they pleased. Mr. 
 Pitt would probably have interfered and effected the 
 object I wanted, and, if not, would have provided for 
 me in a better way. However, I made use of the 
 opportunities that offered to frequent the company of 
 those that were agreeable to me ; for a part of the 
 time was pretty regularly passed at the conversaziones 
 of Mrs. Matthew Montagu and the Countess of Bristol, 
 where I met an assemblage of persons remarkable for 
 every characteristic of the bas-bleu mixed with great 
 numbers of the highest rank. [I was] also at many simi- 
 lar parties upon a smaller scale at Mr. Charles Coles', the 
 
 B 2
 
 244 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 intimate friend of Soaine Jenyns, and to whom he left 
 the property of his works. The petits soupers at Mrs. 
 Matthew Montagu's, and to which she asked a selection 
 of eight or nine persons, were very pleasant, the conver- 
 sations interesting, and this select number more agree- 
 able than I ever found full rooms. On my first coming 
 to town in the spring of 1794, I enquired of several 
 members of the Board whether there was not a farmers' 
 club in London, and was surprised that there never 
 had been any institution of the kind. I determined to 
 endeavour at establishing one, and spoke to the Duke 
 of Bedford and the Earls of Egremont and Winchilsea, 
 who much approved the idea, and applying also to a 
 few more, I directed cards to be sent them from the 
 Thatched House Tavern,^ in order to establish a club. 
 This meeting was fully attended, and a book being 
 called for, the club was instituted, and several rules 
 entered, and the meetings appointed once a fortnight 
 during the sittings of Parliament. This club became 
 very fashionable, and applications to be elected w^ere 
 very numerous, from the members of both Houses of 
 Parliament ; and it subsists to this day, but has for 
 some time been very ill attended. This was occasioned 
 by too free an election of all who offered. While the 
 club was limited to fifty members it was well attended, 
 but afterwards such numbers were received, and with 
 so much facility, as greatly to injure the establishment. 
 I have one remark to make upon clubs ; the life and 
 soul of them is limitation to a selected few, and to 
 
 ' This appears to have been the place lately known as the Thatched 
 House Club, St. James's Street, Piccadilly.
 
 THE SECRETAEYSHIP 245 
 
 blackball the great mass of applicants, selecting merely 
 such as will form a very valuable addition to the society, 
 which probably may not amount to more than one in 
 twenty. The annual subscription was two guineas : 
 one to the house, one to form a fund at the disposition 
 of the club. The latter gradually accumulated till it 
 amounted to 700Z. or 800Z. Both Sir John Sinclair and 
 I were strenuous that this might be applied to some 
 useful purpose, and with difficulty we got an appro- 
 priation of fifty guineas as a reward for the best plough 
 that could be produced ; but the money assigned to 
 advertisements being much too small, the offer was 
 unknown, and no plough produced. 
 
 A member once proposed that the 800/. might be 
 given to charitable institutions ; but this was nega- 
 tived in an instant, and the sum is still left (1812) 
 unemployed in the funds. 
 
 While the club flourished the members who most 
 generally attended were the Dukes of Bedford, Buc- 
 cleugh, Montrose, the Earls of Egremont, Win- 
 chester and Darnley, the Lords of Wentworth, 
 Somerville, de Dunstanville, Sheffield, &c. &c. 
 
 I often dined at Charles Coles', where I met 
 repeatedly Jacob Bryant,' Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. York, 
 Mrs. Garrick, Hannah More, Mrs. Orde and Soame 
 Jenyns. The conversation at these parties on the 
 publications of the day, anecdotes of the time, with the 
 conduct of many of the great men of the age, was usually 
 very interesting. Alas ! alas ! how few of these persons 
 
 ' 171o -1804. Author of numerous works on speculative history, in 
 one of which he den ied the existence of Troy.
 
 246 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNa 
 
 are now left. I was very eager in listening to every 
 word that fell from Hannah More, though not nearly 
 so much so as I should have been many years after. 
 
 I had an incessant round of dinners and many 
 evening parties, and generally with people of the 
 highest rank and consequence, but I was not pleased, 
 being discontented with my employment, and disgusted 
 with the frivolous business of the Board, which seemed 
 to me engaged in nothing that could possibly produce 
 the least credit with the public. After five months' 
 residence at London, I went to the Duke of Bedford's 
 at Woburn on my way to Bradfield, spending some 
 days very agreeably in company that could not fail of 
 being interesting. 
 
 This year my second daughter Elizabeth, who, 
 as I have mentioned before, was married to the Rev. 
 John Hoole,'died of consumption. She was of a most 
 amiable, gentle temper, and in a resigned frame of mind, 
 which gave me much satisfaction. The last visit I paid 
 her at Abinger, in Surrey, she was very weak, yet not 
 suspected to be so near her end. But at the last 
 parting with me, she did it in so feeling and affection- 
 ate a manner as seemed to imply that she thought she 
 should see me no more. It made me, for a time, ex- 
 tremely melancholy, which was shaken off with great 
 difficulty. I took a tour into Hampshire, where I passed 
 several days with Mr. Poulett at Sombourne, taking 
 an account of the agriculture of that district, the 
 result of which examination was printed as an appendix 
 to the original Hampshire Report. 
 
 On the meeting of the Board in 1793, Sir John
 
 THE SECKETAKYSHIP 247 
 
 Sinclair had particularly requested me to draw up a 
 Eeport for the County of Suffolk, to effect which I took 
 several journeys into different parts of the county at 
 some expense, and formed the Eeport which was printed 
 in 1794. I never executed any work more commended 
 in Suffolk than this. I had no remuneration. 
 
 Letters received this year : — 
 
 From Jeremy Bentham, Esq., enquiries into the 
 landed property of Great Britain and into the rental 
 and value of houses : — 
 
 ' Hendon, Middlesex : Sept. 1794. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, —Permit my ignorance to draw upon 
 your science on an occasion that happens just now to 
 be a very material one to me. I have a sort of floating 
 recollection of a calculation, so circumstanced, either 
 in point of authority or argument, as to carry weight 
 with it, in which the total value of the landed pro- 
 perty in this country (Scotland, I believe, included) 
 was reckoned at a thousand millions, and that of the 
 movable property at either a thousand millions or 
 twelve hundred millions. Public debt did not come, I 
 think, at least, it ought not to come, into the account : 
 it being only so much owned by one part of the pro- 
 prietors of the two thousand or the two thousand two 
 hundred millions to another. 
 
 ' Upon searching your book on France, which was 
 the source from whence I thought I had taken the 
 idea, I can find no calculation of the value of the 
 movable property, nor even of the immovable in an 
 explicit form ; on the contrary, in the instance of the 
 immovable, I find suppositions with which any such
 
 248 AUTOBIOGRAPHl' OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 estimate appears to be incompatible. The land tax at 
 fom: shillings, I find, you suppose, were it to be equal 
 all over the country, would be equivalent to as much as 
 three shillings, on which supposition the rental (the tax 
 of four shillings producing no more than two thousand 
 millions) w^ould amount to no more than 13,000,000Z., 
 nor consequently the value, at so many years' purchase, 
 say twenty-eight, to more than three hundred and sixty- 
 four millions ; or at thirty, to three hundred and ninety 
 millions ; to which, in order to complete the calcula- 
 tion of the landed property of Great Britain, that of 
 Scotland would have to be added. 
 
 ' The population of the three kingdoms you reckon 
 in two places at eleven millions ; but in another place 
 at fifteen. Is the latter a slip of the pen "? or, in the two 
 former places, was only two kingdoms (England and 
 Scotland) in your view, though three are mentioned ? 
 A circumstance that seems to favour the latter sup- 
 position is, that the population of Ireland is well known 
 (if I do not much misrecollect) from recent and au- 
 thentic sources to be a little more than four miUions; 
 and as Scotland turns out to contain a million and a half, 
 this would leave nine and a half millions for England, 
 which, I should suppose, would quadrate in round 
 numbers with Mr. Howlett's calculations, to which we 
 refer ; a book which, from forgetfulness, I have never 
 made myself master of, and to which, being in the 
 country, I have no speedy means of recurring. 
 
 ' Now what I wish for is as follows : (1) a calcula- 
 tion (or, I should rather say, the result) of the value 
 of the landed property of Great Britain reckoned at [so
 
 THE SECEETARYSHIP 249 
 
 many] years' purchase, two prices — a peace price and 
 a war price — could they be respectively of sufficient 
 permanence to be ascertained, would be of use. 
 
 ' (2) A calculation of the value of the personal, i.e. 
 immovable property of Great Britain. 
 
 ' (3) The amount of the population of Great Britain. 
 
 ' What I am a petitioner for is the benefit of your 
 judgment and authority upon the three several subjects; 
 by reference, if there be any other person's calculation 
 that you are satisfied with ; otherwise from your own 
 notes ; and, in either case, a word or two just to 
 indicate the sources from which they are taken would 
 be an additional help and satisfaction. 
 
 * The occasion of the trouble I am attempting to 
 give you I expressly forbear mentioning ; not only for 
 want of space and time, but more particularly that it 
 may be impossible, and might, upon occasion, be known 
 to be impossible, that the response of the Oracle should 
 have received any bias from the consideration of the 
 purpose for which it was consulted. 
 
 ' I am, dear sir, with never failing esteem and 
 regard, 
 
 ' Yours ever, 
 
 'Jeremy Bentham.' 
 
 ' Q.I.P. : Sept. 30, 1794. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — A thousand thanks for your kind letter 
 — sorry you should fancy you have been bathing ' for 
 health — ^hope it was not true — only idleness — we can't 
 afford to have you otherwise than well. 
 
 ' Probably an allusion to A. Y.'s habit of air baths.
 
 250 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 ' Must prefer ^ you once more, " Eental of England 
 twenty-four millions." Good! but houses, such as those 
 in town, and others that have a separate rent, are 
 included ? I suppose not ; since for them you would 
 have given a separate and different price in number 
 of years' purchase. 
 
 ' In one of your tours you guess this article at 
 five millions. Do you abide by that guess ? I think 
 the number must have increased since then con- 
 siderably ; that was, I believe, about twenty years ago. 
 London and the environs must since then have in- 
 creased, I should think, at least a quarter of a million. 
 How many years' purchase would you reckon houses 
 at, upon an average, old and yoimg together '? Shall 
 we say sixteen ? I should think, at the outside. 
 ' I am, dear Sir, 
 
 * Your much obliged, 
 
 'Jeremy Bentham. 
 
 • A. Young, Esq.' 
 
 The two following letters are from Mrs. Hoole, 
 Dr. Burney's favourite. Miss Bessy, to her father : — 
 
 To Arthur Yoimg, Esq. 
 
 ' Sidmouth : Feb. 22, 1794. 
 ' Dear Sir, — AVe came hither from Lynn near three 
 weeks since, as Mr. Hoole informed you. We are in 
 very warm and comfortable lodgings, and the woman 
 of the house is very attentive and obliging. The air 
 of this place is very mild and very moist, but they tell 
 
 ' Prefer, to set forth, propose. — Webster.
 
 THE SECRETAKYSHIP 251 
 
 US the healthiest of any upon the coast. Mr. Hoole 
 has been on to Exmouth, which, upon the whole, he 
 does not like so well. We do not find that Devonshire 
 is cheaper the further you go, but the contrary, at least 
 on the coast. 
 
 * With regard to myself, I do not find I am any 
 better for this journey, indeed I have had more fever 
 and cough since I came here than ever I had. I am at 
 present better, but I know that is owing to a very strict 
 regimen which I have lately taken to. The weather 
 has been very unfavourable, for though it has not been 
 cold we have had almost constantly either rain or wind. 
 We have been absent from home near nine weeks, and 
 Mr. H. must very soon return to his curacy ; he will 
 either take me with him or leave me here, and we wish 
 very much to know what you advise, considering all 
 circumstances. 
 
 ' This place is certainly warmer than Surrey, but we 
 have heard here, as at Lynn, that it sometimes proves 
 unfavourable in consumptive cases. I do not think 
 Abinger at all in fault ; I have been well or better there 
 than anywhere. But I am not unwilling to be left here, 
 if it should still be thought advisable. Will you have 
 the goodness to write as soon as you can, as we shall 
 not determine till we hear? Mr. Hoole has had but 
 one letter from you about a month ago. This I mention 
 lest you should have sent any which may have mis- 
 carried. 
 
 ' Believe me, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your affectionate Daughter, 
 
 ' Elizabeth Hoole,
 
 252 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 ' Perhaps you may like to know something of the 
 price of provisions : Meat ^d. per lb. ; poultry is 
 reasonable ; chickens from 2s. to 2s. Gd. a couple ; milk 
 2d. a quart ; butter lOd. per lb.' 
 
 Postscript from Mr. Hoole 
 
 ' I fear this jom-ney will be of no avail. I do not 
 
 think our dear Bessy is in any immediate danger, but 
 
 I much fear this cruel disease is gradually preying on 
 
 her strength. 
 
 ' S. H.' 
 
 ' Sidmouth : March 18, 1794. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I was very sorry to find from your 
 letter that what I had written had made you uneasy ; 
 1 am certain you think me worse than I am ; indeed it 
 is very foolish to write my symptoms to my friends, as 
 they give way perhaps, or some of them, in a short time, 
 as is my case. I am now quite free from pain, and can 
 sleep on one side as well as the other ; I think the last 
 blister was of use. I have been twice in the warm bath 
 since Mr. Hoole went. My cough must have its course. 
 
 ' I had a very kind letter from Agnes yesterday ; 
 she offers, if she can get permission, to come and stay 
 with me until Mr. Hoole returns, and adds, if she 
 cannot, Mrs. Forbes says she is at liberty, and would 
 willingly come ; but I would not bring them down upon 
 any account, as I am more comfortably settled than 
 anybody would suppose, and I am sure Mr. Hoole will 
 be back in a short time. 
 
 ' Sidmouth is certainly very mild ; we have had no
 
 THE SECEETAEYSHIP 253 
 
 cold winds, but this clear weather suits me better than 
 that warm moist weather we had in February. But 
 I cannot walk by the seaside ; there is always wind, 
 and it seems colder than anywhere else. 
 
 ' I would not blame Mrs. F. in the least ; I might 
 have been the same or worse anywhere ; if anything in 
 the air disagreed with me, it was the moisture. We 
 have no post from hence, either Monday or Tuesday. 
 I wrote to Mr. Hoole last Sunday, or would have 
 answered yours sooner. The quickness, or rather 
 rapidity, with which our letters arrive from town, 
 seems surprising — a letter put in one night we have the 
 next. It is not the custom indeed to deliver them at 
 night, as the post comes in so late as nine, but if you 
 send they will give you them. At Lynn, which is about 
 the same distance from town, they deliver them at six 
 in the evening, but we have here a cross-post to send 
 for them nine miles. 
 
 * I beg you will not think me worse than I am, and 
 
 believe me, 
 
 ' Your affectionate Daughter, 
 
 ' Elizabeth Hoole.' 
 From J. Symonds, Esq. 
 
 ' Cambridge : March 27, 1795. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I am to thank you for two letters, 
 which should not have lain unanswered if a retirement 
 like mine would have furnished me with any materials. 
 However, I must take notice of your way of arguing. 
 You say " the people in France are starved, and 
 assignats are destroyed," with significant dashes. You
 
 254 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 told me just the same in 1793 and 1794, and venture it 
 once more. Assuredly you seem to reason like the old 
 wizard Tiresias in Horace, " Quicquid dicam aut erit 
 aut non." Whether your predictions be verified or not, 
 you assume, like Tiresias, to speak the truth. 
 
 ' I always thought with you, that Mr. Pitt would 
 receive no real benefit from his new friends ; but I have 
 heard the Duke of Grafton say that he would not have 
 entered on the war if he had not been able to detach 
 some from the Opposition. If this be so, there is great 
 reason to lament that he could detach them. 
 
 ' We have received here the Bishop of Llandaff's 
 speech on the Duke of Bedford's motion, published by 
 Debrett. It amazed me to find that the Bishop of Durham 
 ventured to speak after him. A gentleman who heard 
 them both says that Watson's was rich, clouted cream, 
 and Barrington's thin, meagre, blue skim milk, frothed 
 up with an egg, but with so weak a froth that it rose 
 only to fall instantly. We are told that after ^schines 
 was banished, in consequence of Demosthenes' speech de 
 corona, one of ^schines' friends carried to him in his 
 banishment a copy of Demosthenes' speech ; on wiiich 
 the former said, " But what if you had heard it ? " 
 
 ' Two fellows of this college, who heard Watson, 
 bear the same ample testimony to the excellent manner 
 in which he delivered it. 
 
 ' You tell me " that our situation is prosperous 
 beyond all example ; " I should think so too if it were 
 unnecessary to multiply loans. The complaints of the 
 dearness of the necessaries of life seem to pervade the 
 whole island, and I fear they must still be dearer. If
 
 THE SECEETAKYSHIP 255 
 
 we be forced to persist in this war (and how are we to 
 get out of it, it is difficult to see) the middle class of the 
 people, of which you and I form a part, must be driven 
 down to the lower. They hold it is a principle not to tax 
 the lower, but to tax luxuries, so that the middle class 
 will be forced to abandon everything but necessaries, 
 and then the upper class must pay all. This, to use 
 your words, " must render us prosperous beyond all 
 example." I rather accede to Charles Coles' declaration 
 in his last letter to me : " Alas ! our glory is gone to 
 decay." A day or two ago I was looking into the 
 famous pamphlet of my old friend, Israel Mauduit,' on 
 the German war, in which I stumbled on the following 
 sentence, very applicable to our entering into this just 
 war to save the Dutch : " Is Britain to make itself the 
 general knight errant of Europe, to rescue oppressed 
 States, and exhaust itself in order to save men in spite 
 of themselves, who will not do anything towards their 
 own deliverance ? " Adieu ! 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 ' J. Symonds.' 
 
 1796. — In the spring of this year I waited on 
 Mr. Pitt, by his appointment, in order to answer some 
 enquiries of his relative to the propriety of any regula- 
 tions by Parliament of the price of labour. 
 
 I answered all his enquiries, and could not but 
 admire the wonderful quickness of his apprehension of 
 
 ' Israel Mauduit, son of a Dissenting minister ; at first the same, 
 afterwards merchant ; published Considei'ations on the German War, 
 17C0, Ac. &c. See Chalmers' Biog. Diet.
 
 256 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 all those collateral difficulties which I started, and of 
 which he seemed in a moment to comprehend the full 
 extent. I found him hostile to the idea. 
 
 March. — Among various dinners [was] at Mr. 
 Burke's and at Mrs. Barrington's ' parties. In May 
 dinners at Duke of Bedford's, Duke of Buccleugh's, 
 and Mr. Jenkinson and Lady Louisa's ; her manner is 
 not the most agreeable, [but] she has ease and elegance. 
 I have long known her at Ickworth. 
 
 May 1. — For some time past the following ad- 
 vertisement has appeared in many of the London 
 papers : ' Speedily will be published a letter from the 
 Eight Hon. Edmund Burke to Arthur Young, Esq., 
 Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, on some projects 
 talked of in Parliament, for regulating the price of 
 labour.' The appearance of this advertisement induced 
 Sir John Sinclair to write to Mr. Burke to propose 
 to him that he should undertake to draw up for 
 the Board the chapter of a general Report which 
 was intended to treat on the subject of labour and 
 provisions. 
 
 The question in the House of Commons was 
 decided before the publication could appear, and it 
 was supposed that Mr. Burke had, in consequence, 
 abandoned the intention of publishing his ideas. But 
 Sir John, not having received any answer, or, at least, 
 any that was satisfactory to him, requested me to 
 take his chariot and go to Gregory's, in order that I 
 might discover whether that celebrated character con- 
 tinued his intention of throwing his thoughts upon 
 paper.
 
 THE SECRETAKYSHIP 257 
 
 I reached Mr. Burke's before breakfast, and had 
 every reason to be pleased with my reception. 
 
 ' Why, Mr. Young, it is many years since I saw 
 you, and, to the best of my recollection, you have not 
 suffered the smallest change ; you look as young as 
 you did sixteen years ago. You must be very strong ; 
 you have no belly ; your form shows lightness ; you 
 have an elastic mind.' 
 
 I wished to myself that I could have returned 
 anything like the compliment, but I was shocked to 
 see him so broken, so low, and with such expressions 
 of melancholy. I almost thought that I was come to 
 see the greatest genius of the age in ruin. 
 
 And I had every reason to think, from all that passed 
 on this visit, that the powers of his mind had suffered 
 considerably. 
 
 He introduced me to his brother, Mr. W. Burke, 
 to Mrs. B., and to the Count de la Tour du Pin, an 
 emigrant philosopher and naturalist. 
 
 After breakfast he took me a sauntering walk for 
 five hours over his farm, and to a cottage where a scrap 
 of land had been stolen from the waste. I was glad 
 to find his farm in good order, and doubly so to hear 
 him remark that it was his only amusement, except 
 the attention which he paid to a school in the vicinity 
 for sixty children of noble emigrants. His conversa- 
 tion was remarkably desultory, a broken mixture of 
 agricultural observations, French madness, price of 
 provisions, the death of his son, the absurdity of 
 regulating labour, the mischief of our Poor-laws, and 
 the difficulty of cottagers keeping cows. An argu- 
 
 s
 
 258 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 mentative discussion of any opinion seemed to distress 
 him, and I, therefore, avoided it. And his discourse 
 was so scattered and interrupted by varying ideas, that 
 I could bring away but few of his remarks that were 
 clearly defined. 
 
 Speaking on public affairs he said that he never 
 looked at a newspaper ; ' but if anything happens to 
 occur which they think will please me, I am told of it.' 
 I observed there was strength of mind in this resolution. 
 ' Oh, no ! ' he replied, ' it is mere weakness of mind.' 
 It appeared evident that he would not publish upon the 
 subject which brought me to Gregory's ; but he declared 
 himself to be absolutely inimical to any regulation what- 
 ever by law ; that all such interference was not only 
 unnecessary but would be mischievous. He observed 
 that the supposed scarcity was extremely ill understood, 
 and that the consumption of the people was a clear 
 proof of it ; this, in his neighbourhood, was not lessened 
 in the material articles of bread, meat, and beer, which 
 he learnt by a very careful examination of many bakers, 
 butchers, and excisemen ; nor had the poor been dis- 
 tressed further than what resulted immediately from 
 that improvidence which was occasioned by the Poor- 
 laws. 
 
 Mr. Burke had not read Lord Sheffield's Memoirs 
 of Gibbon. On my observing that Mr. Gibbon de- 
 clares himself of the same opinion with him on the 
 French Kevolution, he said that Gibbon was an old 
 friend of his, and he knew well that before he (Mr. G.) 
 died, that he heartily repented of the anti-religious 
 part of his work for contributing to free mankind from
 
 THE SECRETAKYSHIP 259 
 
 all restraint on their vices and profligacy, and thereby 
 aiding so much the spirit which produced the horrors 
 that blackened the most detestable of all revolutions. 
 
 Upon my mentioning Monsieur de Mounier and 
 Lally Tollendal, he exclaimed, ' I wish tlieij were both 
 hanged ! ' 
 
 He seemed to bear hard upon the Duke de 
 Liancourt, and to allude indistinctly to some report 
 of my having opened an hospitable door to that noble- 
 man, and having received a bad return. I defended the 
 duke, and had not the conversation been interrupted I 
 should have discovered what he meant by the remark. 
 The same observation has met my ear on other occa- 
 sions, but was never explained. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe arrived just before dinner, and though 
 she exerted herself with that brilliancy of imagination 
 which renders her conversation so interesting, it was 
 not sufficient to raise the drooping spirits of Mr. 
 Burke ; it hurt me to see the languid manner in which 
 he lounged rather than sat at table, his dress entirely 
 neglected, and his manner quite dejected ; yet he 
 tried once or twice to rally, and once even to pun. 
 Mrs. Crewe, observing that Thelwel was to stand for 
 Norwich, said it would be horrid for Mr. Wyndham 
 to be turned out by such a man. ' Aye,' he replied, 
 * that would not tell ivell.' 
 
 She laughed at him in the style of condemning a 
 bad pun. Somebody said it was a fair one, he said 
 it was neither very had nor good. 
 
 He gave more attention to her account of Charles 
 Fox than to any other part of her conversation. She 
 
 s 2
 
 260 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 spoke slightingly of him, and gave us some account of 
 his life at Mrs. Armstead's. She says he lives very little 
 in the world, or in any general society, for years past ; 
 that his pleasure is to be at the head of a little society 
 of ten or twelve toad eaters, and seems to contract his 
 mind to such a situation. 
 
 The conversation would have become more interest- 
 ing had not Mrs. Crewe been so full of a plan for 
 Ladies' Subscriptions for the Emigrants, and consulting 
 him so much on the means of securing the money from 
 the fangs of the Bishop of St. Pol de Leon, whose 
 part, however, Mr. Burke took steadily. This business 
 was so discussed as to preclude much other conversa- 
 tion. Mr. Burke has been at Gregory's twenty-nine 
 years ; and I was pleased to remark that he lived on 
 the same moderate plan of life which I witnessed here 
 five-and-twenty years ago. 
 
 Me7n. ' To search for that visit.' ' 
 
 M}^ visit on the whole was interesting. I am glad 
 once more to have seen and conversed with the man 
 who I hold to possess the greatest and most brilliant 
 parts of any person of the age in which he lived. Whose 
 conversation has often fascinated me ; whose eloquence 
 has charmed ; whose writings have delighted and in- 
 structed the world ; and whose name will without 
 question descend to the latest posterity. But to behold 
 so great a genius so depressed with melancholy, stooping 
 with infirmity of body, feeling the anguish of a lacerated 
 mind, and sinking to the grave under accumulated 
 misery ; to see all this in a character I venerate, and 
 
 ' No note is to be found among papers concerning this visit.
 
 THE SECEETAEYSHIP 263 
 
 apparently without resource or comfort, wounded every 
 feeling of my soul, and I left him the next day almost 
 as low-spirited as himself. 
 
 In May the Duke of Buccleugh carried me to see 
 Mr. Secretary Dundas's farm at Wimbledon, where I 
 was to give my opinion of the mode of draining it. I 
 found his people throwing money away like fools. They 
 know nothing of the matter. This duke is another 
 determined farmer, and seems to like conversing on no 
 other subject. 
 
 This year I midertook a journey through the western 
 counties, through Devon into Cornwall, returning by 
 Somersetshire, and published the register of it in the 
 ' Annals of Agriculture.' I happened to be at Exeter 
 at the time of the quarter sessions, and dined with 
 thirty magistrates, Mr. Leigh, clerk of the House of 
 Commons, being chairman. I did not know him per- 
 sonally, and joined more warmly in a conversation 
 on the Enclosure Bill,' than I should have done had 
 I known that I was speaking to a person so much 
 interested against it. Mr. Leigh was very decided in 
 his opposition to the measure, asserting that there was 
 no protection for property in any other mode of pro- 
 ceeding, which had been so long the established custom. 
 I very eagerly refuted this observation till some 
 
 ' Enclosure Bill. ' At the Revolution of 1688 more than half the 
 kingdom was believed to consist of moorland, forest, and fen, and vast 
 commons and wastes covered the greater part of England north of the 
 Humber. But the numerous Enclosure Bills which began with the 
 reign of George II., and especially marked that of his successor, 
 changed the whole face of the country. Ten thousand square miles 
 of untilled land have been [? had been] added, under their operation, to 
 the area of cultivation.' — Green's History of the English People.
 
 262 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUK YOUXG 
 
 gentleman present spoke to Mr. Leigh, alluding to his 
 official character. This was one proof of what I had 
 often heard, that the officers of the two Houses of 
 Parliament were of all others the most determined 
 opposers of that measure. The reason is obvious ; 
 they have very considerable fees on the passing of 
 every private Act/ and the clerks of the House have a 
 further benefit which might not be compensated in any 
 equivalent that might be given them ; because they 
 solicit many of the bills. Still, as there is so plain a 
 precedent which has existed for many years in the case 
 of the Speaker of the House, who has 6,000/. per annum 
 instead of all fees, it seems no difficult matter to give 
 an equal equivalent to the clerks for all their profits, 
 including what they might make as solicitors. 
 
 ' Abolished (saving the rights of the then holders of office) in 1812. 
 52 Geo. III. c. xi.
 
 263 
 
 CHAPTEK XII 
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN, 1797 
 
 Illness of Bobbin — Letters of Bobbin and her father's replies — Dress 
 minutes at the opera — Hoping against hope — Bobbin's death — 
 Seeking for consolation — Retrospection — Beginning of diary — Corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 This year, so fatal to every worldly hope, which over- 
 turned every prospect I had in life, and changed 
 me almost as much as a new creation, opened in the 
 common manner by my going to London to attend the 
 meeting of the Board [of Agriculture]. I brought my 
 dear angelic child ^ with me, who went to school in 
 January, in good health but never in good spirits, for 
 she abhorred school. Oh ! what infatuation ever to 
 send her to one. In the country she had health, spirits, 
 and strength, as if there were not enough with what 
 she might have learned at home, instead of going to 
 that region of constraint and death, Camden House. 
 
 The rules for health are detestable, no air but in a 
 measured, formal walk, and all running and quick 
 motion prohibited. Preposterous ! She slept with a 
 girl who could hear only with one ear, and so ever laid 
 on one side ; and my dear child could do no otherwise 
 
 ' Now fourteen years old.
 
 264 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF .IHTHUR YOUNG 
 
 afterwards without pain ; because the vile beds are so 
 small that they must both lie the same way. The school 
 discipline of all sorts, the food, &c. &c., all contributed. 
 She never had a bellyful at breakfast. Detestable this 
 at the expense of 80/. a year. Oh ! how I regret ever 
 putting her there, or to any other, for they are all 
 theatres of knavery, ilHberahty, and infamy. ^ Upon her 
 being ill in March I took her to my lodgings in Jermyn 
 Street, where Dr. Turton attended her till April 12, 
 when I carried her to Bradfield. He certainly mis- 
 took her case entirely, not believing in a consumption, 
 and by physic brought her so low that she declined 
 hourly ; he stuffed her with medicine at a time when 
 sending her at once to Bristol or even to Bradfield 
 she went little more than skin and bone, with pre- 
 scriptions for more physicking under a stupid fellow 
 at Bury, who purged her till she was a spectre. On 
 June 13 she went to Smiths' (Bradfield neighbours), and 
 there complained ' that such a young girl as I who 
 came for air and exercise should be thus crammed 
 with physic' Poor thing ! her instinct told her it was 
 wrong, but she submitted. 
 
 From Bobbin to her Father 
 
 ' My dear Papa, — I received your letter this morning. 
 Thank you for it. My strength is much the same as 
 
 • This passage has been crossed out with a pencil, but is given as 
 showing the regime of young ladies' schools a hundred years ago. In 
 another note occurs the sentence, ' Brought my dear little girl from 
 Camden House to London.' Presumably Camden Town is meant, at 
 that time being less than suburban.
 
 ^ 
 
 BOBBIN ' (MARTHA YOUNG). 
 From a vilulaturc hy Plynier.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 265 
 
 when I saw you ; my appetite is getting better a good 
 deal. Mr. Smith saw me yesterday, and said it was a 
 rmining pulse, but that he thought me better. I think 
 if anything I am better than when I saw you. Thank 
 you for the wine, which I have not yet received, but 
 suppose it is at Bury. As for the bad news, I am tired 
 of it. I want, and should very much like, a nice 
 writing-box to hold pens, ink, paper, all my letters, &c., 
 in short everything exact ; this is just the thing for a 
 birthday present. As for sweet things, I do not wish 
 for them particularly ; any little thing that you think 
 wholesome I should be glad of. The weather [is] as 
 yet so bad that I cannot stir out. Eemember me to 
 the party, and thank Mr. Kedington for waking me at 
 six o'clock on the Monday morning. 
 
 ' Believe me, dear Papa, 
 
 ' Your dutiful Daughter, 
 
 'M. Young.' 
 
 His Reply 
 
 ' My dear Bobbin, — I am much obliged to you for 
 the description you gave me of your health, but I beg 
 you will repeat it directly, and do not forget appetite, 
 pulse, sleep, pains, swelled legs, fever, exercise on change 
 of weather, thirst, &c., for I am extremely anxious to 
 know how you go on. I have looked at a great many 
 writing-boxes, but find none yet under 11. 5s. and 
 11. lis. 6d., but I hear there are good ones to be had 
 at 15s. The moment I can find one I will buy and 
 send it packed full of seals, or something else. 
 
 ' Politics are melancholy, for the fleet is satisfied.
 
 266 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 the army is not, and the same spirit [there] would be 
 dreadful. To-day, it is said, the Duke of York has 
 declared the intention of raising the pay of Infantry, 
 which is wise, but it may not be done to satisfy them, 
 and in a moment they might be masters of the Tower, 
 Bank, Parliament, &c. ; however, let us hope that 
 measures will be taken to prepare for the worst. The 
 French will make no peace with us, but bring all their 
 force to the coast and ruin us, if they can, by invasion 
 expense. 
 
 ' I cannot read half your mother's letter ; but enough 
 to see that she is very angry, for I know not what. I 
 am not paid, and have nothing to send. 
 ' Dear Bobbin, 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 'A. Y.' 
 
 Bobbin to her Father 
 
 ' My dear Papa, — I received your letter this morning, 
 for which I thank you. My appetite is a great deal 
 better, pulse rather too quick, sleep very well, no pains, 
 no swelled legs, no fever. We have had Sunday, Mon- 
 day, and yesterday fine, and only those since you went. 
 I walked in the Stone Walk. Pray send my writing- 
 box as soon as you can, and, as you see by this, I 
 want writing paper to write to you and Griffiths ; I 
 hope you will put some into it. I think one under a 
 guinea will not be of any use to me. I saw Mr. and 
 Mrs. 0. Oakes ' in Bury yesterday, they have made 
 
 ' The county belle, Betsey Plampin, married some years before to 
 Mr. Orbell Oakes.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 267 
 
 but a short stay in town. I am much obHged to you 
 for the wine and porter, which I have received safe. 
 Remember me to the party, write soon, and beheve 
 me, dear papa, 
 
 ' Your dutiful Daughter, 
 
 'M. Young. 
 
 ' N.B. — By the time Mr. Kedington comes his 
 strawberries will be ripe ; ask him if he would give me 
 a few if I send for them. Pray remember a patent 
 lock, so it will be a guinea besides that.' 
 
 Beply 
 
 ' I was very glad to receive my dear Bobbin's letter, 
 for it gives the best account I have yet received of 
 your health. As you wish a guinea box you shall 
 have one, though I can very ill afford it at present. As 
 to your mother's ideas of my being paid, nothing can 
 be said to it, if she knows better than I do. Her 
 intelligence that I have sold the Exchequer annuity 
 is like all the rest ; if it is of longer duration than I 
 supposed, so much the better for those who have bought 
 it of me, and the worse for me. 
 
 ' Lady Hawkesbury, Lady Hervey and Lady Erne ' 
 have given the Macklins and me some opera tickets 
 several times — last night for the benefit of the sailors' 
 widows and orphans, under Lord Jarvis ; but sailors 
 are not in fashion ; the pit was not more than two- 
 
 ' Lady Mary Hervey, the beautiful daughter of the Earl of Bristol, 
 Bishop of Derry. Her portrait, by Gainsborough, was on show at 
 Agnew'8 in 1896.
 
 268 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNQ 
 
 thirds full. They go out of town on Sunday or Monday. 
 The weather has been very hot. Yesterday I could 
 scarcely get from the Board home, for coaches and 
 crowds along all the streets near St. James's, &c. 
 The King is low-spirited at the thought of parting 
 from his daughter. The Duchy of Wurtemburg 
 is in the very jaws of France, and the prospect not 
 favourable. Every person that comes from France 
 asserts the same, that their whole force will be brought 
 against this country. I have been sent for, and had 
 an interview with a cabinet minister on arming the 
 landed interest ; but I fear nothing will be done 
 effectually, though they seemed determined that some- 
 thing shall. Don't mention this out of the family. 
 I will put paper in your box, changing the lock will 
 take some time, but you shall have it, I hope, on 
 Monday. Continue to write me. Tell your M. [mother] 
 I have no money ; therefore, why worry me ? She 
 might as well ask blood from a post. 
 ' Dear Bobbin, 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 'A. Y.' 
 
 From Bobbin to her Father 
 
 ' My dear Papa, — I received your letter this morn- 
 ing and am extremely obliged to you for your attention 
 about the writing-box, but if it be not purchased, I 
 have seen one at Backham's which suits me exactly in 
 every respect, therefore, if you will send a patent lock, 
 I can have it put on. The price of Backham's is a 
 guinea, but if you have bought it I shall like it as well.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 269 
 
 My chief complaints are weakness, and a very bad 
 cough, nothing else that I mind. I dare say you 
 were entertained at the opera. 
 
 ' I have just got six of the most beautiful little 
 rabbits you ever saw, they skip about so prettily, 
 you can't think, and I shall have some more in a few 
 weeks. Having had so much physic I am right down 
 tired of it. I take it still twice a day ; my appetite is 
 better. What can you mind politics so for? I don't 
 think about them. Well, good bye, and believe me, 
 dear papa, 
 
 ' Your dutiful Daughter, 
 
 ' M. Young. 
 
 ' Saturday.' 
 
 His Reply 
 
 ' Monday. 
 
 ' My dear Bobbin, — I received your letter this 
 morning, and am sorry it did not come in time to stop 
 my buying this box, which is twenty-five shillings 
 besides carriage ; but I hope you will like it ; the lock 
 is good and not common. I cannot afford a patent one, 
 which is fifteen shillings alone. 
 
 ' I am sorry to hear you have a bad cough and are 
 weak. God send this fine weather may make you well 
 soon. Continue to let me know how you do, particularly 
 your cough. You do not say if you are upon the whole 
 better, nor whether you have got on horseback yet, 
 which I must have you do, at all events, or you will 
 not get well at all. Be more particular — what physic 
 do you take ? 
 
 * You are right not to trouble yourself about
 
 270 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 politics. Mr. and Mrs. M. went out of town this 
 morning. 
 
 ' The Directory of France has ordered all my works 
 on Agriculture to be translated in twenty volumes, and 
 their friends here would guillotine the author. The 
 " Travels " sell greatly there in French, the third edition 
 
 coming. 
 
 ' Adieu. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately. 
 
 ' I have just time to send this [writing-box]. I 
 intended it by coach, but as I am sure the seals would 
 be ground all to powder, I think it best by waggon, 
 which will explain the reason of j^our not having it so 
 soon as I hoped and promised, and I think you would 
 be vexed to have your collection spoiled. It goes by 
 Bury waggon. Your pincushion box won't come in it.' 
 
 Note from A. Y. to Bonnet {Farm Bailiff) 
 
 ' Miss Patty is to ride out in the chaise or whisky, 
 or on double horse, whenever Bonnet is not obliged to 
 be absent from the farm. If he is at market when the 
 days are long and Miss Patty rises early, she can have 
 a ride before breakfast. 
 
 ' Bonnet to pay Miss Patty a shilling a week.' 
 
 To Bobbin from her Father 
 
 ' My dear Bobbin, — I know your understanding, and 
 therefore shall not write to you, young as you are, as a 
 child. Mrs. Oakes writes me from Smith that Dr. T.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 271 
 
 ordered you physic which you have not taken, at the 
 same time that he does not at all like your case. Now 
 this is a very serious business for your health, and 
 consequently it makes me very uneasy. You are 
 extremely weak by your own account, and steel is to 
 strengthen. I gave it with my own hand to my father 
 for a year, and with great effect ; why you should 
 doubt the efficacy of anything prescribed by so great 
 a physician is more than I can understand ; as to ill 
 tastes, it is beneath common sense to listen to any- 
 thing of the sort. 
 
 ' But, my dear Bobbin, you ought to bring some 
 circumstances to your recollection ; the expense I have 
 been at is more than I can afford, and I am now 
 paying your school the same as if present. It is surely 
 incumbent on you to consider, that when a father is 
 doing everything upon earth for your good, yet you 
 ought from feelings of gratitude and generosity to do 
 all you can for yourself. I ask nothing but what 
 another w^ould positively insist on, and would order 
 violent means of securing obedience ; I, on the contrarj^ 
 rely on your own feelings and your good sense, and so 
 relying, I do beg that j'ou will take everything ordered 
 wdthout murmur or hesitation, for I assure you it is 
 with astonishment I hear that you have omitted this 
 some time. Call your understanding to your aid, and 
 ask yourself what you can think must be my surprise 
 at hearing that while all aromid you are anxious for 
 your health, that you alone will be careless of it. It is 
 a much worse thing than ill health, for I had rather 
 hear you were worse in body than that you had a
 
 272 AUTOBIOaHAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 malady in your heart or head. Think seriously of such 
 conduct, and I am confident it will cease, for I know 
 your disposition, and that makes me the more surprised, 
 for knowing your good temper so well as I do it is 
 perfectly astonishing. I am sure I shall hear, and it 
 will be with great pleasure, that you are acting worthy 
 of yourself ; and having so much patience in your 
 illness, you will show it in this, as in so many other 
 things. (The first cheap lobsters I shall send you three 
 by mail, the weather being hot.) I think you are not 
 strong enough to ride a dicky alone. Surely double- 
 horse would be better, but if you have tried you must 
 be able to judge. Pray continue to write me constantly, 
 for you must know how anxious I am to hear exactly 
 your case. 
 
 ' God bless you, my dear girl. I talk of your physician 
 and yom^ physic, but God forbid you trusted to either 
 without asking His blessing regularly. You tell me that 
 you always say your prayers ; you cannot deceive God, 
 and I hope you have a reliance on His blessing, which 
 you cannot have if you do not ask it, and gain the habit 
 of asking it.' 
 
 From Bohhm to her Father 
 
 ' My dear Papa, — I received your letter yesterday. 
 Thank you for your advice ; I had taken the steel and 
 draughts long before I received it, besides which I take 
 some more stuff ^ . . . . and ask him [the doctor] like- 
 
 ' Some medical questions the child wishes put to her London 
 doctor are here omitted.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 273 
 
 wise how long the steel, &c., must be taken before you 
 feel any effect from it, for one might take physic for 
 ever without receiving any benefit. Let not my giving 
 you my opinion make you think that I do not take 
 mine regularly ; I assure you I do. My dear papa, 
 how can you imagine that I should ever neglect my 
 prayers ? No ! believe me, I know my duty too well for 
 that. I believe once, the last time I was at the cottage, 
 when I was too weak to say them out of bed, I then 
 said them when Betty brought the asses' milk. One 
 morning I fell asleep and forgot them ; I thought of it 
 at night, and told her to remind me of them, which she 
 did — this she can tell you. I thank you for some fine 
 cod and lobsters, which came very fresh and good. 
 
 ' I am much the same as when I wrote last, 
 my cough very troublesome still. I called on Mrs. 
 Belgrave, she was gone to town. Adieu, my dear papa. 
 Believe me 
 
 ' Your dutiful and affectionate Daughter, 
 
 'M. Young.' 
 
 His Reply 
 
 ' Saturday. 
 ' My dearest Bobbin, — The moment your letter came 
 I went to Dr. Turton, but he was, as I feared he would 
 be, out. However, I shall call on him this evening 
 and send you his answer by to-morrow night's mail, 
 if he is not gone to Kent, which I hope he will not be. 
 If so, I cannot see him till Tuesday, as I shall be 
 Sunday and Monday at the Duke of Bedford's. ... I 
 am of opinion you should leave off steel till you have 
 
 T
 
 274 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 my answer. . . . It is to give you strength. . . . You 
 are a very good girl for having taken it, and equally 
 for saying your prayers. Always preserve the habit of 
 doing so. God protect and bless you ! 
 
 ' Two 64's and fifteen merchantmen have left the 
 mutineers under a heavy fine, and it is expected the 
 rest will do the same very soon, and then Admiral 
 Parker and Co. will swing. Great expectations of a 
 peace. Tell Mary, St. Paul's would come to B. as 
 soon as Dr. T., but her thought was a good one. 
 
 ' Write me again soon. 
 
 ' Yours very affectionately, 
 
 'A. Y.' 
 
 To Bobbin from her Father 
 
 ' Jermyn Street : Friday. 
 ' My dear Bobbin, — As I desired you to write to me 
 twice a week I expected a letter yesterday, but hope 
 when I go by and by to the [Board] that I shall find 
 one from you, for I am very anxious to hear how you 
 do, and what Dr. Turton has ordered Smith to do for 
 you. I had a very disagreeable journey to town, and 
 did not sleep a minute, but, thank God, did not take 
 cold; went to bed next night at nine o'clock and 
 recovered the fatigue. The Macklins and Kedington 
 were in a good deal of rain. They have been at two 
 plays ; I go to none. K. lives with us, and I am to 
 charge him what he costs. They will go somewhere 
 every night. I order everything just as usual before I 
 go to the Board, and though I am to pay no more than 
 my common expenses when alone, yet, as I necessarily
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 275 
 
 live much better, I think it but fair to be quite 
 economical, and we have a great deal of pleasant laugh 
 at my pinching them, and not permitting their being 
 extravagant. I allow no scrap of a supper which they 
 make a rout about, for they come hungry as hounds 
 from the play, and drink porter when they can get it ; 
 the wine I lock up, and have been twice in bed when 
 they return. If you saw them devour at breakfast you 
 would laugh ; K., who is to be with the Oakes' when 
 they come (we have hired Merlin's for them), threatens 
 that he will give us nothing but potatoes. 
 
 ' The news you see. It is said that there will be 
 mutinies in the army as soon as the camps are formed ; 
 if so, and no immense army of property to awe them, 
 the very worst of consequences may be expected. 
 Ireland is in a dreadful state of alarm and apprehension 
 — in a word, everything wears a threatening appearance, 
 and nothing but the greatest wisdom and prudence 
 can save us. 
 
 ' I hope you have got rid of your lameness, and use 
 your legs much more than you did when I was with 
 you. Pray, my dear Bobbin, exert yom'self, and take 
 much air and exercise on the Stone Walk, which will 
 do in all weathers except rain. I have not seen any- 
 body yet except Lord Egremont. 
 
 ' Tell Arthur to write to the Lewes bookseller that 
 the Board buys two hundred copies and finds the plates, 
 that is the copper, so that it must be to him not a 
 hazardous speculation. Adieu, my dear girl. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 ' A. Y.' 
 
 T 2
 
 276 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 Bobbin's Beplij 
 
 ' My dear Papa, — I received your letter this morning. 
 I am sorry you had not a pleasant journey. Every 
 day since you went vfe have had nothing but rain all 
 day (most part of the night) long, so I have not been 
 able to stir out, only in the chaise. I am much the 
 same as when I saw you, but hope that when we have 
 fine weather I shall get better. My leg is a great 
 deal better. Mr. Smith advises porter, the beer is so 
 new. ... If you like to send a quarter cask my mother 
 will pay the carriage ; she has no opinion of Bury 
 porter. If you send it by the Diss waggon let me know 
 when it comes ; if you don't like this, order Bonnet to 
 get me some at Bury. What terrible news you write 
 me in your letter. I really have nothing more to tell 
 you ; write soon, and believe me 
 
 ' Your dutiful Daughter, 
 
 ' M. Young. 
 
 ' N.B. — Papa, you said you would send me some red 
 wine, as there is none drank here ; he speaks very 
 much against my drinking so much water without red 
 wine in it, because my ankles swell so much.' 
 
 The following were memoranda noted at the time :— 
 
 The 11th of June I went to the Duke of Bedford's 
 sheep-shearing, and got back (to London) on the 16th. 
 The next day I had a letter that terrified me so much 
 that on the 19th I set off for Suffolk, and went directly 
 to Troston Hall (the seat of Capel Lofft, Esq.), where
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 277 
 
 the dear dear child had been carried some days before 
 for change of air. Good God ! what a situation I 
 found her in, worse than I had conceived possible in 
 so short a time, so helpless and immovable as to be 
 carried from a chair to her bed, evidently in one of 
 those cruel consumptive cases which flatter by some 
 favourable symptoms, yet with fatal ones that almost 
 deprive hope. 
 
 Good Heaven ! what have I to look forward to if I 
 lose my child '? For her own sake I know not what to 
 hope ; the world is so full of wickedness and misery, 
 and she must be so innocent and free from crimes, that 
 her lot hereafter, I hope and have confidence in the 
 mercies of God, will be blessed. Ought I then, but 
 from selfishness, to wish her here ? Yet a fond father's 
 feehngs will be predominant. Oh, save her, save her, 
 is my prayer to God Almighty ! 
 
 Dr. Wollaston, the eminent physician at Bury, has 
 been consulted ; he gives little hopes, but advises a 
 milk and vegetable diet, and said that sea air and a 
 humid mild climate would be good. I next wrote to 
 Dr. Thornton, who recommended an egg and meat 
 diet ; and Mr, Martyn, in a letter, desired me to try 
 the inhaling of ether ; in fact, all has been done that 
 the urgency of the case required, but, alas ! she is 
 past the assistance of all human power. After remain- 
 ing a week at Troston I wrote into Lincolnshire for a 
 house at Boston, with a view to be near the sea, in 
 case she should be able to support a short voyage ; 
 and the air of that low place is reckoned preferable to 
 the keen air of Bradfield. We travelled with slow and
 
 278 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 short journej^s on July 5 to Bradon — still more ex- 
 hausted ; on the 6th to Wisbeach — no alteration yet 
 from the change of air; on the 7th only to Long 
 Sutton — worse, greatly fatigued, and a very bad night. 
 Oh ! the lacerated feelings of my wounded heart ! To 
 see the child of my tenderest affection in such a state ! 
 growing hourly weaker and more emaciated, during the 
 last week being even unable to stand. It is beyond 
 my power to describe what is struggling within me ! 
 My sorrow has softened me and wrings my very 
 heart strings ! How hard does it appear submissively 
 to bow to that text — ' He that loveth son or daughter 
 more than Me is not worthy of Me.' I have but one 
 consolation, which prevents my utter depression and 
 despair. I trust in the goodness of her Almighty 
 Creator and in the merits of her blessed Eedeemer, 
 that They will, in the mercy of omnipotence, pardon 
 what slight offences she may have been guilty of, and 
 receive her into that heavenly mansion which I humbly 
 hope her innocence may expect. I pray fervently for 
 Their mercy, and only wish that I was worthy of being 
 heard. May my future life be such as to make an 
 hereafter the great view, aim, and end of my remaining 
 life ! The 8th we reached Spalding, too much fatigued 
 to go on, thinking that an air so different from what 
 she had left might have given some ease. Vain hope ! 
 No effort of the kind appears. The 11th we arrived at 
 Boston, and she bore the journey well. Alas ! it was 
 her final stage in this world ! 
 
 The next day she was still worse, but even now 
 gave one of those traits which displayed her delicacy,
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 279 
 
 for upon finding that her mother was detaining Dr. 
 Wilson with questions, she reminded her of it by 
 saying, ' Mamma, you forget there are other ladies 
 wanting the doctor.' On the 13th the crisis of her 
 sufferings was approaching ; she whispered to me as I 
 sat by her bedside, ' I hope you pray for me.' At about 
 eleven o'clock she asked her sister Mary to read a 
 prayer as usual, and attended with apparent fervour, 
 putting her hands together in the attitude of devotion. 
 My poor dear child breathed her last at twelve 
 minutes past one o'clock on Friday morning, the 
 14th. I was on my knees at her bedside in great 
 agony of mind. She looked at me and said, ' Pray 
 for me.' I assured her that I did. She replied, 
 ' Do it now, papa,' on which I poured forth aloud 
 ejaculations to the Almighty, that He would have 
 compassion and heal the affliction of my child. She 
 clasped her hands together in the attitude of praying, 
 and when I had done said, ' Amen ' — her last words. 
 
 Thank God of His infinite mercy she expired 
 without a groan, or her face being the least agitated ; 
 her inspirations were gradually changed from being 
 very distressing, till they became lost in gentleness, 
 and at the last she went off like a bird. 
 
 Thus fled one of the sweetest tempers and, for her 
 years, one of the best understandings that I ever met 
 with. She was a companion for mature years, for 
 there was in her none of the childish stuff of most girls. 
 And there fied the first hope of my Hfe, the child on 
 whom I wished to rest in the affliction of my age, 
 should I reach such a period. But the Almighty's will
 
 280 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 be done, and may I turn the event to the benefit of 
 my soul, and in such a manner as to trust through the 
 mediation of my Eedeemer to become worthy to join her 
 in a better world. Her disposition was most affectionate, 
 gentle, and humane ; to her inferiors, full of humility, 
 and always ready to perform acts of beneficence, thus 
 attaching the poor by her charity, whilst she was 
 equally courted by those above her for that fascination 
 of manners possessing the attraction of the loadstone. 
 Her countenance in health beamed with animation, and 
 her dimpled cheeks smiled with the beauty of a Hebe. 
 Dear interesting creature ! Endowed, too, with a 
 sensibility that shrunk from the gaze, her appearance 
 in society produced [here the sentence breaks off^. 
 
 What a scene have I described for a fond father to 
 witness ! 
 
 On the 15th the Eev. S. Partridge and his wife came 
 to give us what comfort they could, and took us in a most 
 kind and friendly manner to their house. I determined 
 that her remains should be carried to Bradfield, having 
 a warm hope of being animated to a more fervent 
 devotion by the idea of her ashes being deposited in our 
 own village church. To the departed spirit it is less 
 than nothing — to me it may do good, and I have need 
 of working out my salvation with fear and trembling. 
 I feel that a wretched and depressed state of mind 
 leads me to more Christian thoughts and more favom.-- 
 able to religious impressions than prosperity, or ease, 
 or happiness, as it is called, and therefore hope I am 
 justified in doing it ; and if my family think the same, 
 they also will derive benefit.
 
 ILLNESS A2^D DEATH OF BOBBIN 281 
 
 After a day passed in deep sorrow, Mr. Partridge 
 read one of his sermons on the intermediate state of 
 departed souls, and which I afterwards fomid was one 
 of Jortin's.^ From many passages of Scriptmre it was 
 made clear that they are conscious, and if good in this 
 life, happy. 
 
 On Monday, the 17th, I arrived at Bradfield, where 
 every object is full of the dear deceased. 
 
 On going into the library the window looks into the 
 little garden in which I have so many times seen her 
 happy. gracious and merciful God ! pardon me for 
 allowing any earthly object thus to engross my feelings 
 and overpower my whole soul ! But what were they not 
 on seeing and weeping over the roses, variegated sage, 
 and other plants she had set there and cultivated with 
 her dear hands. But every room, every spot is full of 
 her, and it sinks my very heart to see them. Tuesday 
 evening, the 18th, her remains arrived, and at mid- 
 night her brother read the service over her in a 
 most impressive manner. I buried her in my pew, 
 fixing the coffin so that when I kneel it will be between 
 her head and her dear heart. This I did as a means of 
 preserving the grief I feel, and hope to feel while breath 
 is in my body. It turns all my views to an hereafter, 
 and fills my mind with earnest wishes, that when the 
 great Author of my existence may please to take me I 
 may join my child in a better world. 
 
 merciful Saviour, that took on Thee our nature 
 and feelings, grant me Thy Holy Spirit to confirm and 
 
 ' John Jortin, D.D., born 1G96, died 1770. His numerous theo- 
 logical and historical works have been frequently reprinted.
 
 282 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 strengthen these sentiments ; to repent of all my sins 
 and errors, and enable me for the rest of my days to 
 look steadily towards that better world where, I trust, 
 the innocence of my child, united with her jDiety, have 
 given her a place. Sure, sure, I shall pray with a more 
 fervent and sincere devotion over the remains of her 
 whom I so much wish, when it pleases Heaven, that I 
 may join. This was my motive. 
 
 The 19th I went into a little chamber which I 
 had neatly fitted up about three years ago. My dear 
 child had decorated it with some drawings and placed 
 her books on the shelves, and left it in that order and 
 regularity which followed all her actions. I burst into 
 tears while viewing it, and felt such a depression at my 
 heart that I thought I should have sunk on the floor. 
 It shall never be altered, but everything continued as 
 she left it. 
 
 IQth. — Again looked at her garden, and a new 
 one she had marked out and planted under a weep- 
 ing willow. No day arrives but some new object is 
 presented to move all the springs of affection and 
 regret ; and what day can pass in which these melan- 
 choly feelings will not predominate ? In the meantime 
 I read the Scriptures, and Jortin and other sermons, 
 with an attention I never paid before ; and may God 
 of His mercy confirm this disposition, and enable me 
 thus to turn this heavy misfortune to the benefit of my 
 soul. Dispositions which company, travelling, and 
 other pursuits would have tended to banish, I wish to 
 cherish ; a melancholy has produced in me a more 
 earnest desire to be reconciled to God than anv other
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 283 
 
 event of my life, and proves that of all the medicines 
 of the soul, sorrow is perhaps the most powerful. 
 
 Business, pleasure, and the world, tend only to 
 stifle this seriousness of thought, and to prevent the 
 mind from looking into itself and examining the 
 foundation of all its future hopes. For these three 
 days I have continued perusing no books but the New 
 Testament and sermons, of which I have read many. 
 
 21st. — Hoed part of my dear child's garden under 
 the window, and carried her bonnet and cap to her 
 chamber. They produced many tears, for I yet con- 
 tinue weak as a babe. Read the whole Gospel of St. 
 John, two sermons of Tillotson on the state of the 
 blessed, and two of Dr. Home's on the purification of the 
 mind by troubles and the government of the thoughts. 
 I had before in this week read all the Epistles, the 
 Hebrews, and the Acts of the Apostles, and also 
 Bryant's ' Authenticity of the Scriptures.' Such studies 
 are my only consolation. I give full attention, and 
 hope for the blessing of God's Holy Spirit, that I may 
 not let it be vain, or ever suffer the world to wipe out 
 this taste for the things that concern another world. 
 I attempt the regulation of my thoughts, and to 
 contemplate the goodness and mercy of the Deity ; 
 but my misery for the irreparable loss I have suffered 
 yet weighs me down. 
 
 22nd. — Hoed the rest of her garden. Symonds and 
 Carter spent the day at the Hall. I wish they had 
 not come together, I wanted conversation with them 
 separately on the question I had read a good deal of, 
 the sleep of the soul after death till the resurrection.
 
 284 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Symonds will not admit that we can draw any 
 satisfactory conclusion for or against it, but Carter 
 allows Dr. Jortin's reasoning in his sermon on that 
 subject. In the evening I read what Dr. H. More ' 
 says upon the subject, who is strenuously against it. 
 A state of insensibility is a dreadful idea, and I find 
 consolation in the conviction that my dear girl is now 
 happy. 
 
 23rcZ. — Sunday ; passed it, I hope, Hke a Christian. 
 At church sitting over the remains of my child ! Oh ! 
 what a train of feelings absorbed my soul. In the 
 evening read St. Luke's Gospel and took a most heart- 
 sinking melancholy walk. I cannot yet bring my 
 mind to sufficient tranquillity to throw into one little 
 memoir these and other particulars. 
 
 Examined the willows she planted on the island. 
 Oh ! that they were thriving oaks that promised a 
 longer duration, but they may last as long as anybody 
 that will care for the planter. Continue to read 
 Scripture, and some of Seeker's ^ and Ogden's^ sermons, 
 and again began ' Bryant on Christianity.' I pray to 
 God with all the fervency I feel to give me the grace 
 of His Holy Spirit, that I may turn this loss to the 
 benefit of my soul. Dr. Jortin, in his seventeenth 
 sermon, most truly says, ' It is adversity which seizes 
 upon the future as prosperity dwells upon the present. 
 
 ' Henry More, D.D., bom 1614, died 1687. In 1640 published 
 Psycho-Zoia ; or, the Life of the Soul. His philosoiihical and theo- 
 logical works have been reprinted. 
 
 - Th. Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, born 1693, died 1768. 
 
 3 Samuel Ogden, D.D., born 1716, died 1778.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 285 
 
 On the 25th I read Littleton's • ' Conversion and 
 Apostleship of St. Paul.' I had brought down from 
 London a new political pamphlet of Howlett's on a 
 subject that was once interesting, but I can attend to 
 nothing except inquiries which in some degree connect 
 with that habit of mind which flows from my recent 
 loss. 
 
 Mrs. called to persuade me into company for 
 
 regaining cheerfulness. Alas ! it will come, I fear, 
 much too soon, and what is it good for '? Sorrow is 
 the best physician to heal a soul that has been too 
 careless in its duty to God. 
 
 Will the world, and pleasure, and society contribute 
 like grief to secure me a probability of joining in another 
 world the spirit of her I mourn ? 
 
 26^/i. — I read part of Dr. Clarke's ^ ' Demonstration 
 of the Being and Attributes of God,' as much as I 
 could understand without too intense an application, 
 and then part of ' Butler's Analogy.' Prayed to the 
 Almighty in the middle of the day. The morning is 
 the proper time, but when we are tired and sleepy, the 
 evening I think an improper period to offer either 
 thanksgiving or petitions to the Divine goodness. 
 
 Why, oh ! why must we have misfortune and 
 sorrow to make us sensible of our duty to our heavenly 
 Father and our Saviour and Eedeemer '? How difficult 
 to instil a right attention into young people. 
 
 ' Adam Littleton, D.D., born 1627, died 1674. 
 
 ■^ Samuel Clarke, D.D., born 1675, died 1729. The piece alluded to was 
 the firsti Boyle Lecture. Of his works Dr. Johnson remarked, ' I should 
 recommend Dr. Clarke's works were he orthodox.'
 
 286 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNQ 
 
 I am, however, thankful that my dear child was 
 naturally serious and, I believe, well disposed in this 
 respect ; with what joy I now read the following passage 
 in a letter I received from her while she was ill at 
 Bradfield before I came down : ' My dear papa, how 
 can you imagine that I should ever neglect my prayers '? 
 No ! believe me, I know my duty too well for that.' 
 
 What now would be the idea of any improvement 
 or accomplishment compared with the least trait like 
 this •? 
 
 Iltli. — Called for a few minutes on some neighbours. 
 They all want me to dine with them, but such society 
 to a mind diseased yields no food for reflection, and 
 is, therefore, not fit for me. I could associate with 
 nobody with comfort, but those whose religious acquire- 
 ments could tend to strengthen my present habits. 
 
 I continue to read Butler, also two sermons by 
 Conybeare ^ on angels ; looked at the miniature which 
 my wife has of the dear girl, a most striking likeness 
 by Plymer ; ^ wept over it with feelings easier imagined 
 than described. I will have a copy of it ; 'twill serve, 
 at least, as a melancholy remembrance, and, I hope, 
 recall my mind should it ever wander from the lamented 
 original. 
 
 28^/i. — Finished Butler's 'Analogy.' It does not 
 quite answer the idea I had formed of him, though a 
 
 ' John Conybeare, D.D., born 1691, died 1755. ' A great champion 
 of revelation.' 
 
 - Plymer ; in Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists written ' Plimer.' 
 Two brothers therein mentioned, Andrew and Nathaniel, both miniature 
 painters and exhibitors at the E.A. ; born 1763, died 1837 ; born 1767, 
 died 1822.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 287 
 
 powerful work ; but he demands a second perusal, but 
 does not even then promise to be perfectly clear. Read 
 also Mr. Locke's 'Reasonableness of Christianity,' 
 which is a luminous convincing work, and must have 
 done great good. Watered dear Bobbin's garden and 
 read over her letters. She had, for her early years, a 
 most uncommon understanding and a penetration into 
 character wonderful for the age of fourteen. On 
 reviewing her last illness I am filled with nothing but 
 the most poignant regret and self-condemnation for 
 putting so much rehance in the medical tribe, for she 
 had the personal attendance or correspondence of five 
 physicians and none agreed. I did for the best and 
 spared nothing, but had she been a pauper in a village 
 she would, I verily think, have been alive and hearty. 
 Such are the blessings of money ; it has cost me lOOZ. 
 to destroy my child, for I do not think one shilling 
 was bestowed which did not in one way or other do 
 mischief. 
 
 Whilst I was in much anxiety about my child's 
 health I bought Mr. Wilberforce on Christianity.' 
 I read it coldly at first, but advanced with more atten- 
 tion. It brought me to a better sense of my dangerous 
 state ; but I was much involved in hesitation and 
 doubt, and was very far from understanding the 
 doctrinal part of the book. This was well, for it in- 
 duced me to read it again and again, and it made so 
 much impression upon me that I scarcely knew how 
 
 ' Practical View of the Prevailing System of Professed Christians 
 in the Higher and Middle Ranks in this Country, Contrasted with Real 
 Christianity. Published 1797, and freiiuently reprinted.
 
 288 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNa 
 
 to lay it aside. It excited a very insufficient degree of 
 repentance, and a still more insufficient view of my 
 interest in the Great Physician of souls. 
 
 It is rather singular that a trifling circumstance 
 at this time first brought me acquainted with Mr. 
 Wilberforce, whose book I had been again perusing 
 for the fourth time with increased pleasure, and to 
 whom I had more than once thought of writing for 
 his opinion on the intermediate state and original sin. 
 On arriving at Boston, what was my surprise on 
 receiving a letter from him relative to Parkinson's 
 subscription to some book on agriculture, and apolo- 
 gising for the application to a stranger. I seized 
 the pen with eagerness to reply, writing largely 
 about his own book, praising it greatly, and tell- 
 ing him of my wish to apply to him. Should this 
 (I thought) be productive of a connection that might 
 confirm my pious resolution, I might, perhaps, 
 be justified in attributing it to the interposition of 
 God. 
 
 I hope that the thought is not presumptuous. Is 
 it the spirit of my sweet girl that is thus friendly to 
 me ? How pleasing an idea ! 
 
 July 29. — Having excused myself from dining out 
 with the Balgraves, a note from her this morning. But 
 it will not do. Company and the world will only draw 
 off my mind from those religious contemplations and 
 that course of reading which is favourable to prayer, 
 repentance, and reformation. I wish not to lessen my 
 grief or banish my feelings of that sorrow which turns 
 my heart at present to seek God. I dread it will come
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 289 
 
 but too soon ; and were it not for this apprehension I 
 should go on my journey to Lincolnshire for the Board 
 directly, but I wish to confirm these feelings and 
 earnestly pray for the Divine grace to preserve them to 
 the extirpation from my heart of love for the world or 
 any of its follies. 
 
 [Note added by A. Y. in 1817.] 
 
 Throughout many of the succeeding notes, several 
 expressions occur not all consistent with true evan- 
 gelical religion ; but I would not afterwards alter them, 
 because I wished to ascertain, on the re-perusal of these 
 papers, what was at the moment of my affliction the 
 state of my mind and of my faith ; and when I con- 
 sider what were the books which I read and admired, 
 I cannot be surprised at any such remarks falling from 
 my pen. 
 
 I have often reflected on the great mercy and good- 
 ness of God in not permitting my religious opinions to 
 be permanently injured by some of the works which it 
 will be found I so eagerly perused at a period when I 
 could not have one moment's conversation with any 
 truly pious character. Two circumstances probably 
 contributed to this effect : first, the incessant atten- 
 tion which I gave to reading the New Testament ; 
 and secondly, my ardent study of Mr. Wilberforce's 
 ' Practical Christianity,' though without thoroughly 
 understanding it. 
 
 The solitary life I condemned myself to, or, to speak 
 with more propriety, which alone I relished, while 
 reading sixteen or seventeen hours a day, and in which 
 I consequently rather devoured books than read them, 
 
 u
 
 290 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 was, I think, very advantageous, and possibly more so in 
 the final result than if my authors had been more truly 
 sound. 
 
 I have since perused many works which, had they 
 fallen into my hands at that time, would probably have 
 made me quit my retirement and rush into the society of 
 men who would have conducted me, in my then state 
 of mind, to the utmost lengths of enthusiasm. 
 
 The writers I consulted were well calculated to lay 
 a certain solidity of foundation in the great leading 
 truths of Christianity, which formed a basis whereon it 
 was easy afterwards to raise a more evangelical edifice. 
 
 In all this business I cannot but admire the good- 
 ness of the Almighty in protecting me from many evils 
 to which I might easily have been led by my troubled 
 feelings. 
 
 [Diary continued?^ 
 
 Read Dr. Isaac Barrow's sermon on submission to 
 the Divine will. He seems a powerful writer, but his 
 language is debased by expressions void of all dignity. 
 Read a good deal in Barrow on the pre-existence of 
 human souls. Very singular ; the texts on which he 
 builds support him very faintly, yet there is a degree 
 of probability in the system consonant to reason. 
 
 30^7^. — Prayed to God over the remains of my dear 
 child, and the circumstance fills my mind with that 
 melancholy that is not unsuitable to religious feelings. 
 I do not wonder at the custom of the primitive Christians 
 praying at the tombs of the departed, it is an obvious 
 and natural prejudice. 
 
 Finished Barrow, and wrote to my friend Mr. Cole
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 291 
 
 to desire he would apply to his neighbour, the learned 
 Bryant, to know his opinion of that question. Began 
 Dr. More on the ' Immortality of the Soul.' Capel Lofft 
 spent the day with us ; his conversation is ready on any 
 subject, and mine led to serious ones, which he seems 
 to like. We had much that was metaphysical on the 
 soul (pre-existence) , a future state, &c. He is of opinion 
 that heaven is not so very different from our ideas of 
 what this world might be, as are commonly entertained ; 
 and rightly observes, that if death, evil, anxiety, and 
 disease, with corporeal passions, w^ere banished, this 
 earth would be a heaven ; and that the knowledge of 
 one another hereafter is not at all inconsistent with 
 our Saviour's expression, ' in My Father's house are 
 many mansions.' 
 
 '^Ist. — Kead Littleton's sermon on the necessity of 
 well husbanding our time. It is excellent, he has 
 thoughts and modes of expanding his observations that 
 are beyond the common run. Laid aside Dr. More 
 on the ' Immortality of the Soul ; ' he gets so high 
 in the region of fancy, and is so full of jargon and 
 supposition, under the formula of demonstrations, 
 that I am disgusted with his farrago ; and [there is] 
 so much on witches, apparitions, &c., as to be mere 
 rubbish. 
 
 Read Sherlock's sixth sermon on the ' Immortality of 
 the Soul,' which is an admirable one. I see plainly from 
 what I feel upon occasion of the severe, dreadfully 
 severe misfortune that I have met with, that under 
 great afflictions there can be no real consolation but in 
 religion. I have mused and meditated much on what 
 
 c 2
 
 292 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 philosophy, as it is called, could afford in such an 
 exigency, but the amount would be no more than the 
 employment of the mind, and preventing its dwelling 
 without interruption on the loss sustained, the comfort 
 to be drawn from it would be weak and vain ; but the 
 Gospel offers considerations which bear immediately on 
 the source of the evil ; affords matter of consolation in 
 the certainty of another life, and in those promises 
 which meet the yearnings of the distempered soul ; 
 diffuses a calm and quiet resignation to the Divine will, 
 under the pleasing hope of seeing those again in the 
 next world whom we have loved tenderly in this. To 
 me it seems that when this wish is founded on a 
 virtuous object here as that of a parent and a child, the 
 very hope is an argument in its favour, because it is 
 perfectly consistent with infinite benevolence to grant 
 it — and the desire must be universal in every human 
 mind. 
 
 August 1. — Read about half of Sherlock on ' Im- 
 mortality,' but my patience was then quite exhausted ; 
 the verbiage is such that it sickens one, though 
 I approve the doctrine entirely and agree with him 
 in everything. What a loss ! that excellent books for 
 matter should be so written, or rather spun into such 
 endless circumlocutions that time is wasted for want of 
 compression. Bead three or four sermons of Littleton 
 — clear, lucid, and impressive. 
 
 At night a Dane came, recommended by Sir J. 
 Sinclair. Unfortunate to all my feelings. I refuse 
 dining with all my friends, and to be tormented with a 
 trifler who can speak neither French nor English.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 293 
 
 My mind is in a state that cannot bear interruption. 
 I love to mope alone, and reflect on my misery. 
 
 August 2. — Began Scott's ' ' Christian Life,' but 
 Smythies having sent me the sixth volmne of Bishop 
 Newton's - works, containing a dissertation on the 
 ' Intermediate State,' I read it with equal eagerness 
 and satisfaction. It exceeds on that subject all I have 
 yet met with. He is of opinion, in which all agree, that 
 good spirits will know each other ; and probably, from 
 the parable of Lazarus, have some knowledge of what 
 passes on earth. But that is of little consequence in 
 comparison with the most consoling and comfortable 
 idea contained in the first opinion. And what a call is 
 it to strive with earnestness and ardour to arrive at a 
 situation that will recompense us in so great a degree 
 for every evil and sorrow we can meet with in this 
 world. Can I then hope, by dedicating the rest of my 
 life here to God, to join my dear child hereafter, my 
 mother, my other daughter, and my sister ; and should 
 it so please the Almighty in His mercy, my father and 
 brother? Of the females I can have little doubt, or 
 rather none. I know too little of the lives of the others 
 to venture to pronounce. Read also Bishop Newton's 
 dissertation on the Resurrection, general judgment, and 
 final state of man. They are all excellent, and I rather 
 devoured than read them. These books I must buy to 
 read again with more attention. 
 
 ^rd. — The Dane is gone, and therefore I am left to 
 
 ' Th. Scott— the friend of Cowper— born 1747, died 1821, chaplain 
 to the Lock Hospital. 
 
 - Th. Newton, born 1704, died 1782 ; edited Paradise Lost.
 
 294 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 my favourite contemplations. Newton's dissertations 
 are consoling, for they leave me no doubts about that 
 hideous doctrine, the sleep of the soul, which, however 
 it might have been suited for the dead, is dreadful to 
 those they leave behind. For the rest of my life to know 
 that m}^ dear child is in a state of conscious existence, 
 and consequently happy, is the first of comforts ; but 
 to feel the enlivening warmth and light of the sun, 
 thinking that she felt nothing, but slept in the cold 
 grave, would have almost sunk me into it. No ! she 
 lives, and as there is reason to beheve, the departed 
 spirits have some knowledge of what passes here. What 
 a call is it to conduct myself so as to give no pain to 
 her ! Let me imagine myself for ever seen by the 
 spirits of my mother and my child. Let me have a 
 keen feeling of the pain any unworthy action or impure 
 thought would give to them, and of the pleasure they 
 would reap from seeing the reverse ; that I was so 
 living as gave them a hope of my joining them here- 
 after. Let me, if possible, entertain this persuasion till 
 I am convinced of it, I cannot have the thought 
 without being the better man. Oh ! guard me against 
 relapsing into evil negligence, the two certain fruits of 
 pleasure and prosperity. 
 
 What are the friendships of the world ! What 
 consolation, what comfort ! 
 
 A-VTien most wanted it is sure to fail. One has 
 business, another pleasure ; one, a family, another a 
 husband, all have something to render them broken 
 reeds to such as are in want ; and whether the boon 
 be comfort or money, they prove the same to the
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 295 
 
 touchstone. Who have been my friends ? Sjnnonds and 
 Carter are good men, but I have seen them [of late] only 
 once. Who must I name but Ogden, Sherlock, Jortin, 
 Bishop Newton, Butler, Locke, and Clarke ? These have 
 told me how to make a friend not like to fail in the 
 time of need, my God and my Saviour. May I 
 strengthen and confirm that friendship and turn it to 
 be a habit of my life ! And thou, most gentle spirit of 
 my departed child, if it is allowed thee to look down on 
 earth, be my guardian angel and lead me to everlasting 
 life, to join thee to part no more ! 
 
 4th. — Kead three of Bishop Sherlock's sermons and 
 one of Dr. Clarke's, also some passages in his ' Demon- 
 stration of the Truth of Revealed Religion.' 
 
 5th. — Read a very good sermon of Bishop Sherlock 
 on Redemption, the third in fourth volume. Bishop 
 Butler on human ignorance, excellent. This subject, 
 in the books I have yet read, has not been sufficiently 
 treated, it might be made to refute all the infidels, and 
 draw mankind to a more religious life. 
 
 My dear girl's books are come, her unfinished work, 
 her letters, &c. Melancholy employment to unpack 
 and arrange them in her room. If any difference I 
 think of her with more, rather than with less regret ; 
 yet I hope and trust, not without resignation to the 
 Almighty will of the great and good Being whose 
 providence has deprived me of her. I think I feel that 
 this deep regret, this calm sorrow will last my life, and 
 that no events can happen that will ever banish her 
 from my mind. Ranby called and I conversed with 
 him about her till tears would, had I continued it,
 
 296 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 stopped my speaking. I hate and pity those who 
 avoid talking to the afflicted upon the subject which 
 causes their affliction, it argues a Httle trifling mind in 
 one party or the other. 
 
 Eead Bishop Sherlock's ' Dissertation respecting the 
 Sense of the Ancients on the Fall of Man,' which seems 
 to me (who am, however, no judge) a very clear and 
 satisfactory work. He appears to have a singular 
 talent in reconciling seeming difficulties in knotty 
 texts of Scripture, and opens every subject with great 
 clearness and an acute spirit of discrimination. 
 
 I suppose there must be some commonplace book 
 of di\dnity, but I know not whose ; a collection of 
 luminous passages from such an immensity of writings 
 as there are on this most important of all subjects 
 would be very useful ; yet every man should make his 
 own, selecting such topics and observations as come 
 home to his own case and bosom. 
 
 Were I not going now a most uninteresting journey, 
 I would do this for myself. This tour hangs on my 
 mind ; nothing would suit my feelings so well as to stay 
 here in my present melancholy gloom, reading divinity, 
 and endeavouring so steadily to fix my mind on eternity 
 and the hope of joining my dear child, as to work a 
 change in my habits, my Hfe, my conversation, and 
 pursuits ; and to do all that human frailty will permit 
 to reconcile myself to the Almighty. These thoughts, 
 however, I shall try to preserve in spite of a journey. 
 I will take the New Testament and Wilberforce with 
 me, and read a portion every day, and spend the 
 Sundays in a manner I have never done yet in travelling.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 297 
 
 August 7. — To Ely. Called for a moment on Carter, 
 who thinks so highly of Bishop Newton that he intends 
 to buy his works. 
 
 At Ely quite alone, and no resource but in my 
 own melancholy ideas. My first thought was to send 
 to a Mr. Hall, who has hired Tattersall's farm, or 
 Mr. Metcalfe, a minor canon, who has written in the 
 ' Annals of Agriculture ' — but I rejected the scheme 
 and kept to solitude. As soon as I finished dinner 
 I began Mr. Wilberforce for the fourth time, reading 
 with renewed attention. I hear many objections to 
 him, of his being a Presbyterian engrafted on a 
 Methodist, but it is arrant nonsense. My mind goes 
 with him in every word. View the Minster and Trinity 
 chapel, and venerate the piety of former ages that raised 
 such noble edifices in honour of God the Almighty giver 
 and governor of all things. I once thought such build- 
 ings the efforts of superstition, perhaps folly ! How 
 different are my present sentiments ! for what can be 
 more rational than to raise temples of a character that 
 shall impress some idea, however weak, of the sub- 
 limity of that infinite Being who made and pervades 
 all that exists, except His own great creative self ! 
 
 ^th. — Rise at five, write to my friends Dr. Valpy 
 and C. Cole. To Peterborough. Much time for reflec- 
 tion, and it is singular that even while I am depressed 
 with deep melancholy at the loss I have sustained, yet 
 unholy ideas and imaginations will intrude. Is this 
 the devil and his powers of darkness w^hich buffet and 
 beset us ? Is not depravity and sin so inherent in our 
 natures that we are ever liable to these wanderings
 
 298 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 which so disgrace our nature at better moments ? But 
 the conclusion, whatever it be owing to, is clear, that 
 the government of the thoughts is an essential part of 
 our duty, as Johnson has well explained in an admir- 
 able 'Kambler.' Such thoughts, unresisted, seize and 
 take possession of the mind, and they cannot do that 
 without leading to action and all the guilt that may 
 follow. Eepel the first germinating principle of the 
 idea, and the difficulty is not great ; but indulge the 
 pleasing dream and the heart is vitiated, for the 
 imagination is impure. 
 
 [The remainder of the diary, in the same strain, is 
 much too long for insertion. Here are a feio closing 
 se7itences.~\ 
 
 September 2 [in Yorkshire]. — To what is it that I 
 shall return ? My child no more ! To what at London ? 
 Solitary in my lodgings, where am I to send for her 
 whose cheerfulness gilded every scene, and little pleasing 
 ways lent such a charm to render her presence such a 
 comfort to me? All gone — gone for ever! Of that 
 description of feelings what remains ? A blank ! — a 
 desert ! . . . Cried over the hair of my sweet departed 
 Bobbin ! Never more in this world to see thee again ! 
 
 October 15. — I have torn my heart to pieces with 
 looking at my dear child's hair ! Melancholy remains, 
 but how precious when their owner is no more ! T am 
 to see her no more in this world. Gone for ever ! 
 
 Londo7i, November 13. — This day se'nnight I came 
 to town with Mrs. Y. and Mary. I knew it would be 
 a very uncomfortable plan ; but to do as I would be 
 done by made it proper.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 299 
 
 November 26. — I have been a week at Pet worth, an 
 interesting, splendid, gay and cheerful week, and, as too 
 often the case, a vain, frivolous, and impious one. Sir 
 John Sinclair would have me on the Sunday go to 
 Goodwood. Never a serious word, never a soul to 
 church from that house to thank God for the numerous 
 blessings showered down upon it, and the means 
 of good which 60,000^. a year confers. Yet Lord 
 Egremont does all that could be wished as far as 
 humanity, charity, and doing moral benefits can — but 
 no religion. In the chapel, no worship, no hats off 
 but my own — dreadful example to a great family 
 and to his children and to 2,500 people in the 
 town. I talked to Arthur, and strongly recommended 
 to him to attend constantly and to keep himself 
 clear from such a want of piety. He disapproves of 
 it much ; and I pray to God that yet he may not be 
 corrupted by such evil examples, but imbibe a dislike 
 to such want of gratitude. I watched for opportunities 
 of serious remark, but none of effect offered except one 
 observation on Lady Webster's infidelity in religion, 
 when I threw in a word or two. The very virtues of 
 such people do mischief by recommending their irre- 
 ligious example. 
 
 The following letters are selected from those received 
 this year : — 
 
 From Dr. Barney 
 
 ' Chelsea College : March 16, 1797. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — You have applied to a very incom- 
 petent person for political consolation in addressing
 
 300 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 me, an old notorious alarmist who has long seen evils 
 approaching even worse than those which have already 
 arrived. I wish anything had happened to convince 
 me that my mental eyes had been as short-sighted as 
 those in my head. But, alas ! things are going on 
 everywhere from bad to worse. My foolish country- 
 men, nay, worse, the wicked and incurable democrats 
 who inhabit the same island, so far from being cured 
 by the savage cruelties and universal misery brought 
 about in France by the Eevolution and the treatment of 
 other countries which she has conquered and even 
 fraternised with, still long for a revolution here, without 
 even wishing to avert any of the evils which have 
 happened elsewhere, from the diabolical character and 
 principles of her inhabitants ! I have seen that a wish 
 to break the Bank has long been formed, and I even 
 have been advised to get all the cash I could for my 
 notes if I had any ; and the person who advised this 
 measure, who had never been at the Bank before in his 
 life, and was forced to inquire his way thither, had been 
 bullying the harassed clerks to give him cash for a 
 forty-pound note, for no other purpose than to lock it 
 up. Seven millions of guineas were issued for notes in 
 one week ! Of this sum 300,000/., it is said, were for 
 notes presented by the English Santerre. A banker 
 from Norwich had collected notes to the amount of 
 400,000Z., with which he came post to London in 
 the same seraphic hope of breaking the Bank ; but 
 unluckily for his benevolent plan, the further issuing 
 of cash had been stopped the night before his arrival. 
 The favourite Jacobin plan at present is to make this
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 301 
 
 nation and all Europe believe that we are really in a 
 state of bankruptcy, and that the notes now in cir- 
 culation will be soon of as little value as French 
 assignats, reporting every day that they are at a very 
 considerable discount, which God forbid should ever 
 happen. For my own part, I would starve myself to 
 death sooner than buy, even food, by the parting with 
 a bank note for a farthing less value than it has hitherto 
 had. But the poor Duke of Bedford, Mr. Cooke, the 
 dissenting manufacturers, &c., are so distressed for 
 want of cash to pay their workmen, that they are 
 obliged to dismiss them. And this, to be sure, is not 
 done with an intention of throwing all the blame upon 
 Government and making furious rebels of all the 
 persons discharged. Everything is seen and repre- 
 sented in the blackest colours — the French always 
 right and the Administration wrong. For if opposition 
 should ever be obliged to allow the present ministry to 
 be right, why change it ? And down they must pull 
 every person and thing above them, even if, like Samson, 
 they are crushed in the ruins, which I have not the 
 least doubt will be the case if ever the revolution they 
 seem so determined to bring about should happen. 
 
 ' The ballot has fallen upon me to furnish a man and a 
 horse to the Provisional Cavalry,' which has occasioned 
 me much trouble and vexation. The expense, had it 
 been double, I would have paid with alacrity, for the 
 defence of everything dear to honest men, during such 
 
 ' Alluding to the movement suggested by A. Y., and ultimately 
 carried out, of forming regiments of volunteer cavalry, in view of the 
 menacing attitude of France.
 
 302 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 a war and with such enemies ; but the business of 
 recruiting, clothing, accoutring, &c., is so new to men 
 of peace, that they know not how to go to work. Three 
 substitutes that I had engaged have disappointed me, 
 and the horse I have purchased I am not sure will pass 
 muster. Had Government levied a tax of five or ten 
 guineas upon each horse that was kept for pleasure, 
 either in or out of harness, and done the business of 
 raising a certain number of cavalry themselves, it 
 would have been better done, and ladies and super- 
 annuated gentlemen (like my worship) would have 
 escaped infinite plague and vexation. 
 
 ' I am exceedingly sorry that your dear and charming 
 little daughter is not well. 
 
 ' I am, with sincere regard, 
 
 ' My dear Sir, 
 ' Your affectionate Friend, 
 
 ' Charles Burney.' 
 
 From Edmund Burke, Esq., alluding to the projects 
 in Parliament before named for regulating the price of 
 labour. 
 
 ' Bath : May 23, 1797. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I am on the point of leaving Bath, 
 having no further hope of benefit from these waters ; 
 and as soon as I get home (if I should live to get 
 home) should I find the papers transmitted me by 
 your Board I shall send them faithfully to you ; 
 though, to say the truth, I do not think them of 
 very great importance.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 303 
 
 ' My constant opinion was, and is, that all matters 
 relative to labour ought to be left to the conversations 
 of the parties. That the great danger is in Government 
 intermeddling too much. What I should have taken 
 the liberty of addressing to you, had I possessed 
 strength to go through it, would be to illustrate or 
 enforce that principle. 
 
 ' I am extremely sorry that any one in the House 
 of Commons should be found so ignorant and un- 
 advised as to wish to revive the senseless, barbarous, 
 and, in fact, wicked regulations made against free 
 trade in matters of provision which the good sense of 
 late Parliaments had removed. I am the more con- 
 cerned at the measure, as I was myself the person 
 who moved the repeal of the absurd code of statutes 
 against the most useful of all trades, under the invidious 
 names of forestalling and regrating. But, however, I 
 console myself on this point by considering that it is not 
 the only breach by which barbarism is entering upon 
 us. It is, indeed, but a poor consolation, and one 
 taken merely from the balance of misfortunes. 
 
 ' You have titles enough of your own to pass your 
 
 name to posterity, and I am pleased that you have got 
 
 spirit enough to hope that there will be such a thing 
 
 as a civilised posterity to attend to things of this kind. 
 
 ' I have the honour to be, 
 
 ' With very high respect and esteem, 
 
 ' Your most obedient, humble servant, 
 'Edmund Bubke.' 
 
 Mr. Burke died July 7 [note hy A. 7.].
 
 304 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 From John Symonds, Esq., on public affairs, very 
 gloomy, with much condemnation of Mr. Pitt. 
 
 ' St. Edmund's Hill : .June 8, 1797. 
 
 ' At the time, my dear sir, that I received your 
 letter I was travelling over Italy, in order to figure in 
 your " Annals of Agriculture ; " but the state of that 
 country has been so much bouleverse, that my head 
 has been turned in reflecting upon it, as is most 
 probably the case with the greater part of its in- 
 habitants. 
 
 ' You ask me what plan I could propose to save the 
 country. Arm, undoubtedly, as you say ; but how to 
 do it most effectually I pretend not to determine. You 
 justly reprobate volunteering infantry. 
 
 ' Charles Cole tells me you have something in the 
 press upon this subject. To fill the army or navy 
 with defenders or volunteers, is the way to pave the 
 way to our ruin. But I should begin with proposing 
 a scheme which would probably be heard with disdain, 
 and which has been rejected by the King : recall Lord 
 Camden ; appoint Lord Moira, Lord Lieutenant, with 
 full powers to emancipate the Roman Catholics. He 
 is much respected in Ireland as well as in England, for 
 the opinion formed of him from his civil and military 
 knowledge and moral character. I have heard Lord 
 Bishop Douglas, who is no mean estimator of mankind, 
 often say, that he wished he could see Lord Moira one 
 of the Secretaries of State. 
 
 ' Were the Catholics satisfied, Ireland might bid 
 defiance to the French, and, perhaps, some regular
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 305 
 
 infantry might thence be sent to England, which, 
 the Duke of Grafton said lately in the House of Lords, 
 was much wanted here. But it is in vain to speak or 
 write about Ireland. 
 
 ' We govern there by a faction — the Beresfords, 
 Fitzgibbons, and Fosters — whose emoluments, inclu- 
 ding their relations and dependents, fall not short of 
 100,000^. per annum ; some think much more. Now 
 the Polignacs under the old government had not more 
 than 50,000Z. per annum, including a bishopric. This 
 the Duchess of Liancourt one day made out to me 
 upon paper, yet she was willing enough to exaggerate 
 the profits of that family ; especially as the old duchess 
 just before had been cast in a lawsuit with one of 
 them. 
 
 'Yom' idea of applying to Bonaparte pleases me 
 much. He would probably do more towards effecting 
 a peace than a hundred Malmesburys and St. Helens. 
 It will be curious to see what terms Pitt will propose. 
 There seems to be no doubt but that the French will 
 insist on having all the places taken from them ; and 
 probably a restitution of twelve or fourteen ships of 
 the line, and perhaps a sum of money by way of 
 indemnification, for this word was always in the 
 mouth of our Premier. After this, an ample recom- 
 pense to the Dutch and Spaniards, whose interests the 
 French will consider as their own. A fine peace 
 indeed, after so many absurd and haughty declarations 
 of our ministry ! A peace there must be or an in- 
 surrection, if considerable taxes be proposed to con- 
 
 X
 
 306 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOU^'G 
 
 tinue the war. Not that these would be of anj^ avail ; 
 for were the French merely to line their coasts from 
 Ostend to Calais with troops, and do nothing else, 
 their point would be carried. At the very time that a 
 separate peace was made by the Emperor with the 
 French, Mr. Pitt, in the House of Commons, called 
 him " our great and good ally." It was but two days 
 after that the news came of his defection, which every 
 thinking man naturally expected. 
 
 ' Mr. P. seems determined to do dirty jobs to the 
 last ; whilst our enemies are almost at our gates, the 
 subscribers to the loyalty loan must forsooth be 
 rewarded because many of them are his Parliamentary 
 friends. Should you hear your knight open himself 
 on this subject, remind him that a million or a million 
 and a half are wanted to pay the arrears of the Civil 
 List ; that professors, whose stipends are fixed by 
 Acts of Parliament, are in danger of losing the profits of 
 a couple of years from an abominable clause in Burke's 
 Bill. Remind him of a remarkable circumstance in 
 Sully's memoirs. When Henry IV. was in great dis- 
 tress for money it was proposed to him to decline 
 paying any stipends to the professors in the University 
 of Paris. "No," said he, with an honest indignation, 
 " I vdll never consent to that ; retrench the expense 
 of my table instead of touching their emoluments." 
 Such an answer, and such conduct in conformity 
 to it, reflected peculiar honour on a prince who 
 had never been trained up in the study of polite 
 letters
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 307 
 
 ' Carnot ^ cannot be too much commended for 
 ordering yom: agricultural works to be translated and 
 published. It was giving his countrymen a mass of 
 knowledge, founded on experiment not to be procured 
 in their own writers. He showed very good sense in 
 sacrificing party prejudices. Would Pitt have acted 
 thus in his situation '? 
 
 ' I have not read Wilberforce's " Practical View of 
 Christianity," nor am I indeed much solicitous about it, 
 for my faith is not built upon establishments but on 
 the New Testament, which I have considered with as 
 much attention as most of our divines. W. is a strict 
 Calvinist, and is therefore orthodox, for he is supported 
 by our Articles of Keligion. I who think that the 
 Articles on this head are not founded on Scripture, am 
 a heretic, as I take you to be also. It is very observable 
 that the young theologians of Geneva are at this day 
 instructed much more in Ostervald's - Catechism than 
 in Calvin's books. The death of that worthy man and 
 excellent master of Italian, Isola, is an exceedingly 
 great loss to me, for he has managed all my little 
 concerns at Cambridge for twenty years. He can have 
 left nothing for his family but his good example. So 
 respected was he by every one, that when a long illness 
 and his wife's death prevented him from making his 
 usual earnings, and he was unavoidably loaded with 
 heavy debts, they not only raised for him 180^. by private 
 
 ' Carnot, the ' organiser of victory,' grandfather of the late lamented 
 President of the French Republic. Almost alone of the Senate, Carnot 
 refused to sanction the coiqy cVftat of Napoleon, 1799. 
 
 - J. F. Ostervald, Swiss Protestant divine, born 1683, died 1747. All 
 his works have been translated into English. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 subscriptions in the Colleges, but in the following year 
 the University gave him 100/. out of the public chest. 
 I shall be very careful in recommending his successor, 
 for Isola always told me that most of the Italians in 
 England were rascals, and he therefore had no commu- 
 nication with them when they came to Cambridge. I 
 allowed him twenty guineas a year, as few learn Italian. 
 The profits from teaching it are hardly sufficient to 
 maintain one who has a family ; for parents in general 
 are so foolish as not to require of their sons the 
 learning of that language, though their intention is to 
 send them into Italy. 
 
 * Adieu ! You will repent provoking me to write. 
 
 * J. Symonds.' 
 
 From Jeremy Bentham, Esq., on the poor, &c. 
 
 ' Queen Square, Westminster : Sept. 8, 1797. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — It was but the other day that I became 
 master of a complete series of your " Annals of Agricul- 
 ture ; " accept my confession and record my penitence. 
 Having on my return from my long peregrination on the 
 Continent lent to a friend — who had lent to another friend, 
 whom we neither of us could recollect — the twenty-five 
 or thirty numbers which I had taken in before that 
 period, I postponed from time to time the completion 
 of the series in hopes of recovering the commencement 
 of it. When at last shame and necessity got the better 
 of procrastination, what a treasure of information burst 
 upon me. No — so long as power without and with-
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 309 
 
 out shall have left an annual guinea in my pocket 
 
 (blanks are better here than words) not a number of the 
 " Annals " shall ever be wanting to my shelves. Hold 
 — don't take me for a Jacobin now, nor even for a 
 croaker. What I allude to is not any co7nmon burden, 
 such as you land-owners and land-holders grunt under, 
 but my own ten thousand pound tax — my privilegium 
 — a thing as new to English language as it is to English 
 practice — sole and peculiar fruit of the very particular 
 notice with which I have been honoured by . 
 
 * This waits upon you with a proof of a blank pauper 
 population table, framed for the purpose of collecting 
 an account of them in as many parishes as I can. 
 Knowing so well your zeal for all zeal-worthy objects, 
 and mindful of your often experienced kindness, I 
 cannot on this occasion harbour a doubt of your 
 assistance. Is it worth while to give the table the 
 indiscriminate circulation of your "Annals " ? At any 
 rate your editorial Majesty will, I hope, be pleased 
 graciously to grant unto me your royal letters, ^a^ew^ 
 or close, or both, addressed to all, and if need be, 
 singular, your loving subjects my fellow correspon- 
 dents ; charging and exhorting them, each in his 
 parish— and as many other parishes as may be — to fill 
 my tables and send in their contributions. 
 
 'Along with the table you will find a MS. paper, 
 exhibiting the importance of the information I am thus 
 labouring to collect ; you will print it or suppress it as 
 you think best. I also send in MS. a table of cases 
 calling for relief ; a general map of pauper land with 
 all the roads to it. Few, if any, of the projects I have
 
 310 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 seen but what have appeared (the arch-project not 
 excepted) to bear an exclusive — at least a predilective — 
 reference to some of these cases, overlooking or slighting 
 the rest. I send it in the state in which I propose 
 printing it for my own book ; but, in the meantime, if 
 it be worthy the honour of a place in the " Annals," it 
 is altogether at your service. This preparatory insertion 
 will turn to the advantage of the work itself, if any of 
 3^our correspondents (not forgetting their editor) would 
 have the goodness to contribute their remarks to the 
 emendation of it. You will not easily conceive — few 
 heads, at least, but yours are qualified to conceive — 
 the labour it has cost me to bring the two tables to 
 this state. As to the work at large, it will occupy 
 two independent, though connected volumes. Pauper 
 systems compared ; pauper management improved — 
 the last the romance, the Utopia, to which I had once 
 occasion to allude. Komance ? How could it be 
 anything less ? I mean to an author's partial eye. In 
 proportion as a thing is excellent, when established, is 
 it anything but romance, and theory, and speculation, 
 till the touch of the seal or the sceptre has converted it 
 into practice. Distress, at least, distress, the very life 
 and soul of romance, cannot be denied to mine ; for 
 in this short and close-packed specimen already you 
 behold it in all its shapes. Magnanimous president ! 
 accomplished secretary ! ye, too, have your romance. 
 Heaven send you a happy catastrophe and a fettered 
 land "a happy deliverance." Patience! patience! 
 ye too, before you are comforted, must bear to be 
 tormented.
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN 811 
 
 ' Apropos of presidents. The high priest of Ceres, 
 having divined or not divined my recent occupations, 
 has been pleased to send me a mandate in form, 
 smnmoning me to devote myself to this branch of his 
 goddess's service, that the fruit of my labours may 
 be consecrated in her temple at Whitehall ; so that 
 whatever other requisites may fail me, I shall be in no 
 want of auspices. 
 
 ' I fear you will say to yourself that the Observations ' 
 I have sent you are a sad farrago, but your miscellany, 
 how superior soever to others in subject-matter and 
 contents, has this in common with them, that half- 
 formed ideas, so they have but matter in them, are not 
 prohibited from presenting themselves. It is part of 
 the character of your correspondents to have more of 
 substance about them than of for?n ; and of the many 
 recommendations which join in drawing so much good 
 company to your conversazione, one, nor that the least, 
 is the convenience of being admitted to it in boots. 
 Mine (you will say) have hobnails in them ; for, some- 
 how or other, the very idea of the person to whom I am 
 addressing myself has insensibly betrayed me into that 
 sort of playful confidence — that epanchemenf, as I think 
 the French call it — which I have always felt in his 
 company. 
 
 ' Believe me, with the most serious respect, 
 ' Ever yours, 
 
 ' Jeremy Bentham.' 
 
 ' These ' Observations,' above referred to, arc inserted in vol. xxix 
 Annals of Agriculture.
 
 812 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHI'E YOUNG 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 DIAHY AND CORRESPONDENCE, 1798, 1799, 1800 
 
 Assessed taxes — Society — Mr. Pitt and the Board of Agriculture — A 
 foolish joke — Dinners to poor children — Interview with the King — 
 Royal farming — Correspondence — Bradfield — Incidents of home 
 travel — Portrait of a great lady — Correspondence. 
 
 January 9, 1798. — At Petworth. This is the way in 
 which I keep a journal ; had I the abihties of Johnson 
 it might be an excuse, but I am as idle as he without 
 the talents that enabled him to think to good purpose. 
 
 London has passed away till the vacation with- 
 out much to note, yet always something ; for I met 
 many at Mrs. M. Montagu's parties twice a week, 
 whose conversation was interesting. Very few dinners, 
 for the town was empty. Attended divine service at 
 Mr. Cecil's chapel, and ought to have made memoranda. 
 
 The breakfast at Wilberforce's wdth Mr. Serjeant, 
 Hawkins, Brown, Thornton, &c., all members in com- 
 mittee on the assessed taxes.' Miss Griffiths, the friend 
 and mother of my ever dear Bobbin at school, coming to 
 
 ' Assessed taxes. On December 4, 1797, Mr. Pitt introduced a Bill 
 for trebling the amount of assessed taxes. This was again debated in 
 the House of Commons in January 1798, and finally passed. See 
 Hansard's Parliamentary Historij.
 
 DIAEY AND COREESPONDENCE 313 
 
 board with Mrs. Y. ; these and many more articles 
 all passed over, and, above all, the reflections which 
 thronged in my mind on the conclusion of that year 
 which deprived me of my child and tmrned my heart so 
 imperfectly to God Almighty. Without that event how 
 should I have been able to bear the stroke of the taxes, 
 my share of which will I fear be lOOZ. 
 
 Had I been out of debt it would have been com- 
 paratively light, but I am seized about some bills which 
 yet remain, and which, if I pay,' I shall not be able to 
 pay those taxes. I have advertised my cottage and 
 eighty acres of land to let, but no chance of getting 
 such a rent as I know I ought to have to make letting 
 answer. 
 
 I have been here with Lord Egremont above a 
 fortnight. A good deal of rabble, but some better. Lord 
 Spencer, Lord Althorp, Lord Dungarvan, Lord Milton, 
 Lord Stair, Sir John Shelley, Mr. James Feiryman, &c. 
 I shall stay the whole vacation. 
 
 Fehriiary 14. — Another great gap, in which time 
 I was four days with the Duke of Bedford at Woburn, 
 with a strange party, for all in all I think the most 
 strange I have been in for many years. Trevis, the 
 pseudo- Venetian Jew, who came long ago to Eng- 
 land, has run through a great fortune, reduced from 
 200,000/. to 1,200/. a year, having shined with most 
 Satanic light in the annals of gallantry ; Lady Stan- 
 hope, Lady Cadogan, and a hundred more. Strong 
 
 ' In a memoranduni-book of the preceding year occur the following 
 entries: 'Receipts, 90n. ; debts, Dec. 31, 986Z.' Debts seem to have 
 been a burden throughout A. Y.'s long life.
 
 314 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 parts, wits, originality (name evidently omitted here) and 
 at seventy-one sings wonderfully ; Lord Lauderdale, who 
 is a very pleasant, easy, cheerful companion with know- 
 ledge, and so more capable of doing mischief ; Lord 
 Maynard, Johns the parson. Bob Lee, Bligh, &c. The 
 duke has much good sense and clearness of head. 
 
 On my return to town. Lord Carrington applied to 
 me to get a drainer for Mr. Pitt at Holwood. I told 
 him none to be had but from a distance, and at a 
 considerable expense ; that perhaps it was an easy job, 
 and if so his own people could do it if the drains were 
 marked out for them, and I would go and look when 
 nobody there. Next day he came again from Pitt with 
 thanks, and desiring me to go when he was there. 
 
 I went, and examined the land. A hill wet from 
 springs, the cure obvious. So I am to do it for him. 
 He and Lord Auckland and Lord Carrington walked 
 round the place with me, and then returned to a cold 
 dinner, where we debated the Board of Agriculture, 
 and Pitt seemed pleased with my idea of Government 
 hiring the Bishop of Llandaff's house for the Board, 
 and so getting rid of the difficulty of not being able to 
 quit Sir J. Sinclair's without sixteen members agreeing 
 in the affirmative, a stupid statute they made. 
 
 By the first reports of the Board, and a multitude 
 of other expenses equally useless. Sir John ran the 
 Board so much in debt that it became a question of 
 great difficulty how they should be enabled to carry on 
 any business at all. Through a spirit of liberality in 
 many individuals, a subscription was set on foot, and 
 ten guineas apiece by members and honorary members.
 
 DIAEY AND COKRESPONDENCE 315 
 
 which kept them for some time on their legs. The 
 revenue of the Board went entirel}^ to printers, above 
 eighty reports in quarto, with broad margins, having been 
 given away to any who would accept them ; and they 
 were in general so miserably executed, that they brought 
 the institution into contempt. 
 
 While Sir John Sinclair was engaged in this pursuit 
 he thought of nothing but the establishment of his own 
 character, and imagined that his indefatigable exertions, 
 misplaced as they were, gave him a claim to the atten- 
 tion of Government, and, it is said, induced him to ask 
 a peerage. But Mr. Pitt not acceding to the proposition, 
 he next desired to be a Privy Councillor. When this 
 second gentle request failed, he set hard to work to form 
 a party of his gvsti in the House of Commons in oppo- 
 sition to Government, which by degrees completely 
 estranged Mr. Pitt from him ; and he was, by the votes 
 of the official members, turned out of the chair. Lord 
 Carrington taking me to Holwood, we walked about the 
 place for some time before Mr. Pitt came down, ^^^len 
 he arrived, ordering a luncheon, he said he had desired 
 Lord C. to bring me, that he might understand what 
 members of the Board of Agriculture were proper to fill 
 the chair. 
 
 I named Lord Egremont. ' He has been applied 
 to,' rejoined Mr. Pitt, ' and declined it.' I then 
 mentioned Lord Winchilsea ; the same answer was 
 eturned. I named one or two more, but the minister 
 seemed not to relish their appointment. I next said 
 Lord Somerville, who was famous for the attention he 
 had paid to some branches of husbandry. Mr. Pitt's
 
 316 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 reply was, ' He is not quite the thing, but I doubt we 
 must have him,' and the conversation concluded with 
 an apparent determination that Lord S. should be the 
 man. He was accordingly elected ; and I, the same 
 day, received the orders of the Board instantly to look 
 out for a house (because Sir John S. being turned out 
 would no longer volunteer his), which I accordingly did, 
 and fixed upon one in Sackville Street, into which the 
 Board immediately moved their property, and appointed 
 the secretary to reside in the house, with an allowance 
 of one hundred guineas a year for paying the porter, 
 keeping a maid in the house in summer, and finding 
 coals and candles. 
 
 April 8. — A long gap, in which much has happened. 
 The election, and Sir J. Sinclair deposed. The world 
 gives its all to politics, but it was not caused solely by 
 that motive ; his management of the 3,000/. a year was 
 next to throwing it away, and gradually created much 
 disgust ; had his industry been under the direction of a 
 better judgment he would have been an admirable 
 president. I have hired a house for him and myself in 
 Sackville Street. Crag, the clerk, wants an apartment, 
 and I have befriended him with Lord Somerville, the 
 new president, much against my own convenience, for 
 the house is not large enough ; but, do as we would be 
 done by, must be a rule far more obeyed by me in future 
 than formerly, and it is more a convenience to him than 
 an evil to me. It would be easy for me to prevent it, 
 and time has been that I should have taken that part ; 
 but God send me the power to follow better dictates. 
 I have been twice more at Holwood. I have written a
 
 DIAEY AND COREESPONDENCE 317 
 
 new pamphlet, a ' Letter to Wilberforce.' I have worked 
 hard at my Lincoln report, and the election, with the 
 business public and private concerning it, has been on 
 the whole such a worry, that I long for a week or two 
 of privacy and quiet, to render my mind more tranquil ; 
 it seems as if my whole life is to be lost in a bustle. I 
 am now going to Petworth, and within the week to 
 Bradfield ; there I hope to make a momentary retreat, 
 and have time for recollection. I do not suffer anything 
 to distract me on a Sunday, or I should be lost in this 
 hurry, and everything serious driven from my mind. 
 I have anxiety also about my new habitation on another 
 account, which is the doubt whether they will furnish 
 it for me ; if they should not, it will be a most heavy 
 burthen of at least 200/., and an unjust one, elected as 
 I am annually. 
 
 Last Sunday se'nnight a new scene of sorrow and 
 vexation. Arthur sent me a foolish letter^of his written 
 to Lloyd from Dover, by way of a stupid joke, describing 
 an ideal conversation with some of O'Connor's jurymen,' 
 to frighten Lloyd, who sent it to Lofft, and he to 
 Walker, to Erskine, &c. It was read in court at 
 Maidstone, and Lord Egremont told me it had an 
 immense effect, exciting universal indignation. 
 
 The Attorney-General pledged himself to punish 
 it. The Jacobin papers kindly assigned it to Arthur 
 Young, so all believed it to be me. I had a letter 
 contradicting sent to four papers, and have been in 
 
 ' A. O'Connor, concerned with others in an address to the Directory 
 France ; tried for treason at Maidstone, 1798 ; found not guilty. See 
 Annual Register, 1798.
 
 318 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 incessant worry ever since, writing for explanation, 
 employing Gotobed and Garrow, and seeing Lord 
 Egremont often on it. I sent an express to the 
 Attorney-General, with a letter to him, and another 
 to O'Connor's counsel. All agree Lofft to be a base 
 villain, pretending so much friendship for all the family, 
 and keeping the letter ten days in spite of Lloyd 
 demanding it, and never asking any explanation or 
 naming it to Mrs. Y., Mary, or A. I have fretted about 
 this affair and worried myself terribly, and with reasons, 
 for it will be the utter ruin of my son. Possibly a fine 
 of 500/. and two years' imprisonment if he is not able 
 to prove it to be a jest. To avoid being punished 
 as a rascal, he must prove himself the greatest fool in 
 Christendom, which he certainly is, for the letter was 
 unquestionably a humbug. 
 
 June 23rd. — I have had a roasting three weeks 
 languishing for the country ; but, however, not discon- 
 tented, and bringing my mind with some success to 
 submit cheerfully to everything I meet with. Arthur 
 has been in Kent and procured nine or ten affidavits of 
 the jurymen ; those who refuse he never set eyes on 
 till he made the application, so he has cleared himself 
 to me, but whether it will do for the Attorney-General 
 is another question. It is a sad business, and will be 
 very expensive, when I can ill afford it. 
 
 I have been four days at Woburn with Lord 
 Somerville — a very great meeting. The duke desired 
 me to preside at the lower end of the table ; he told 
 me to keep Stone from it. 
 
 I have been thrice at Holwood and conversed with
 
 DIAKY AND COKRESPONDENCE 319 
 
 Mr. Pitt every time, but it is only on farming. No 
 wonder. Eeading Baxter's ' Serious Call to a Holy 
 Life,' which I have done with great pleasure, and 
 have begun it a second time. I think it an admirable 
 performance. Charity and a universal intention to 
 please God in everything are recommended with great 
 ability. 
 
 I have forgotten to add a word about my new 
 habitation. It is an admirable house, and Mrs. Young's 
 only apprehension was the plan of Cragg, the first 
 clerk, having apartments in it; but when it came to be 
 debated, Lord Carrington procured it entirely to me, 
 with an allowance of 901. a year for a porter, maid, 
 coals, &c. Upon the whole it is an arrangement 
 which is equal in all to lOOZ. a year to me, and in 
 comfort, saving me the trouble of thrice a year seeking 
 lodgings, as good as a hundred more. 
 
 I am thankful to God for it, and may He give me 
 His grace not to apply to ill uses the favour of His 
 providence. 
 
 July 14th ! ! ! — This day twelvemonth it pleased 
 God to take to Himself my ever dear and beloved child. 
 In the evening at the Hall, my wife and self, children, 
 and Miss Griffith joined in prayer. 
 
 [The remainder of the diary, chiefly detailing morbid 
 
 religious introspection, is not of sufficient interest to 
 
 include.] 
 
 Notes from Memorandum-hook 
 
 March. — A dinner for fifteen poor children, lis. lOfZ.' 
 Another dinner for thirty-seven children, IG.s. Q>d. 
 
 ' These dinners to poor children were given in memory of Bobbin.
 
 320 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 Another dinner for forty-seven children, 1^. 6.<?. 6d. 
 
 April. — This month seven dinners to about forty- 
 eight children each time. 
 
 May. — Fom: dinners to about forty-eight children 
 each time. 
 
 This year I sold the copjTight of my ' Travels ' for 
 250 guineas. 
 
 April 1799. — In London. I am alone, therefore at 
 peace. I rise at four or five o'clock and go to bed at 
 nine to ten p.m. 
 
 I have no pleasures, and wish for none, saving that 
 comfort which religion gives me ; and the sooner I 
 make it my only pleasure the wiser I shall be. I go 
 to no amusements, and read some Scripture every 
 day ; never lay aside my good books but for business. 
 I have dined out but little, and wish for no more than 
 I have. I get into habits of reading and writing, and 
 don't like to quit them ; privacy, and silence, and 
 retirement suit me, and I am content. New servants, 
 all ; and the cook, a two-handed Yahoo, and cannot 
 boil a potato. No matter, I am passed being troubled 
 at such things, but I like old servants, and can't bear 
 this change. 
 
 May 4 of this year I went to the opera with Mrs. 
 Oakes ; ^ and that amusement which had for so many 
 years been my delight, I met so coldly as to be almost 
 asleep through much of the performance. What a 
 change had taken place in my mind ! This was the 
 last public diversion at which I have been present. 
 I thank the Father of mercies that I have yet 
 
 ' Nee Betsy Plampin.
 
 DIARY AND COREESPONDENCE 321 
 
 retained my attention to religion, that I have read few 
 books but those of devotion, that I Hve very retired 
 without any regret, that I rise at four or five o'clock, 
 and never omit my private devotions, morn and eve, 
 and but rarely family prayer. Thank the Almighty 
 goodness I have almost weaned myself from the 
 world. 
 
 June 4. — The King's birthday. I have been in 
 Kensington Gardens to see the King review 8,000 
 volunteers of London and Westminster. These corps 
 owe their origin I may, without presumption, say to 
 me, and I should in a former part of my life have been 
 full of mortification and envy at the gay and brilliant 
 situation of others, whilst I was a humble spectator 
 lost in the crowd, ' the mob ' as I should once have 
 called them ; but, thank God, I had no such ideas, and 
 am more free from sin of such thoughts than I am from 
 that of entering this note of it. My mind was much 
 occupied in thinking of such multitudes of people of all 
 ranks, all ages, from infancy to decrepitude, gay, lively, 
 and running at the tilt of pleasure, followed by more 
 splendid scenes of courts, balls, dinners and all, all to 
 be in a few years in their graves, their souls in their 
 eternal doom, thoughtless as they may now be. 
 
 I work myself as often as I can, and as much as I 
 can, into meditations on the utter vanity of all such 
 scenes and thence to the inanity. 
 
 July 1. — Wrote Mrs. Oakes an account of my visits 
 to the King's farm. I got Sir J. Banks to ask his 
 leave to see his farm. He gave it readily, and said he 
 would order Frost, his bailiff, to show me everything 
 
 Y
 
 322 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 completely. I wrote, but m}^ letter came, by mistake 
 of the post, after I was there myself ; and as Frost 
 knew the King would like to see me, he went when likely 
 to meet him on his return from a review. The Queen, 
 Prince of Wales, the Princesses, &c., were in two 
 sociables, and the King on horseback, with his train 
 of lords, aides-de-camp, &c. He inquired who I was, 
 and called me to him ; rode up to the Queen, &c., and 
 introduced me. The Queen said it was long since I 
 was at Windsor, &c., not recollecting me at first ; they 
 passed on, and then the King rode with me over his 
 farm for two and a half hours, talking farming, asking 
 questions without number, and waiting for answers, 
 and reasoning upon points he differed in. Explained his 
 system of crops, his reasons, with many observations ; 
 enquired about the Board, the publications of it, the 
 ' Annals,' and asked if I continued to work on my 
 * Elements,' which I have been many years about ; 
 recommended me to compress the sense of quotations 
 in short paragraphs, ' as there are many, Mr. Young, 
 who catch the sense of a short paragraph, that lose the 
 meaning of a long one ; ' said the work would be highly 
 useful. Those who read the two letters of R. R. in the 
 last ' Annals,' written by his Majesty, will see how clearly 
 he expresses himself. He enquired about my farm, 
 grasses, sheep, &c. ; he has himself only 160 lambs from 
 800 ewes. His strong land farm is in admirable order, 
 and the crops all clean and fine. He was very desirous 
 that I should see all, and ordered Frost to carry me to 
 two or three other things next morning. I found fault 
 with his hogs. He said I must not find fault with a
 
 DIAKY AND COERESPONDENCE 323 
 
 present to him ; the Queen was so kind as to give them 
 from Germany, and while the intention was pleasing, 
 we must not examine the object too critically. ' The 
 value of the intention, Mr. Young, is greater than a 
 better breed.' He told me he learned the principles of 
 his farming from my books, and found them very just. 
 Quoted particularly the ' Kural Economy : ' Cattle give 
 manure, and manure corn. • Well understood noio, sir, 
 hut not so well before you lorote.' When I said anything 
 that struck him he turned about to tell it to the nobles 
 that followed. He is the politest of men, keeps his hat 
 off till every one is covered. An officer with a lady in a 
 whisky drew in his horse as he saw the King crossing 
 the road, taking his hat off. The King rode up to him, 
 uncovered, and conversed a little, and afterwards said, ' I 
 think it is Captain Thorp, of such a regiment.' What 
 
 a memory 
 
 Enquired much about the Duke of Bedford's party 
 at Woburn, &c. &c. I forgot three-fourths. He was 
 in high spirits, and looks remarkably well. 
 
 My son this year married Miss Jane Berry, daughter 
 of Edward Berry, Esq. The connection arose from 
 her being at school with my dear Bobbin at Campden 
 House, and afterwards visiting us at Bradfield. 
 
 Selected letters from those received this year : — 
 From Count Rumford on lime-kilns and cement for 
 fire-places, &c. 
 
 ' Brompton Row : Jan. 8, 1799. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — On my return to town last evening 
 from Broadlands I found your letter. I beg you will 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNa 
 
 present my best compliments to Lord Egremont and 
 assm:e his lordship that it would give me very great 
 pleasure to visit Petworth and see the various improve- 
 ments he has, and is, introducing into the neighbour- 
 hood ; but my stay in England will be but short, and, 
 as I have more to do in the meantime than it will be 
 possible for me to execute without being very in- 
 dustrious, I must devote all my time to those occu- 
 pations in which I am engaged. 
 
 * I wish it were in my power to give you any 
 satisfactory information respecting lime-kilns, but I 
 have not yet had leisure to complete the experiments 
 I had projected, and which are necessary in order to 
 enable me to form decided opinions on that subject. 
 The kiln I had constructed at Munich not being well 
 built, and being forced with too intense a fire before 
 the masonry was properly dried, cracked, and burst 
 open from top to bottom, so that no just conclusions 
 can be drawn from the imperfect experiments that 
 were made with it. 
 
 * With regard to the best materials for withstanding 
 the action of intense fire, I believe common fire-bricks, 
 as they are called, to be one of the best. I am just 
 now employing them in the construction of open 
 chimney fire-places, and they seem to answer perfectly 
 well. In laying them I have a cement of clay and 
 brick dust instead of common mortar. 
 
 ' One of the best kinds of cement for resisting the 
 action of fire I ever met with was composed of 
 equal parts of brick dust, quick lime, and iron filings, 
 mixed up with blood. It unites itself firmly to metals
 
 DIAEY AJs'D lOEEESPONDENCE 325 
 
 as to bricks and stones of all kinds, and even the most 
 intense fire seems to have very little effect on it. It 
 may even be made to join metals to stones, or even 
 wood to metals. Our soap boilers in Bavaria use it to 
 join the v^ooden tops of their boilers to their copper 
 bottoms, w^hich it does in so effectual a manner that 
 they are very seldom found to leak. It was from them 
 I learnt the secret of the composition of this most 
 useful cement. I have no doubt but it would be found 
 to answer very well for plastering the backs and 
 covings of open chimney fire-places. I wish you 
 would make a trial. If it should be found to answer 
 it would be a most important discovery, for in that 
 case bricks would certainly be as good, or even better, 
 than fire-stones for constructing fire-places. 
 
 ' I am, dear Sir, with unfeigned regard and esteem, 
 ' Yours most faithfully, 
 
 ' KUMFORD.' 
 
 From the Duke of Grafton 
 
 'Piccadilly: 1799. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I had but just time to cast an eye on 
 Mr. Wilberforce's letter last night, and seeing that the 
 references are so many to texts of Scripture, I must 
 desire you to leave it with me till I can have a good 
 hour's leisure to give it that consideration which every- 
 thing from him must deserve. 
 
 ' I wish Mr. Wilberforce ' and myself were agreed 
 upon all points as we are on the (I fear) hopeless 
 
 ' Referring to a long letter from the great Wilberforce on ' Original 
 Sin.'
 
 326 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 attempts to abolish totallj^ the slave trade. Depend 
 upon it that no one who knows that gentleman so little 
 honours him more than myself ; nor do I impute any 
 opinions or dogmas to him which I have not learnt 
 from his writings. I believe him to be an upright, 
 sincerely pious and beneficent character, treading a road 
 that leads to future happiness, even should he be under 
 great but involuntary errors. Will he say the same of 
 any one of those whom he improperly calls Socinians'? 
 For, though they honour the memory of Socinus, they 
 do not follow his faith ; far from it, for they acknow- 
 ledge no masters on matters of religion but Christ and 
 His Apostles. 
 
 * Yours very faithfully, 
 
 ' Grafton.' 
 
 From Dr. Bu7'ney ' 
 
 ' Dover : Sept. 11, 1799. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — Your letter [arrived] at Quarley after 
 I had left my friend Mr. Cox, and was returned to 
 Chelsea preparing for a journey into Kent. I have 
 been here and hereabouts near three weeks in the 
 thick of all the military bustle of this county. My 
 headquarters are at my friend Mr. Crewe's house in 
 this town, the best it affords, and is taken for three 
 months. Mr. Crewe, being colonel of the Second 
 Royal Cheshire Militia, is quartered at Hythe, but 
 comes over frequently, Mrs. and Miss Crewe being 
 stationed here. The Duke of Portland and Lady Mary 
 
 ' The Letters of Maria Josepha Holroyd give an amusing account 
 of the events here described.
 
 DIAEY AND CORRESPONDENCE 327 
 
 Bentinck came hither on a visit last Thursday, and 
 remained inmates with us till yesterday morning. 
 Being within eight or nine miles of the camp on 
 Barham Downs and seven of Walmer Castle, we have 
 been there several times, have dined twice at Sir 
 Charles Grey's, the commander-in-chief at the camp, 
 and tvdce at Walmer Castle with Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas, 
 and Lady Jane Dundas, who does the honours, and is a 
 most amiable, sweet, and charming woman. Mr. Kyder 
 and Lady Susan have a small house just by the castle, 
 and Mr. Canning is lodged within its walls. The Duke 
 of York was there for several days before he embarked 
 for Holland. We, that is Mrs. and Miss Crewe, with 
 Lady Mary Bentinck, went in one coach, and the Duke 
 of Portland, with your humble servant, in another, 
 at five o'clock on Sunday morning to see the third 
 embarkation launched. The wind was furiously adverse, 
 but it was done with wonderful dexterity, quickness, and 
 cheerfulness, without accident. The Duke of York and 
 Mr. Dundas were on the beach, the ladies were all in 
 tears ; the soldiers in high spirits, and all fun and jollity. 
 We afterwards went to Walmer Castle to breakfast, and 
 as the Duke of York was not to embark till the evening, 
 Mr. Pitt invited Mrs. Crewe and her party to stay and 
 take an early scrambling dinner. This was accepted, 
 and we remained in the castle while the cannon on its 
 ramparts were fired on his Royal Highness entering the 
 launch in sight of a fleet of at least two hundred sail of 
 ships, by which he was saluted ; and we saw the flash 
 of every gun, and heard the report which was brought 
 to us by the raging east wind, forte, fortissimo. It was
 
 328 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF -ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 a glorious sight ! God prosper the expedition, and grant 
 that those brave men who are gone so cheerfully to 
 fight our battles and those of all Europe, may come 
 home with honour and whole bones. The Duke of 
 Portland's youngest son, Lord Charles Bentinck, sailed 
 with the Duke of York, and young Crewe sails to-day 
 with the last embarkation, being lieut. -colonel com- 
 mandant of the Ninth Regiment of Infantry. The 
 hymn to the Emperor and Souvarow's ' march have 
 been sung and played to all these great folks with good 
 effect and applause. Lady Susan Eyder and Miss Crewe 
 sing it admirably, and I join in the chorus. I have 
 obliged all the ladies mentioned above, including Lady 
 Grey, with copies of these compositions ; they are all 
 musicians, and are the personages in the world most 
 deserving of such a favour, and where the granting of it 
 will be of most use. 
 
 ' I congratulate you on the great events of this 
 wonderful campaign, not forgetting the acquisition of 
 the Dutch fleet, which, I am glad to find, is ordered 
 to England. The Duke of Portland received a letter 
 yesterday before he left Dover from his son, who is with 
 Marshal Souvarow (pronounced Souvarofi:), of the battle 
 of Novi, confirming all that the French have told us 
 of the death of their General Joubert, of Moreau's 
 being unhorsed, and all his staff killed, wounded, or 
 prisoners. It has cost the Allies 5,000 men. However, 
 
 ' On November 4, 1794, Souvarow took Warsaw, when 8,000 soldiers 
 and 12,000 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood. 
 See L'histoire ginirale de Lavisse et Ramband, vol. viii. p. 358. It is 
 to be hoped that Dr. Burney was in ignorance of this.
 
 DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE 329 
 
 it seems to put an end to all other fighting and resist- 
 ance by Jacobin armies of Italy. 
 
 ' I intend returning in about ten days, but have 
 a visit of a few days to make on the road to Sir William 
 and Lady Fawcett, at Eltham. 
 ' God bless you. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, 
 
 ' Charles Burney.' 
 
 1800. Bradfield. — I never come to this place 
 without reaping all the pleasure which any place 
 can give me now. It is beautiful and healthy, and is 
 endeared to me by so many recollections, melancholy 
 ones now, alas ! that I feel more here than anywhere 
 else. Here have I lived from my infancy, here my dear 
 mother breathed her last, here was all I knew of a 
 sister, and the church contains the remains of my 
 father, mother, and ever beloved child ! Here, under my 
 window, her little garden — the shrubs and flowers she 
 planted — the willow on the island, her room, her books, 
 her papers. There have I prayed to the Almighty that I 
 might join her in the next world. All that locality can 
 give an interest to in this world is here — sweet Bradfield, 
 to use an epithet of my dear mother fifty years ago at 
 Bath ! — the scene also of many and great sins ; and of 
 none perhaps greater than the black ingratitude of 
 never thanking God with fervency for the blessing of 
 such a spot till misery turned my heart to Him, and 
 oh ! how cold my thanksgivings compared with what 
 I ought to feel ! 
 
 To me it has, however, often been a source of foolish
 
 330 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNa 
 
 ■uneasiness. I have reflected on the increasing taxes 
 and burthens on land and houses in this kingdom as 
 the inevitable cause of ruin to all little estates ; they 
 are gone or fast going in this country, and what hope 
 can I have that this should remain in the posterity 
 of so poor a person as I am ? 
 
 I have preserved it by a life of industry and singular 
 success, or it had gone long ago. But such thoughts 
 are wicked. All is in the hands of the great Pre- 
 server and Disposer of all earthly as well as all other 
 existence. 
 
 How few years are passed since I should have 
 pushed on eagerly to Woburn ! This time twelve- 
 month I dined with the duke on the Sunday. The party 
 not very numerous, but chiefly of rank ; the entertain- 
 ment more splendid than usual there. He expects me 
 to-day, but I have more pleasure in resting, going 
 twice to church and eating a morsel of cold lamb at a 
 very humble inn, than partaking of gaiety and dissipa- 
 tion at a great table which might as well be spread for 
 a company of heathens as English lords and men of 
 fashion. 
 
 In my way from Eoyston to Baldock, passing a 
 village I saw a couple of cottages which seemed very 
 miserable. Alighted therefore and entered one. The 
 woman said she was very unhappy. I enquired why ? 
 Her daughter was now dead in the house. How old ? 
 Thirty-eight. Married to a glazier in London. She had 
 been down with her mother some time for health in a 
 decline, and died two days ago. ' I hope she died a 
 good Christian.' ' I hope so,' replied the woman, who
 
 DIAEY AND COREESPONDENCE 331 
 
 seemed to feel very little. And it is the blessing of God 
 that they do not— they cannot afford to grieve like 
 their betters. It was odd that I should happen to 
 stop and enter a cottage with a corpse in it, but 
 nothing interesting followed. God forbid it should be 
 for want of my sifting and enquiring more — but nothing 
 led to it. The husband was expected soon, and the 
 woman has a son, a miller, who keeps her, a cow, and 
 she had a good pig feeding at the door. She was, 
 however, thankful for the trifle I gave her. 
 
 My adventures increase and have a strange simili- 
 tude. Passing through Millbrook, near Lord Ossory's, 
 some cottages, with corn in their gardens, on the slopes 
 of a narrow sandy vale, caught my eye, but speedily 
 passing it was a second thought to stop the horse 
 and walk down to them. There are thirteen of them, 
 and all inhabited by owners. A hemp weaver, who 
 lives in the first I entered, gave me an account of them 
 all, and amongst the rest he named Underwood's, who 
 had a large family, and was sadly poor. I went to it. 
 Poor indeed ! the cottage almost tumbling down, the 
 wind blowing through it on every side. On a bed, which 
 was hardly good enough for a hog, was the woman very 
 ill and moaning ; she had been lately brought to bed, 
 and her infant was dead in a cradle by the bedside. 
 What a spectacle ! She had four children living ; one, 
 a little girl, was at home, and putting together a few 
 embers on the hearth. My heart sank within me at 
 the sight of so much misery, and so dark, cold, tattered 
 and wretched a room. Merciful God, to take the little 
 child to Himself, rather than leave it existing in such a
 
 332 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 place. What a sight ! I entered another cottage, 
 which was lately built, neat and cheerful, the Widow 
 Scarboro's ; she earns something by washing, but her 
 smoky chimney most uncomfortable. No wonder, with 
 the old broad high fire-place. In the depth of winter 
 the door must be open. I told her how to cure it, but 
 I wished to give her a Kumford grate and see it fixed. 
 Impossible ! and her evils are nothing to poor Under- 
 wood's. 
 
 But how strange yesterday to find a dead woman in 
 a house, and to-day a dead child, and in such an acci- 
 dental manner, as it seems, to enter just these houses. 
 No chance ; the more I see, the more I reflect, the more 
 I am convinced that the providence of the Almighty 
 directs everything, but in a manner utterly incompre- 
 hensible to us ; and it is the more incomprehensible 
 from our paying so very little attention to it. If every 
 one was to be careful to observe all such apparently 
 accidental events, they would have reason to acknow- 
 ledge the hand of Omnipotence. In three days how 
 has what the world calls chance conducted my steps ! 
 
 These poor people know not by what tenure they 
 hold their land ; they say they once belonged to the 
 duke, but that the duke has swopped them away to my 
 lord (Lord Ossory). How little do the great know 
 what they swop and what they receive ! What would 
 be a blessing poured into their hands if they knew 
 how to use it. What a field is here ! How very 
 trifling the repairs to render these poor families warm 
 and comfortable ! Above their gardens on one side 
 there is a waste fern tract now enclosed, from which
 
 DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE 333 
 
 small additions might be given them, yet would en- 
 able them to live from their ground at least much 
 better than at present. What have not great and rich 
 people to answer, for not examining into the situation 
 of their poor neighbours ? 
 
 To Woburn Abbey. Here is wealth and grandeur 
 and worldly greatness ; but I am sick of it as soon as I 
 enter these splendid walls. I had rather be amongst 
 the cottagers at Millbrook had I but the means of aid- 
 ing them. I wall see Lord Ossory, and try to do some- 
 thing for them. 
 
 In these farming tours ' of mine, vain ideas will too 
 often rise in my mind on the importance of my labour 
 to the public good ; and were the improvement of 
 agriculture alone to be considered, I believe little doubt 
 could be entertained. But what is the tendency of all 
 these improvements except to add to the wealth and 
 prosperity of a country that is already under a most 
 heavy responsibility to the Almighty for innumerable 
 temporal blessings ; repaid with the black ingratitude 
 of irreligion, and a general contempt of everything 
 serious or sacred. Carriers' waggons and stage coaches 
 are passing here every hour in open defiance of the laws 
 
 ' Note by A. Y. at close of year's diary : ' In the summer,' in con- 
 sequence of much conversation with Lord Carrington on the importance 
 of enclosures, I proposed to him that I should take a tour expressly for 
 the purpose of ascertaining what the effect had really been in practice. 
 He approved of the idea, and desired me to execute it ; and, in regard 
 to the expense, I told him that if he would allow 100/., I would expend 
 it in travelling, and report to him the country travelled and the enclo- 
 sures examined, and then he might extend or not the undertaking at his 
 pleasure. He approved the plan, and I accordingly employed twenty 
 weeks on the journey.'
 
 334 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 of God and man ; and the Sabbath is the sure day of 
 labour for all travelling gentlemen. What horses are 
 they that rest, that can by any means be made to work ? 
 Our fields are made to smile with cultivation for the 
 profits of men thankless to Heaven. Can such a country 
 continue to be thus blessed '? I fear and dread some 
 terrible reverse, and have the only hope that the prayers 
 of religious men, Methodists as they are called, may be 
 heard, and avert the misfortunes we deserve. It damps 
 all vanity of public good attending such attempts as 
 mine, to think of the use that is made of great wealth. 
 Affiiction and poverty may do something in bringing 
 nations, like individuals, to their senses ; but to increase 
 the wealth that adds to our irreligion and ingratitude, 
 is of a very poor importance indeed, and too question- 
 able to permit one vain thought to be fairly founded. 
 
 July 7. — Breakfasting at Huntingdon from Kim- 
 bolton, after spending just a week with the duke and 
 duchess. It has been so pleasant and agreeable that I 
 am unhinged on quitting them. The duchess pleases 
 me as much or more than any woman I have met these 
 many years. Her character in every worldly respect is 
 most amiable. There is a native ease, simplicity, and 
 naivete of character in her which delights me ; and when 
 I consider the life of the Duchess of Gordon, her mother, 
 the great patroness of every dissipation, I am amazed 
 at this secluded young duchess, who never goes to 
 London, loves a retired hfe, and is quite contented on 
 a fortune very moderate for the rank of her husband. 
 She gave me her whole history, from going one summer 
 for some weeks to drink goat's whe}^ on the mountains
 
 BIXRY AND CORRESPONDENCE 335 
 
 many miles beyond Gordon Castle, and running up and 
 down the hills bare-footed, driving down the goats and 
 milking them ; and being delighted AAath the place and 
 the life, though no human being within many miles 
 except the family and an old woman of the solitary 
 house. This was the case of all the girls ; she never 
 went to school, and laid in a fine stock of health, and 
 with it a sweetness of temper and simplicity of character 
 which, joined with an excellent understanding, con- 
 tributed so much to form her as she is at present, 
 calculated to be a blessing to her husband. She loves 
 him, and behaves with a most exemplary and un- 
 exampled patience and mildness under his connection 
 
 with Mrs. . I like her greatly,' and wish I could 
 
 add that she was religious. She goes to church often, 
 she says, and brings her four lovely children up to 
 attend it ; but I see she has no sense or feeling of real 
 religion, which I spoke of repeatedly, and earnestly 
 recommended. The next time they come to Culford 
 they both promised to come and see me, and will do it 
 I have no doubt. The spectacle in this age of seeing 
 a very plain table, a plain unaffected way of living, and 
 everything about them modest and moderate in scale, 
 very little company, and never at London, yet all cheer- 
 fulness and content, even under the above circumstance, 
 speaks a good heart and an amiable temper, as much 
 
 ' In the Annals of Agrictilture, vol. xxxv. p. 432, occurs the follow- 
 ing : ' If a farming traveller comes to Kimbolton, and forgets its 
 mistress, may his sheep rot and crops blight 1 A youog duchess, ever 
 in the country, loving it, and free from a wish for London a character 
 that, if I was to give my pen scope, it would run wild on such a sub- 
 ject.'
 
 336 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 as such can be good with the Almighty coming in for 
 so poor a share of its attentions. I do and will pray 
 to God that He will give her His grace to change in this 
 respect, and then she will be a pattern for her sex. 
 
 July 7. — To Huntingdon, St. Ives, and Holywell, 
 at the Eeverend Mr. Hutchinson's, who was long at 
 Kimbolton, and had livings given to him by the 
 late duke ; [has] four stout, well-looking, unmarried 
 daughters, that have been marriageable some years. 
 A common spectacle, and everywhere from the same 
 cause : the fornication of men with the abandoned 
 of the sex robs thousands of such virtuous and good 
 girls of husbands. The more I reflect, the more I see 
 the reason of God's wrath and denunciations against 
 this vice in Scripture, however natural it is, and how- 
 ever powerful the temptation. The more the temptation 
 the more the wickedness to throw so many into it, by 
 depriving those of husbands to whom God has given 
 the right, but of which the vice of man deprives them. 
 Every man would have his wife, and every woman her 
 husband, were it not for whores and whoremongers. 
 Christianity is in everything consistent with reason, 
 morals, and the religion of nature. 
 
 At St. Ives [met] a drunken beast, a doctor of divi- 
 nity, is intoxicated every day ; drunk about the streets ; 
 introduced himself to me, and breathed like a puncheon 
 of rum in my face. 
 
 Sunday, lOth : Downham. — I have had a busy week 
 and gained a great variety of good intelligence ; but what 
 is it all but vanity and vexation of spirit if examined 
 with view of a superior nature ! However, it is my
 
 DIAEY AND CORRESPONDENCE 337 
 
 undoubted duty to do my best, and I must approve upon 
 the whole of exerting as much industry for the Board 
 as ever I did upon my own account. My employment 
 is not only lawful, but useful ; God grant me to render 
 it as much so to the poor as circumstances will permit. 
 In this week I have been at Wing's at Thorney Abbey. 
 A party of ladies [here], Mrs. Ansel of Ormsby in 
 Lincolnshire and two daughters. They attacked me, 
 but with politeness, on my rabbit article in the Lincoln 
 report. I found from their conversation on Wilberforce 
 and H. More that they are good Christians, so they 
 might say anything ; but we parted very good friends. 
 At March : Reverend Mr. Jobson and a vulgar 
 steward, a prating but a useful fellow, Wandby, dined 
 with me. 
 
 At Downham : Lemon, Dashwood, and a poor fen 
 man Talbot. I have gone on well for the object of 
 my journey ; would that I went on as well in the great 
 journey to the next world ! At church twice ; Mr. 
 Dashwood in his sermon spoke very properly on a topic 
 which I have often thought should be inveighed upon 
 vigorously : the great indecency of people sitting when 
 they should kneel, which is now everywhere so com- 
 mon ; but in the afternoon a better congregation and 
 no sermon ! For a clergyman to have an audience 
 collected ready to hear him and yet quit the church 
 without preaching, how very lukewarm he must be 
 in care of souls who can bring himself without 
 violence to such a conduct ! Is this the way with 
 Methodists as they are called ? God forbid ! With a 
 
 z
 
 338 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 church thus filled as that of England is, who can 
 wonder at Sectaries increasing ? All is poor work when 
 men are not in earnest — when they are not as animated 
 and eager in their sacred calling as others are in their 
 business and shops. A parson should always think : 
 what would St. Paul do on this occasion ? 
 
 Su7iday, August 3. — Dined last Tuesday with the 
 Grand Jury at Cambridge, and in the afternoon Lord 
 Hardwicke took me with him to Wimpole. On the 
 Thursday, a great public day, seventy-three at dinner, 
 turtle, venison, and everything that could be. A Lord 
 Lieutenant's gala which has not been these four years. 
 Lady Cotton, Sir Wm. Eowley's sister, there all the 
 week, and a Miss Coburn. Lady Margaret Fordyce 
 has uncommon talents, and reading and languages, 
 French, Italian and German, but I mistake if she is not 
 a bit of a fury when she has a mind. I don't like her 
 countenance. Lady H. pleases me better. Lord H. 
 is very clever, has very good parts and a clear head, a 
 man of business. I was pleased to find that he went 
 twice to church, and read a long prayer at night to all 
 the family, taken from the Liturgy. I shall be here a 
 week, and have idled none of it away, but beat the 
 country well for enclosures. I have not, however, 
 broken my resolution of passing Sunday alone without 
 being [misled], for even in such a family I had a farming 
 expedition to the next parish, and conversation is never 
 religious — I hope I shall do it no more. 
 
 Night. — Lord Hardwicke had all the family together, 
 and read a long prayer taken from the Liturgy, from 
 almost every part of it. I am glad to find a great Lord
 
 DIAEY AND COEEESPONDENCE 339 
 
 who is not ashamed of praying to God. May there be 
 many such ! 
 
 4:th. — I left Wimpole, and the 9th came to Brad- 
 field after a journey of eight weeks, thanks to the 
 Almighty, in health and safety. There passed a week, 
 staying two Sundays. Mrs. Y. in great health, and 
 when that is the case in too much irritation — God for- 
 give her — life is a scene of worrying, time trifled with, 
 a book never looked in, quarrels and irritation never 
 subsiding. My daughter and daughter-in-law reading 
 cart loads of novels. AVhile at Bradfield I received from 
 Sir J. Banks, confidentially, many enquiries about the 
 means of encouraging the culture of hemp ; they are 
 therefore apprehensive of a war with Eussia. At the 
 time of the Russian armament I was consulted on the 
 same subject by Lord Liverpool, but they do nothing 
 except on the spur of the moment, and then never effec- 
 tually. Heaven avert more wars, those scourges of 
 humanity ! This first week of my second journey ' I have 
 laboured very hard in my enquiries, and travelled many 
 miles on bad roads, not finishing the day till six in the 
 evening, and then dining and having much writing. 
 Such a life I should earnestly wish to avoid if I had a 
 home tolerably comfortable, but mine is so far from 
 that description in almost every respect that I submit 
 the better to being ever in harness. It is the will of 
 God, and my duty is to submit with cheerfulness. 
 
 October 6th : Hounsloio. — Found near twenty letters 
 at the post-office, and, among the rest, two from Parker 
 of Ripon, attorney to Sir Cecil Wray, Kilvington, and 
 
 ' Full accounts of these tours are given in the Annals of Agriculture. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Allanson, to inform he had orders to hold me to bail on 
 my bond to them on buying Knaresboro' Forest, as 
 Abbey of Northampton has not paid one shilling rent 
 or interest. This is a fine affair ; it is true there is land 
 security for the 4,000^. of double the value, but who 
 am I to get to bail me ? I fear this is the hand of God 
 working against me, and that He means me chastisement. 
 The Lord's will be done ! I shall pray earnestly to be 
 spared, but if it is His will, be it done, and may He 
 grant me resignation, patience, and submission to His 
 correction. It comes heavy at the moment, for I was 
 much injured at Enfield by coffee out of copper, as I 
 suppose, with a violent purging colic and vomiting, 
 and left by it in a state of great debility of body ; this 
 stroke of fresh anxiety cuts therefore. May God be 
 appeased and spare me the affliction. 
 
 Last Sunday I read much in Hale's ' Contempla- 
 tions : Moral and Divine,' in which the Providence of 
 God is treated more to my mind than in any other book 
 I have read. I have derived on various occasions, as 
 well as the present, much consolation from that most 
 excellent work, which I now earnestlj^ recommend to 
 my children, and hope if they should ever read these 
 words, they will think of their father and follow his 
 advice to make that great lawyer's book their constant 
 companion. 
 
 On the close of this century it may not be improper 
 to look back through the period of my own recollections 
 in order to reflect on some eminent names that may 
 be mentioned as forming the principal constellation of 
 talents which have distinguished the period ; and the
 
 DIAEY AND COREESPONDENCE 341 
 
 more readily because I have had the honour of con- 
 versing with most of them, and being well known to 
 several. In minuting such a list I may name the 
 following, viz.: Burke, Pitt, Fox, Johnson, Keynolds, 
 Barry, Burney, Miss Burney, H. More, Wilberforce, 
 Soame. 
 
 The following are the selection of this year's 
 letters : — 
 
 From Jeremy Bentham, Esq., queries sent from the 
 Treasury to the Board of Agriculture 
 
 ' Queen's Square Place, Westminster ; June 14, 1800. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — -Underneath is a question, which I have 
 just been calling in Sackville Street to beg the favour 
 of your answer to, for my oicn information. It is in 
 contemplation to make the purport of it the subject of 
 a reference to the Board of Agriculture from the 
 Treasury. The occasion seemed to be of a nature 
 particularly favourable to the enabling the public to 
 avail itself of the services of the Board, and may 
 perhaps have the effect of placing the utility of that 
 Institution in a new and additional point of view ; 
 while the dignity of its members, and the manner in 
 which it is composed, will give such a title to public 
 confidence, in respect of the grand point of superiority 
 to all personal considerations, as would in vain be looked 
 for in any other quarter capable of being applied to for 
 such a purpose. In this light I have just been men- 
 tioning the matter to Mr. Nepean, who entered so 
 thoroughly into it as to say he would himself propose it 
 to the Treasury to make such reference.
 
 342 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ART HUE YOUNG 
 
 ' On enquiring I had the mortification of learning 
 that the Board had adjourned to some day in November : 
 but would there be no such thing as the calling an 
 extra meeting, if not to the Board at large, of a Com- 
 mittee for the purpose of receiving a reference from 
 such a quarter, and making a Eeport ? If not, possibly 
 the opinion of the Secretary might be accepted of as 
 the only obtainable succedaneum to the opinion of the 
 Board ; for where else could any other equally compe- 
 tent opinion be obtained ? But howsoever the matter 
 may stand with regard to the Board and Mr. Secretary, 
 I hope Mr. Young will not refuse an old correspondent 
 the favour of an answer for his own guidance, and that 
 as speedy as possible ; for it is for this answer that I 
 wait to enable me to fill up a blank with figures, the 
 propriety of which is what is proposed as above to be 
 made the subject of reference to the Board. If you are 
 unable to guess my reason for interfering in the business, 
 so much the better, but if you have your conjectures, all 
 I can do is to beg (which I do with the utmost sincerity) 
 that you would forbear letting them find their way, 
 directly or indirectly, to any person to whose lot it may 
 fall to concur in making the Beport. It was at Mr. 
 Nepean's express recommendation that I called in 
 Sackville Street for the purpose of conversing with you 
 in person : but, if your absence be not fatal to the 
 business, I shall be much better pleased with the 
 opportunity of transacting it in this manner without 
 any other communication than what will show itself in 
 black and white. I am not swre but the Eeport from 
 the Board might be waited for without much incon-
 
 DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE 343 
 
 venience till their regular time of reassembling : but 
 till Mr. Young's answer is obtained, or is known to be 
 unobtainable, everything is at a stand. And a business 
 in which the public has an interest of no inconsiderable 
 magnitude, and for the conclusion of which all parties 
 are impatient, sleeps, and, in short, if it does not come 
 at farthest before this week is at an end, the hopes 
 entertained of an answer from a quarter thus respect- 
 able must be deserted. But these matters are so 
 perfectly A.B.C. to Mr. Young that I am sanguine 
 enough to hope, if not for a definitive solution, at least 
 for an answer with an approximation, and announcing 
 a definitive solution in a few days, by return of post. 
 
 ' I am, dear Sir, with all respect, 
 
 ' Your faithful humble servant, 
 
 ' Jekemy Bentham. 
 
 ' Now for my question — A sum having been allot- 
 ted in March, 1793, for the maintenance of a certain 
 number of persons, of the lowest rank of life, in pro- 
 visions, clothing, bedding, washing, firing, and light- 
 ing, how much, if anything, per cent, ought to be 
 the additional allowance made at present in considera- 
 tion of the intervening rise of prices ? The calculation 
 to be grounded not on the prices of a particularly bad 
 year (such as the present), but on the probable average 
 of a future term — say of twelve years. 
 
 * P.S. — Kelative to the " Annals " — I have got a tit- 
 bit for your " Dragon " (the name Dr. Hawksworth 
 used to give his magazine) , some facts which to me are 
 as new as they are interesting, relative to the effect of
 
 344 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 the rise of prices on the wages of the self-maintaining 
 labourers in agriculture, and the mode of provision for 
 the burthensome. The author, a very intelligent and 
 respectable clergyman, Mr, North, Eector of Ashdon in 
 Essex. They are contained in two or three letters : ^ 
 the moral of them appears to lean to two practical 
 results, both of them I believe as alien to your notions 
 as to mine, viz. rating wages and restricting the size 
 of farms. At the same time what they indicate is 
 certainly a disease, the mischief of which, however, 
 would, I am inclined to think, be much exceeded by 
 that of the least mischievous of the above two remedies. 
 But if capable of an answer, they are, at the same time, 
 highly deser\dng of one ; and this not only on account 
 of the facts themselves, but on account of the good 
 sense as well as candour with which they are delivered. 
 
 'J. B.' 
 
 From J. Syrtionds, Esq., to the Speaker of the House 
 of Commons, dec. 
 
 ' Euston : November 30, 1800. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I came hither on Friday and shall 
 go home next Saturday. I hear there are three pam- 
 phlets lately published that command much attention — 
 Lord Sheffield's,- Sir Thomas Sturton's, and " Candid 
 Enquiries," etc. When does your Board intend to 
 enter the lists? The Duke says it has shown him 
 
 ' These letters are inserted in the Annals of Agriculture, vol. xxxv. 
 p. 459. 
 
 ^ Lord Sheffield published Remarks on the Deficiency of Grain 
 1799-1800, and Observations on tlie Exportation of Wool from Great 
 Britain to Ireland, 1800.
 
 DIAEY AND COEEESPONDENCE 345 
 
 great politeness by the attention it has paid to a 
 proposal of his. If you have not got " Islington on 
 ForestalHng," &c. you should buy it, for several sta- 
 tutes, absurd as they are, you vnll find set forth 
 clearly and methodically — I should not properly say 
 clearly (but this is no fault of the editor) , for we do not 
 know what statutes may be said to be declaratory of 
 the common law, or not. Did you not rejoice w4th 
 me that Sheridan animadverted on those judges who 
 had thundered their anathemas against forestallers, &c. ? 
 I am persuaded that some of the riots owed their origin 
 to the intemperate language so extra-judicially used. I 
 was sorry to see the turn which affairs took upon the 
 Keport of the Committee. Had Pitt been silent about 
 the Jacobins, and had your friend Wilberforce abstained 
 from abusing Grey's connections and Sir Francis 
 Burdett's speech, there would probably have been a 
 great unanimity. The more Wilberforce endeavoured 
 to exculpate himself, the deeper he seemed to plunge. 
 He was well advised by Sir F. B., who seldom 
 harangues with any propriety, " to think more, and 
 speak less." 
 
 ' When I mentioned agricultural books I ought not 
 to have appeared insensible to the pleasure I received 
 from perusing the greater part of Burke's pamphlet, 
 very lately published by Dr. Lawrence. You, I find, 
 make there a distinguished figure in the foreground. 
 Do you approve of what Burke says about the dis- 
 tilleries ? 
 
 ' A few minutes before I came hither on Friday a 
 very melancholy event took place. Winterton, the
 
 346 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 Groom of the Chambers, had been seen walking by the 
 side of the river near the mill, not far from the house, and 
 was never heard of afterwards till his body was found 
 in the river. The Coroner is expected to-day, and he 
 will probably instruct the jury to bring in their verdict, 
 " lunacy," as some of the servants had observed in him 
 marks of insanity a few days preceding. 
 
 ' If you can spare five minutes from the service you 
 pay to the Board and to the public, favour me with a 
 few lines. You live now more with poHticians than 
 vdth farmers. 
 
 ' "What will be the result of our breaking with the 
 Emperor of Eussia, whose conduct Mr. Pitt truly calls 
 " strange versatility and caprice " ? 
 
 ' Tell me a good deal, for the Duke has no regular 
 correspondent in Town now that Stonehewer is here. 
 
 ' I was with you at Bradfield when Buonaparte's 
 first offers for a peace were published. 
 
 'You said you thought the Ministry would pay 
 attention to them, and do you think that, upon the 
 whole, we can make as good a peace as them, the 
 French having been almost driven out of Italy ? 
 ' Adieu. 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 'J. Symonds.'
 
 347 
 
 CHAPTEK XIV 
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED, 1801-1803 
 
 Public affairs and prophecy — The divining rod— The appropriation of 
 waste lauds — The word ' meanness ' defined — South's sermons — 
 Projected theological compendia — Correspondence — JournaUsing to 
 ' my friend ' — Anecdote of Dean Milner and Pitt— Death of the Duke 
 of Bedford — Napoleon and Protestantism. 
 
 March 20. — It is in vain to complain of gaps ; if I 
 had but attention enough to write only two lines every 
 day I should have hope of going on. I have been 
 thinking more seriously of the Journal, and of convert- 
 ing it to use as a memento of the progress I make in 
 the only business worth real attention — m}^ salvation 
 through the merits of the Blessed Saviour. For this 
 purpose I must fix on some hour of the day to be 
 regular at it, and, if I hold my resolution, it shall be 
 immediately after my prayers in the morning, being 
 always up at 4 a.m. and sometimes at 3 a.m. I am 
 then sure to be uninterrupted ; positively I will begin 
 to-morrow morning. 
 
 21st. — Dined yesterday with Lord Somerville. I 
 did not like the day. Duke of Montrose, Duke of Athol, 
 and Lord Rossraore sent excuses, but the INIarquis of 
 Abercorn, Lord Dalkeith, Lord Villiers, Lord Bar- 
 rington, Mr. McDougal, Mr. Baird, and two Scotch
 
 348 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AUTHUE YOUNG 
 
 members were there, the last but one a hard-headed, 
 sensible man. 
 
 Much conversation, particularly farming. This 
 morning Sir A. St. John Mildmay called to have my 
 opinion of a Bill he is now bringing into Parliament to 
 enable the clergy to give leases of their tithes beyond 
 the term of their lives. The Archbishop has not nega- 
 tived it, but such a Bill can no more pass than the 
 abolition of tithes ; it is open to such frauds that 
 perhaps it ought not to pass. 
 
 My chief misfortune in having little society with 
 well-disposed minds : I know few except Wilberforce 
 and Cecil ; the latter I rarely see, and W. is so full of 
 business that I might nearly as well be unknown to 
 him. I will urge him to form a Society to meet once a 
 week for conversation merely on religion. 
 
 2%id, Sunday. — To be eager and alert in rising at 
 4 A.M. for all my secular employments and sluggish on 
 the Lord's Day, when, if I rise, it must be to His 
 worship, seemed long ago a snare of Satan, which, 
 blessed be God, I have resisted. I was yesterday at the 
 Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, the 
 Bishop of Durham in the chair ; it is an excellent 
 institution, and may call down the blessing of God — 
 may that Being grant them his grace to do good from 
 right motives ! With the Duke of Bedford on the 
 Smithfield Society, and the whole day full of business, 
 which, on the Sabbath, I banish as much as I can from 
 my mind. In the evening my son and daughter only 
 at home, and therefore I got an hour's religious con- 
 versation with them on the times and the Prophecies.
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 349 
 
 I have been too negligent of improving such oppor- 
 tunities, but the tremendous moment in which we Hve, 
 so lately having seen the country without King, with- 
 out minister, with a famine, and seven wars ! If it be 
 not a moment to call people to a serious recollection, 
 nothing can ever do it. 
 
 So near the expiration of the 1,260 years of Daniel 
 and St. John ; the Turkish Empire on the point of 
 destruction ; a strange and unthought-of establishment 
 in Egypt, a country that is to have much to do in the 
 return of the Jews — ourselves in India, they may have 
 some unknown relation to that phial to be poured out 
 on the Euphrates to make way for the Kings of the 
 East — altogether combine strangely to give suspicion 
 that we are on the eve of some great events which are 
 to usher in the final consummation of all things, and 
 consequently the fall of the ten Kings of Europe. The 
 times are truly awful, and demand such piety and re- 
 signation as no other period of modern history even 
 approached to. 
 
 23rd. — At the Lock yesterday. Scott is now my 
 favourite preacher, and I have heard him ever since I 
 came to Town with great pleasure and attention in spite 
 of a very bad manner. His matter is most excellent. 
 Received the Sacrament. 
 
 24^7i.— Called yesterday on Mr. and Mrs. Montagu 
 in their great house. It is said he has just lost a coal pit 
 that was worth 6,000^. or 1,0001. a year ; I had a card for 
 her Monday parties, and not having been, I apologised. 
 I must now and then go after Easter. But all company 
 of the sort is flat to me. I have just made up the
 
 350 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 annual account for 1800, and the loss upon the year is 
 22Z. ; this meeting a tax on paper which will cost 48Z. a 
 year is alarming. I had entertained many vain hopes 
 that the work after so many years' continuance would 
 have stood its ground, but I know not what to think. 
 Now I must print only six instead of seven sheets, and 
 try so for another year. If I lose then, I must give up 
 the work, much as it will hurt me. The ' Agricultural and 
 Conomercial Magazine ' and the ' Farmers' Magazine,' 
 which approach more to the nature of newspapers, 
 and which have contained hardly one paper of real 
 importance, have been selling well ; such is the world, 
 its judgment and discernment ! 
 
 IQtli. — Yesterday the Board proceeded to Hyde Park 
 in a body to see the experiments of Captain Hoar on 
 the Virgula divina. He, many years ago, saw Lady 
 Milbank's surprising faculty of discovering springs, and 
 trying, found that he had it himself. He is recommended 
 to the Board by Mr. Lascelles, member for Yorkshire. 
 
 I found from the conductor of the waterworks at 
 the reservoir then at w^ork, that the twig in Mr. 
 Hoar's hand when he crossed them turned up in a 
 surprising manner. He seemed, in the opinion of Sir 
 Joseph Banks, to fail once, but in the four trials I 
 watched, and in which I know he could not be ac- 
 quainted with the direction of the pipes, he succeeded 
 completely. Next Tuesday another trial. 
 
 To-morrow will be published in the ' Annals ' the first 
 parts of my essay on applying waste lands to the better 
 support of the poor. I prepared it some time ago for 
 the Board, as it was collected in my last smnmer's
 
 DIAKY CONTINUED 351 
 
 journey ; I read it to a cormnittee — Lord Carrington, 
 Sir C. Willoughbj' and Mr. Millington — who condemned 
 it, and, after waiting a month, Lord C. told me I might 
 do what I pleased with it for myself, but not print it as 
 a work for the Board; so I altered the expressions 
 which referred to the body, and sent it to the 'Annals.' 
 I prayed earnestly to God on and since the journey for 
 His blessing on my endeavours to serve the poor, and to 
 influence the minds of people to accept it ; but for the 
 wisest reasons certainly He has thought proper not to 
 do this, and for the same reasons probably it will be 
 printed without effect. I think it, however, my duty 
 to Him to do all I possibly can. Such events and cir- 
 cumstances I am well persuaded are entirely in His 
 Divine management, and that we are mere instrmnents 
 in His hands. Whether I print or not is a matter wholly 
 unimportant, but the use made of it is in the hands of 
 the Almighty alone. I am well persuaded that this is 
 the only possible means of saving the nation from the 
 ruin fast coming on by the misery of the poor and the 
 alarming ruin of rates. God's will be done ! 
 
 29^/i. — Yesterday at the Farmers' Club. I have little 
 relish of these meetings, unless given to farming con- 
 versation, and this was nothing but wrangling about 
 the disposition of money. Sunday before Easter. — 
 Company and talk, eating and wine ; sitting up late are 
 ill preparations for the Sabbath. 
 
 31s^. — The Duke of Bedford and Lord Winchilsea 
 at the Club ; filled up vacancies and settled the 
 premiums. The Board greatly attended yesterday, 
 and adjourned for the holidays.
 
 352 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 Captain Hoar is turned over to Lord Egremont, of 
 whom the Bishop of Durham said that he possessed of 
 all the men almost that he ever knew the clearest head 
 and most penetrating understanding. I asked Lord 
 Carrington to employ Arthur while I am absent ; he 
 said it was mean to make him a clerk — but everything 
 is wrong that is proposed to this man, even the things 
 which, let alone, he would propose himself. 
 
 Honest industry in a lawful employment cannot 
 be mean, especially in an employment that he likes. 
 This is one of the world's prejudices, and rotten like all 
 the rest. 
 
 April 4. — At Bradfield. The pleasure of coming 
 into the country from such a place as London is great 
 and pure. The freshness and sweetness of the air, the 
 quiet and stillness, the sunshine unclouded by smoke, 
 the singing of the birds, the verdure of the fields, 
 the budding out of vegetation, altogether is charming. 
 
 I have only an old woman who keeps the house in 
 our absence, and never was so attended before ; but no 
 matter — I am quiet, peaceful, and living economically, 
 and shall, I hope, be very well contented. Divine service 
 was worse done than anything ; Sharpe, who is past 
 everything, preaches and reads worse than any human 
 being ; this is lamentable. That point is the glory of 
 London ; one can find churches where our attention 
 is commanded by instruction. 
 
 I never saw the wheat look better, thanks to God ! 
 My farm is the source of disquiet as well as pleasure — 
 such bailiffs as I must keep execute everything badly, 
 except just what they have always been used to ; and
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 353 
 
 with great expenses there are always many things sadly 
 neglected. With such absences as I am forced to, this 
 must be the case. 
 
 I have read Barrow's sermons chiefly since I came 
 down. That on Good Friday excellent, on Whit 
 Sunday capital, and on the prophecies of the Messiah 
 such as would convince an infidel, were not infidelity 
 true hardness of heart. 
 
 bth. — At the Sacrament, none but Green and his 
 wife, and the clerk and his wife. How much have the 
 clergy to answer for ! Beading Barrow and South's 
 sermons, ' The Image of God in the Creation,' which 
 is full of wit. Barrow is a most powerful writer, he 
 pours out a torrent of matter, a stream of mind, as 
 Johnson said of Burke ; an amazing flow of conception 
 and of expression, forcible and varied ; a rich command 
 of language, and such fertility that one of his sermons 
 would make ten modem ones. 
 
 The life I am getting into here of walking and 
 reading is such a contrast to that at London as to be a 
 most pleasant change and recreation to my soul and 
 body. 
 
 From January 20th I had been so loaded with busi- 
 ness of the requisitions from the Committees of Lords 
 and Commons, and reading 360 essays, that I was 
 employed every day from morn to dinner. I rose at 
 4 A.M. regularly, sometimes sooner, even at 3 a.m., and 
 neglected my ' Elements ' ' entirely on this account. All 
 was for the Board, and not free from anxiety. Here I 
 shall have a fortnight's refreshment and relaxation, 
 
 • The Elements of Agriculture. 
 
 A A
 
 354 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 thanks to the Almighty for it, and that He blesses me 
 with health to enjoy it. 
 
 1th. — Yesterday at 2 o'clock I walked to Bury, for 
 I have neither horse nor chaise to go in or on. Dined 
 with my friend ^ alone. I had much talk, and tried 
 hard to impress her with good religious notions, but I 
 fear in vain ; she will not be converted but by mis- 
 fortune and misery, her easy prosperous situation will 
 prevent it. I can only pray for her. 
 
 I have made an experiment in living here not 
 unimportant. I drink no wine or beer, only a pint or 
 one-third of a bottle of cider at dinner. I care not 
 what I eat, I have only one maid and no helps, and 
 could thus live for a trifle in a cottage. In such times 
 such trials may have their use beyond the Christian 
 propriety of self-denial ; but my collection of good 
 books are a great comfort, which, if deprived of, I 
 should miss terribly. I rise at 4 a.m., walk up to my 
 neck in the garden pond, pray, and then read till break- 
 fast ; read, walk, and farm till dinner, and so on till it 
 is dark, and no moment hangs heavily on my hands. 
 I reproach myself with indolence for not going among 
 the cottagers, but they come to me numerously, and 
 having descriptive lists I know enough to do more than 
 I am able, but I ought to go to their houses and 
 examine their state well. 
 
 I have been reading Watson's Collection,^ and am 
 forming a table of striking passages, and think to have 
 
 ' Mrs. Oakes, nie Betsy Plampin. 
 
 - A Collection of Theological Tracts, by the Bishop of Llandaff, 
 6 vols.
 
 DIAEY CONTmUED 355 
 
 them copied for arranging with the many I have 
 ahready written, and may print it some time or other 
 under some such title as this : A course of reading on 
 the origin, truth, and doctrijies of the Christian Religion. 
 I know of no book of evidences that includes all ; by 
 taking the most impressive passages on each subject 
 from many books, and disposing them in a lucid form, 
 I think I could produce a very useful work without 
 presuming to compose any part of it myself. May the 
 Lord afford me His Spirit should I go on with the 
 design, but with my employment it would be a business 
 requiring much time ! 
 
 9th. — Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Balgrave. Balgrave 
 is a good-tempered Suffolk parson, neglects the duty 
 of his church, idle, indolent, drinks his bottle of 
 port and reads his newspaper, but what is called a 
 respectable character, no vices, nor any imprudent 
 follies. 
 
 IQth. — Symonds dined with me and took a bed. 
 The Duke of Brunswick marching into Hanover will, 
 he says, be a keen revenge. 
 
 When he married our King's sister, Lord Bute 
 (who told the whole to S. while travelling with him in 
 Italy) promised him the government of Hanover as 
 soon as it should be vacant, with the King's knowledge. 
 The Marquis of Granby conveyed the assurance. When 
 the vacancy happened the Prince of Mecklenburg was 
 talked of. Lord Granby wrote to Lord Bute to remon- 
 strate, who went to the King and Queen, and urged 
 the real necessity of adhering to the promise. All in 
 vain, the Queen prevailed, and her brother, not two 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 degrees better than , was appointed. The Duke 
 
 of Brunswick never forgave it, and when invited to 
 England rejected the idea with anger. Symonds saw 
 him at Venice and noted the asperity of some of his 
 expressions. 
 
 11th. — Reading Sherlock's sermons. In those on 
 the truth of Christianity, and a defence of the mysteries 
 of it, I know none equal ; excellent indeed and clear, 
 persuasive, and convincing ; but I have some doubts on 
 the vitality of his faith. In the third discourse of the 
 second volume he says : ' Here is a plain proof of 
 what the work of the Spirit is. It brings proofs to the 
 reason of man, but does not bring the reason of man to 
 the proofs.' I conceive just the contrary, the proofs 
 themselves are clear, full, and abounding with what 
 ought to produce universal conviction, but men, for 
 want of the Spirit, turn their back, neglect, or despise 
 them. 
 
 It is the business of the Spirit to take away the 
 heart of stone, and then the proofs are manifest : the 
 heart and reason of man are really brought to the 
 proofs. 
 
 IQith, Sundaij. — The ground white with snow, and 
 the wind cutting. I am up every morn at 4 a.m., and 
 walk to the garden pond ; habits will do anything. I 
 do not mind it at all, and sometimes stand in the 
 wind till dry ; it is, however, sharp work. 
 
 A nonsensical letter from Lord Carrington requiring 
 me to go to the Treasury for the 800Z. for the Essays, 
 which is entirely the treasurer's business. He is as 
 unfeeling as a log ; this is a return for my being at
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 357 
 
 work from 4 a.m. in the morning for ten weeks. I should 
 once have been full of indignation and abhorrence ; 
 thank God, I am more calm. I shall go on Friday in- 
 stead of the Monday following. But I wish he had let 
 me alone. I am vexed, but the world is full of nothing 
 but great miseries or teasing vexations, the more the 
 better ; they wean us from it effectually. 
 
 I have been here ten days and have not visited one 
 poor family. My heart reproaches me. I have given as 
 much as I apprehended I could afford, but that is lazi- 
 ness. The cold winds and sleet have kept me too much 
 in the house. It is easier to give than to be active in 
 doing good. I have four days more. Oh, let me be 
 stirring in doing good ! Indolence is inexcusable. If I 
 thought I had but a little time to live, with what 
 energy would all this be done ! And how soon may I 
 be trembling on a death bed ! Have mercy on me, 
 God, and give me grace to serve Thee with activity and 
 vigour. Read the whole book of Job. I can read, 
 think, speculate, write, and meditate, but in doing good 
 am negligent and slothful. I have had a passing fit of 
 melancholy from looking at my ever dear daughter's 
 picture, which I carry with me everywhere, and never 
 think of her but to bless God for having in some 
 measure (how imperfectly !) brought me to Himself, 
 Age coming on apace ; the world fading faster still ; 
 horrible threatenings in the aspect of public affairs ; 
 small hope of any comfort underived from religion. 
 How black and dreary would all my prospects be were it 
 not for the consolation I draw from a most hvely and 
 never varying faith in the truth of Christianity, in the
 
 358 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNO 
 
 full assurance of immortality ! What would be my 
 situation without this only balm of my existence? 
 Domestic comfort a blank ; my friends dropping 
 into the grave, and the infirmities of age in near 
 prospect. 
 
 Gratitude and thanksgiving to my blessed Saviour 
 for affording me grace to believe ; and with it all the 
 comfort that remains for me in this world. My child ! 
 My child ! Oh, may we meet in heaven ! 
 
 \^th. — The poor people of the neighbouring villages 
 crowd here to my great distress. I give all something, 
 and wish I could give more ; but I dread falling into 
 the dark impropriety of giving too much, of making what 
 would seem and be a parade of charity or generosity 
 with other people's money, which is somewhat the 
 case with a man who gives while he has debts unpro- 
 vided for. I truly know not what rightly to do in this 
 case. The evil just described is great, and ought to 
 be avoided, but at the same time what ought I to think 
 of myself who have been always ready to spend and 
 run in debt for forty years together ; and then should 
 take up so strictly as to do nothing for miserably poor 
 people in such times as these? Surely on such an 
 occasion we should be exerting every power to relieve 
 them ! 
 
 20^7«'.— Friday to London. Saturday, Farmers' Club. 
 An argument with Lord Egremont, &c., on land for the 
 poor ; everybody is against it. What infatuation ! 
 
 list. — Last night at Mrs. Montagu's conversazione. 
 I had some [talk] with the Bishop of Durham, who 
 agrees with me on the poor ; with Lady Harcourt, who
 
 DIABY CONTINUED 359 
 
 wants restrictions on farmers ; with Lord Somers, who 
 told stories of supernatural movements of furniture in 
 Norfolk.' I left it very early though invited for all 
 March and April. This is the first of my going. 
 
 London very disagreeable to me, and has made me 
 compare in my mind my present situation with a large 
 income, and that of living in a cottage in the country 
 upon 100^. a year, without trouble or anxiety or business, 
 except to make my peace with God. I Uked my time 
 alone with my old woman [servant] at Bradfield much 
 better than here. I had nobody to wrangle and quarrel 
 with me. 
 
 May 4. — Yesterday I was at church in the morning 
 with Mrs. O. Oakes at the Lock, and heard Scott, and 
 in the evening at the Surrey Chapel to hear Rowland 
 Hill. Neither of them pleased, though she admits 
 Scott's matter was excellent. She was most struck 
 with the extreme fervency of Mr. Wilberforce's devo- 
 tion, who, sitting in the reading desk for the conve- 
 nience of hearing better, she saw him clearly. Bought 
 Rowland Hill's sermon on the Sunday Schools against 
 the attack of Bishop Horsley,^ who is, from all I hear 
 of him, such a bishop as Suffolk parsons are clergy- 
 men. Scott thinks that evil spirits do work on our souls, 
 and to me it is remarkable that he says the imagination 
 is their great field. I have reason enough to believe 
 him in the right. These are enquiries in which we 
 have no other clue to guide us but Scripture, and surely 
 
 ' This seems to have been an anticipation of table-turning. 
 - Samuel Horsley, born 1733, died 180G, Bishop of St. Asaph's, St. 
 David's, and Kochester ; celebrated for his controversy with Dr. Priestley.
 
 360 AUTOBIOGRAPH'v' OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 there we find proofs without end of the agency of evil 
 spirits ; for my own part I have no doubt of it. 
 
 Bradfield.— As there was no church this morning, 
 I had eleven poor women from the village to talk 
 to upon their neglect of church. I read many pas- 
 sages on public worship and prayer out of Dodd's 
 Commentary on the Bible, and explained, preached, 
 and reasoned with them. One made a defence, and 
 was inclined to prate. I took it coolly, and presently 
 brought her to better reason. I doubt they liked a 
 sixpence apiece better than my sermon, yet three of 
 them cried. How much more docile and teachable are 
 the poor than the rich ! One might gradually do much 
 with the poor, but very little indeed with their betters. 
 God opens the hearts of the one, and hardens those 
 of the others as a punishment for their pride and 
 ingratitude. 
 
 The Duke of Bedford has asked Lord Carrington to 
 the sheep shearing. Lord Egremont called, he remarks 
 that the Chancellor, Lord Eosslyn, and Lord Grenville, 
 &c. &c., all have in the late debates gone out of the 
 way to abuse the Board of Agriculture, and remarks 
 that keeping a Board only to treat it in this manner is 
 preposterous. 
 
 1th. — My publications are very well adapted to 
 take off the edge of all worldly infatuated admiration 
 or dependence on the things of time in comparison 
 of those of eternity. Washington's Letters have been 
 advertised to the expense of bl. or 6Z., and I do not 
 believe that 100 are sold, and my enquiry into the 
 cottage system for poor people will have no more effect
 
 DIAKY CONTINUED 361 
 
 on Government or the Legislature than if I had 
 whistled ' Alley Croker.' So much the better perhaps 
 for the good of my soul. 
 
 25^/j. — Mr. Hoole called and was let in. He has 
 heard at a great table (he did not say where) a very 
 so-so account of Lord Carrington — fidgeting, restless, 
 dissatisfied, ambitious, avaricious, with a mere show of 
 parts and knowledge. He has made immensely by the 
 loan ; and the richer he grows, so much the worse. 
 The eldest girl said to Mr. H. when he called : ' My 
 papa used to have prayers in his family ; but none 
 since he has been a peer.' What a motive for neglect- 
 ing God ! Also he is a dissenter and a democrat. A 
 Unitarian he may be, but certainly no democrat. 
 The Lord show mercy to him, and by interrupting 
 his prosperity or lowering his health, bring him to 
 repentance ! 
 
 26^7^. — Yesterday I dined with the Duke of Grafton, 
 and he asked me when the election of president and 
 secretary of the Board was, for he heard there was an 
 intention of turning Lord Carrington and me out. He 
 said his answer was, as to Lord C, there were reasons 
 which might account for that, but what can Mr. Y. 
 have done ? ' Oh, he is careless, and does nothing,' and 
 so I dare say there are people to report and perhaps so 
 think. Lord Somerville in revenge, I doubt not, hates 
 everything belonging to the Board, and wishes to come 
 in and sweep everyone clear away, in order to introduce 
 creatures of his own, and this, uniting with Gifford's 
 scandals and slander about the Board intending to pull 
 down the club in the * Porcupine ' and ' Anti-Jacobin
 
 362 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Eeview,' ' gains the attention of fools, and mingled by 
 the depravity of the world, is circulated and believed. 
 But of all farces, that of my doing nothing is the most 
 precious. What I have done through the whole session 
 of the Board surpasses credibility, almost to myself, 
 and nothing but rising at 4 a.m. in the morning could 
 have enabled me to go through it. The first spare half 
 day I have I will make a list of all I have done, and 
 see if they will not acquit me to my own heart. Oh, 
 did I serve my God as well as I have served the Board ! 
 Could I review my services to my Redeemer as satis- 
 factorily, happy should I be ! 
 
 11th. — Symonds and Hoole dined with us, and, as the 
 former will see the Duke of Grafton to-day, I gave him 
 a message card, on one side of which is ' Some use in 
 rising at 4 a.m.,' and on the other as follows : 'From 
 January 20 to May 23 are 90 days, Sundays and vaca- 
 tion excluded, 50 Boards and Committees ; 340 essays 
 read, and every one commented on. Report to the 
 House of Commons on Potatoes. Report to the Lords 
 on Grass Lands. Enquiry into cottagers' land pub- 
 lished, but drawn up for the Board. Memoir on Salt, 
 from more than fifty authors. Ten new premises 
 framed. Memoir on wastes, paring, burning, and 
 arable land.' 
 
 If for such employment I am stigmatised for doing 
 nothing, it shows that in order to please, it matters 
 not what we do, caprice will be the only judgment. 
 
 ' The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner, was started by Canning, 
 J. H. Frere, and others ; the editor was W. Gifford. It ran from 
 November 20, 1797, to July 9, 1798.
 
 DIAKY CONTINUED 363 
 
 What conclusion is to be drawn from such cases ? 
 Serve God truly, and as to man trouble not thyself 
 about him ; let this be the golden rule, and it will bring 
 peace at the last. 
 
 28^/i. — Lord Carrington fretting and worrying, and 
 upon the full fidget about the newspapers' abuse, and 
 the criticisms in the House of Lords upon the publica- 
 tion of the Board ; swearing that he will allow no non- 
 sense to be published, and this will be more absurd and 
 pragmatical than ever. Oh ! Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, that 
 thou shouldest have formed such a Board as this, and 
 then permit it to frame such a constitution as should 
 render it absolutely dependent on the folly and caprice 
 of a president ! What might it not have done had its 
 laws been what they ought to have been ! 
 
 Dalton, of Yorkshire, gave me a long account of his 
 taking Hyder Ali when only the colonel of 500 horse — 
 a soldier of fortune.' Lord Egremont came up from 
 Petworth, where, he tells me, not a loaf for three days 
 and a half, and a mutiny among the volunteers. 
 
 ^^th. — Dined yesterday at Lord Winchilsea's. 
 There were the Duke of Bedford, Lord Egremont, Lord 
 Eomney, Lord Somerville, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Northey, 
 Mr. Conyers, and myself : much farming. Lord Komney 
 gave Lord Egremont a guinea, to receive fifty when he 
 produced a tench that weighed seven pounds. 
 
 Yesterday the Committee voted 50Z. to my son for 
 his labour in arranging &:c., during thirteen weeks, the 
 Reports from inclosed parishes to the House of Com- 
 
 ' I print this as written, but can find no allusion in works of reference 
 to the circumstanee mentioned.
 
 364 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUK YOUNG 
 
 mons. I thanked them very awkwardly, and talked of 
 gratitude, for it came on unexpectedly ; that readiness 
 which is never at a loss I have not an atom of. My 
 heart always speaks at a sudden ; whereas in many 
 cases the head is most wanted. But the fault was on 
 the right side, it was more than I expected. 
 
 June 6. — Charming weather for the country, now 
 in its full beauty, and I am stoved up in this horrid 
 place. Lord C. talked of adjourning the Board on 
 Tuesday, which I hope much he will do. The 15th is 
 the Sheep Show at Woburn ; it will be the 20th before 
 it is possible for me to see Bradfield, and hardly then ; 
 the longest day before a man gets into the country ! ! ! 
 Let them turn me out of my secretaryship and I shall 
 not regret it, but down all discontent ; it is God's will, 
 and my duty is to be thankful for all. 
 
 It is a comfort which exceeds all others, that as age 
 advances the end of life is viewed as a mere change of 
 residence, and the mental eye fixed on heaven, with full 
 confidence in the promises of God. I would not give 
 this conviction for the wealth of the Indies, for the 
 empire of the world. And what does one lose by reli- 
 gion ? I enjoy all such pleasures of life as are un- 
 attended by remorse, just as much, or more indeed, far 
 more, than I did while I was a dissipated character. 
 Beading, composition, serious conversation on any topic 
 worth discussing, the rural beauties of Nature, and the 
 pleasures of agriculture, friendship, affection, not love, 
 as it is called, the whole of which I fear is founded in 
 lust, and proves nineteen times in twenty the tyrant of 
 the breast, and the fertile source of ten thousand mise-
 
 DIARY CONTINUED 365 
 
 ries ! Happy those in whom it terminates in a settled, 
 quiet, tranquil friendship, sufficient to satisfy without the 
 wanderings of the heart that lead to so much misery. 
 
 I was here (at Bradfield) three weeks at Easter after 
 a severe confinement to incessant business ; I am now 
 again in the same deep retirement, the life of a hermit, 
 after eight weeks of business and bustle. I feel how 
 vast the benefit is to have these periodical retirements 
 from the world in silence and solitude. Had I gone 
 directly from London on my tour, plunging from one 
 busy scene to another, my mind would have had no time 
 to cool, none to settle into any calm and tranquil state 
 for reflection, which is unfavourable to the growth of 
 religion, of morals, nay, of talents to perform anything 
 of consequence. A round of business or dissipation thus 
 unbroken is mischievous to the heart, ties it to the 
 world, and unfits it for every effort of regeneration and 
 repentance, or of meditation and philosophy. 
 
 Lord Euston is going the tour of Suffolk, ordering 
 returns to be made of all carts, waggons, horses, mills, 
 and ovens ; a step preparatory in the expectation of an 
 invasion. But it is in everyone's mouth that with such 
 a price of corn half the country would join an enemy. 
 I must freely confess I dread the result. We have no 
 hope but in the protection of the Almighty, who has 
 hitherto so wonderfully protected us ; and what has 
 been the gratitude shown to Him ? 
 
 Most melancholy is the reflection. Our rulers are 
 truly infatuated, to have done nothing for the assistance 
 of the poor, but leave them to such trying times without 
 even showing a disposition to take any steps that could
 
 366 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 be effective. To do nothing to give relief, when land 
 for the poor does relieve them so beneficially wherever 
 they have it, is a cruel infatuation. To see poor rates 
 at their present enormous height and the poor in 
 misery — yet where they have land, to find rates Sd. or 
 M. or 9cZ. in the £, and the poor in a state of ease 
 and comfort — one would think should speak feelingly 
 and powerfully— but no such thing. Men are governed 
 by their stupid prejudices, and have too much pride to 
 permit their eyes to be opened. Had an Act passed 
 last session that had the effect of thus assisting the 
 poor, instead of the pernicious system by rates, and 
 some progress were now making in every county to carry 
 it into execution, we should not hear such opinions 
 advanced, because they would be groundless ; the poor 
 labourers, seeing such steps taken for their comfort and 
 to free them from the ineffective thraldom of parish 
 rates, would be patient and quiet. At present they see 
 nothing done or doing for them, and have their hearts 
 almost broken by penury — without resource — without 
 hope. 
 
 In such a situation who would wonder to see men 
 join an enemy in crowds? Heaven forbid that this 
 infatuation of Government be not providential, and the 
 means by which the Deity may mean to punish the 
 nation for and by its sins ! 
 
 The trumpeter of the Corps of Yeomanry came to 
 me with a written engagement to forfeit 5s. the first 
 absence and 10s. 6d. every successive one if we do not 
 meet the first Friday of every month. I was always 
 exempted on account of my necessary absence ; how-
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 367 
 
 ever, as they expect to be called into actual service, I 
 would not now retire when an invasion is expected, so 
 I signed ; but when the alarm is quite blown over — 
 should that please the Almighty — I shall withdraw, for 
 I am too old and too weak, and my pursuits too far off 
 and too numerous to permit attendance. 
 
 September 7 [on tour, at Dunstable]. — Breakfasted 
 with Mr. Parkyn, and then went to meet a person who 
 instructs people in plaiting straw, and I bargained with 
 him at 30s. a week for a girl to be instructed — a month 
 will do ; that is 61., and the journey there and back, 
 about 4/., so for 101. I shall be able to introduce this 
 most excellent fabric among our poor. The children 
 begin at four years old, and by six earn 2s. or 3s. a 
 week ; by seven Is. a day ; and at eight and nine, &c., 
 10s. or 12s. a week. This will be of immense use to 
 them. 
 
 Got to Woburn by 2 p.m., sat down and wrote for 
 two hours and a half, then dressed, but did not dine 
 till nearly 8 p.m. The Duke of Manchester there VTith 
 Lord Preston, Mr. Cartwright, and Edwards, the book- 
 seller, who is putting the library to rights and showing 
 how to make the catalogue. I was surprised to learn 
 from him that a man could not lay out in one year 
 more than 5,000Z. judiciously in books ; that Lord 
 Spencer has been fourteen years expending 25,000Z., 
 and has the best library in England, perhaps better 
 than the King's. He tells me the nation [France] 
 bought L'Heritier's ' library, and gave it to the Botanical 
 
 ' C. de rH6ritier, bom 1746, died 1800; botanist, and member of the 
 Academie des Sciences.
 
 368 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Garden. Miss Knight,' authoress of the continua- 
 tion of ' Easselas,' whom I met at Kedington's, lent 
 Dolmien's ^ ' Life at Naples,' through Lady Hamilton's 
 interest with the Queen. He wrote to her from prison. 
 
 Did not get to bed till past 11 p.m. Such hours 
 and fasting from 9 a.m. in morn to 8 p.m. at night did 
 not agree with me. I waked at 4 a.m., and having a 
 lamp, rose, washed, prayed, and sat down by candle- 
 light to my notes and finished them. 
 
 Lord Preston swears ; it hurts me to hear him. I 
 certainly ought to convert such people and reproach 
 myself, and confess the sin every day in my catalogue to 
 God ; but I go on and do it not. If I had wit I could 
 laugh at it, but I have no more wit than a pig. 
 
 The following are selected from this year's corre- 
 spondence : 
 
 From T. Symonds, Esq., describing Trinity College 
 Establishment, Revenue, dec. 
 
 ' Cambridge : March 20, 1801. 
 * You desire me, good friend, to send you a long letter 
 from this place, but I could more easily find materials 
 to write one to om^ friend Charles Cole, from his being 
 perfectly conversant with every one here, and with 
 almost everything. You observe very right, that land- 
 lords cannot come into a share of the wealth of their 
 tenants but by a corn rent. This I have insisted 
 
 ' Cornelia Knight, author of Dinarbas, a continuation of Rasselas, 
 1790, and other works. 
 
 2 Celebrated French geologist. Accompanied Napoleon to Egypt ; 
 on his return was taken prisoner and confined at Messina by the King 
 of Sicily ; on peace being made with Naples was liberated.
 
 DIARY CONTINUED 369 
 
 upon of late frequently at Bury. The present state 
 of the University is an indisputable proof of it. The 
 pressure of the times is hardly felt by its members. 
 Will you not think so, when you hear that the revenue 
 of this College amounted to nearly 16,000^. last year, 
 and that the eight senior fellows received more than 
 300^. each, and the junior half of that sum ? They 
 have been obliged to raise, however, the price of the 
 commons (as they are called) from fifteen to eighteen 
 pence. But I sit down here every day for this sum to 
 a dinner, which gentlemen of a thousand a year cannot 
 give often with prudence. 
 
 ' The papers, I presume, have informed you of the 
 trial of our plate stealers last week. 
 
 ' The whole business was ill conducted. The man 
 who sold to the Jew the medals of Ejng's College for 
 70^., the plate of this for 300/., and the plate of Caius for 
 500/., pleaded guilty, and in consequence of a free par- 
 don to appear against the Jew, who, though acquitted 
 at these Assizes, "will probably be hanged at the next. 
 Grimshaw, the chimney sweeper, is the only victim at 
 present. Your friend Simeon was not wanting in his 
 visits to him. He told an acquaintance of mine " that 
 he found Grimshaw's conversation delightful ; that he 
 had grace to die ; and that the sooner he was exe- 
 cuted the better, for fear this grace should evaporate." 
 Should it ever be my lot to be condemned for execu- 
 tion, I will immediately apply to you for consolation. 
 Simeon could work no conviction in the Jew ; this will 
 not surprise you. 
 
 ' I saw in the papers a list of the dancers at Lady 
 
 B B
 
 370 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNa 
 
 Carrington's ball ; but, to my astonishment, did not 
 discover your name. The papers have raised Lord C. 
 to the degree of Viscount ; ^ it would be too insulting 
 for a man recently in business to step above the heads 
 of our ancient Barons. I should have told you that 
 we have here a young nobleman of unblemished 
 character. I mean Lord Henry Petty, whose know- 
 ledge and abilities are such, both in writing and speak- 
 ing in public, as to lead me to imagine that he cannot 
 fail to make a distinguished figure in Parliament. By 
 the bye, there seem to be some members of the House 
 of Commons who are jealous of your Board. 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 ' J. Symonds.' 
 
 January 24, 1802. — A great gap ; but from coming 
 to London in November to quitting it the following 
 month I wrote journal letters paged to my friend.^ 
 Through the Christmas holidays a blank. I have 
 subscribed to the Lock Hospital 51. 5s., and go every 
 Sunday. Wilberforce always there taking notes of 
 Scott's sermons. 
 
 In the great business of my salvation I go on 
 slowly, struggling hard, however, to advance, by freeing 
 my imagination from sensuality and my heart from 
 coldness. God give me grace to persist. I lay great 
 stress on trying by every means to impress in my 
 mind a constant sense of God's presence. 
 
 ' Robert Smith, son of a banker at Nottingham ; M.P. for that town 
 from 1770 to 1796 ; supporter and friend of Pitt ; raised to the Irish 
 peerage in 1796, to the English peerage in 1797. 
 
 - Mrs. Orbell Oakes, the beautiful Betty Plampin of former flirta- 
 tions, is ' the friend ' henceforth constantly alluded to.
 
 DIAKY CONTINUED 371 
 
 March 8. — At Wilberforce's last night till 10 o'clock, 
 and was not in bed till quarter past 11 p.m. Though I 
 was up before 4 a.m., and had no sleep in the day, or 
 very little, the consequence was that in the night just 
 past I slept very soundly indeed, and till 6 a.m. Dean 
 Milner ' there, and I had much conversation with him 
 about W. while he and Mr. W. were out of the room. 
 He first made an impression on Wilberforce's mind at 
 Scarborough ; he hinted on some person named being 
 an enthusiast, but Milner (though not religious then 
 himself) checked it with a firmness that made W. 
 think. They afterwards travelled to Nice, and were 
 there three months about the year 1783 or 1784. The 
 Duke of Gloucester was then an infidel ; the conversa- 
 tion M. had with him upon the journey had no other 
 effect (indeed that was the capital one) but of making 
 him serious in reading and considering the Bible, which 
 he did with great industry and deep attention, bringing 
 to it a heart open to conviction ; his health was in- 
 jured by application, but his eternal soul was saved. 
 He afterwards broke off his intimacies with a social 
 fashionable set, and particularly from dinners which 
 hurt his progress in Divine impersonation. He fairly 
 and openly told his friends the reason. Pitt never 
 joked or laughed at him — some did, but he never ; all 
 were sorry to lose him. But he was in earnest, and carried 
 his determination into effect to give himself wholly to 
 the care of his soul in the first place, and next to 
 
 ' Isaac Milner, 1751-1820, son of a poor weaver (brother of the 
 no less remarkable Joseph Milner), Dean of Carlisle, and Professor of 
 Mathematics at Cambridge.
 
 372 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 perform his temporal duties by assiduity in business. 
 The Dean remarked the great good his book is Hkely 
 to do from this time to the end of the world. Many, 
 many may be saved by it. He dictated an answer to 
 some quotations from David which the Duke of Grafton 
 gave me the other day in argument against original 
 sin, the righteousness named 1,000 years before Christ. 
 He replied as I had done on the spot to the Duke, that 
 these men had the spirit, and then were righteous be- 
 fore God in Jesus Christ who saved from the creation. 
 The Duke of Bedford's death ! How much I could 
 write on that topic. I met Halifax at the Duke of 
 Grafton's. He died with what is called perfect courage, 
 coUectedness, and resolution that is perfectly hardened 
 in insensibility. A most tremendous, awful, horrible 
 case ! But very difficult to separate affection for the 
 amiable temper and useful life from a just condemna- 
 tion of his utter want of religion and piety. 
 
 From the Duke of Bedford ' 
 in carrying out the plans of his late Brother 
 
 ' Woburn Abbey : March 28, 1802. 
 
 * Sir, — The sudden and fatal event which deprived 
 me of one of the kindest of friends and most affec- 
 tionate of brothers. Agriculture of one of its firmest 
 props, and Society of one of its best and most useful 
 members, coming upon me too so soon after a former 
 severe domestic calamity, left my mind in such a state 
 of sad dejection as to render me wholly incapable of 
 
 ' John Russell, sixth Duke, ' the great Duke of Bedford,' who did so 
 much for agriculture, and in 1830 rebuilt Covent Garden Market at a 
 cost of 40,O00Z. Died 1839.
 
 DIARY CONTINUED 373 
 
 writing to you on a subject deeply interesting to me, 
 because it occupied the last thoughts of my much 
 lamented brother. His zeal for that first and most 
 interesting of pursuits, Agriculture, did not forsake 
 him even in the last moments of his life, and on his 
 death-bed, with an earnestness of mind expressive of 
 his character, and with that anxious consideration for 
 the interests of his country which occupied so many 
 years of his well-spent life, he strongly urged me to 
 follow up those plans of national improvement which 
 he had begun, and from which he had formed the 
 most sanguine hopes of success. He referred me to 
 Mr. Cartwright and to you for explanations and details ; 
 with Mr. C. I have already had some conversation, and 
 hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing you. I shall 
 be in London in a day or two, and if you will favour 
 me with a line in Arlington Street, to name the day 
 and hour most convenient to you to call upon me, you 
 will much oblige me. Should you be absent from Town 
 I trust it will not be long before I have the satisfaction 
 of seeing you at Woburn. 
 
 ' Desirous as I am in every point of view to fulfil 
 the last wishes of my departed brother, I feel that my 
 humble efforts must be at such a vast distance from the 
 exertions of his well-regulated and superior mind, that 
 without the aid and advice of those most capable of 
 assisting me, I should utterly despair of attaining the 
 objects now so near to my heart. 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 ' Bedford.'
 
 374 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 My Reply 
 
 ' 32 Sackville Street : March 1802. 
 
 ' My Lord, — The melancholy event which has 
 deprived your Grace of a brother so beloved was a 
 stroke that affected every feeling of my heart ; others 
 more habituated to his merit on great occasions better 
 knew than it was possible for me to do the powers of a 
 mind that could fathom the most important subjects ; 
 but to me, sinking his great consequence in the country, 
 he was a kind, most amiable, and indulgent friend, nor 
 shall I ever cease to lament the loss of the best temper 
 I ever met with ; good humour seemed to spring from 
 a perennial source in his bosom. Pleasing and happy 
 it is for his lamented memory that all ranks and 
 classes of the people have vied in the expressions of 
 grief for the loss of so able, sincere, and unquestionable 
 a patriot. It pleased him on several late occasions to 
 converse with me on his plans of those establishments 
 he meditated to connect with the employment of Mr. 
 Cartwright. Probably that gentleman has explained all 
 or most of them to your Grace. I shall be most happy 
 to repeat them, and I am sure I need not add that 
 veneration for the memory of one who commanded 
 the regrets of a great nation, as well as the respect 
 I owe to your Grace's character, will induce me most 
 willingly to give you the little assistance that is in my 
 power to lessen the loss we have all suffered. 
 
 ' I rejoice in hearing of your Grace's determination 
 to tread in those steps which proved so direct a path to 
 a well-earned and most useful fame.
 
 DIAKY CONTINUED 375 
 
 ' From eleven o'clock to-day till four, and from 
 twelve till three on Thursday, i am engaged with the 
 Bo&rd, but will wait on your Grace at any other time 
 you are pleased to appoint. 
 
 'I am, my Lord, 
 ' Most respectfully your Grace's 
 ' Much obliged and most humble servant, 
 
 • Aethur Young.' 
 
 The Board has been busy in voting testimonies 
 to the memory of the Duke of Bedford, a race who 
 should express most strongly their veneration. The 
 Bishop of Llandaff brought a dedication for the volume 
 now ready — a medal ordered and a bust. These 
 people are carnal and worldly, except, however, Mr. 
 Wilberforce, who much promoted it, and spoke often in 
 favour of it. His example is authority, or I should 
 have considered the whole as a worldly-minded 
 business, and bad. This Duke, with vast powers and 
 immense influence, set an example to a town and popu- 
 lous neighbourhood in the country, and to a great 
 circle of friends and dependents, of an utter neglect, if 
 not contempt, of religion : all was worldly in his vieW' s ; 
 all his motives tending that way, and his example mis- 
 chievous to religion and the souls of men. All this 
 praise and veneration is therefore very questionable, 
 and, I think, unlawful ; it is looking at objects and 
 judging of things with the herd, and therefore wrong ; 
 we cannot go with them but to do mischief. Of what 
 consequence is religion to the world if farming and 
 beneficence and good temper, and a life highly useful
 
 376 AUTOBIOG-KAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 in a worldly view, is to outweigh the evils of irreligion, 
 and so very bad an example in morals and want of 
 piety ? I cannot approve of it, much as I liked the 
 man in all worldly respects. 
 
 Dr. Pearson talking of experiments observed that 
 contrary experiments to good ones are nothing. ' I 
 can get evidence for or against anything : for the exist- 
 ence of angels and devils,' &c. He is a great infidel, one 
 of the gang of philosophers of the Royal Society, whose 
 head, Sir J. B., is of the same mould, and whose influence 
 is all on the same side, and does much mischief. The 
 great, the wise, and the learned in this town, I fear, 
 are nineteen in twenty infidels. Shocking ! dreadful to 
 think of ! ! 
 
 Dined at the Duke of Grafton's, Menil the Nimrod 
 and Dr. Halifax there. I never fail to combat his Uni- 
 tarianism, but do no good ; yet his argmnents are weak 
 as water. 
 
 lOth. — At the Farmers' Club. Carried with some 
 difficulty a premium of fifty guineas for the best plough ; 
 several voted against it, because impossible to decide 
 which of several should be the best ! These folks can 
 hardly know the right end of a plough. 
 
 25^7i. — Dined at the Bishop of Durham's ; Price, 
 the Vice-Chamberlain, there, and Mr. and Mrs. Bernard. 
 I would have some serious talk, and therefore asked the 
 Bishop if he had read Overton's ^ book ? He had, and 
 highly approved it. He met with it at York, and asked 
 
 ' J. Overton, officer in the Excise ; made telescopes, and had a 
 private press, where he printed books, mostly theological. Died 1838. 
 See Annual Register for that year.
 
 DIARY CONTINUED 377 
 
 the Archbishop if he knew anything of the author, 
 and, to his surprise, found that he did not even know 
 there was such a man, and knew nothing of him. 
 The Bishop promised to send me his two charges and 
 letters to the Deists. He was lately in company with 
 Otto,^ and made enquiries what that minister conceived 
 would be the result of the present order of things 
 in France relative to religion. Otto thought that it 
 would end in the establishment of Protestantism ; - 
 
 ' L. W. Otto, Count of Morlay, was a German diplomatist in 
 the French service, and lived 1752-1817. See Didot, Biographic 
 Universclle. 
 
 ■ This was not, perhaps, impossible. See the following note from 
 the Daily News Paris correspondent three or four years ago : 
 
 'An account of Napoleon I.'s visit to Breda in 1810 is now appearing, 
 for the first time, in the Dt'bats, and is deeply interesting. It will be 
 seen that Napoleon I. at the zenith of his power was on the point 
 of becoming a Protestant. 
 
 ' The Emperor, after receiving several Deputies, went up to the 
 Catholic Vicar, who had written a speech, and proceeded to read it. The 
 Emperor, without replying, asked where were the Protestant ministers. 
 Then M. Ten Oever, in his robes, followed by the entire Protestant 
 clergy, was presented by the Prince de Wagram, and read an address. 
 The Emperor remarked with satisfaction that the Protestant ministers 
 wore their robes. Then, turning to the Roman Catholic clergy, he 
 asked, "How is it that you are not wearing your frocks? What ! I come 
 to a Department [Holland had been annexed to France] where the 
 majority are Catholics, who were formerly oppressed, and who have 
 received more liberty from the King, my brother, and myself, and your 
 first act is to show me disrespect ! I have always found my Protestants 
 faithful subjects. I have six thousand at Paris and eight hundred 
 thousand in my empire, and I have no cause for complaint against a 
 single one. Fools that you are ! If the Concordat had not been accepted 
 by the I'ope, I should have turiied Protestant, and tliirty million French- 
 men would have followed my example. [The italics are my own.] You 
 have calumniated Protestants, representing them as men teaching 
 principles contrary to the rights of sovereigns. I have no better sub- 
 jects. They serve in my palace in Paris. It was not Luther, nor 
 Calvin, but the German princes who declined to submit to your fanatical
 
 378 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 this is remarkable and not improbable. The Concordat 
 will not be executed. I questioned the Bishop about 
 Paley : ' Mr. Y., I gave Dr. P. a living of I.IOOZ. a year 
 for two great works, the " Horae Paulinse " and "The 
 Evidences," and so I told him : " But, Dr. P., as to your 
 Moral Philosophy I disapprove of it, and therefore do 
 not mistake my motive " ' ! ! He is engaged in a work 
 now at press on natural religion by the Bishop's recom- 
 mendation. 
 
 11th. — Our third volume Part I. of the ' Communica- 
 tions ' is out, but I have yet heard nothing of the public 
 opinion. The mere printing this thin quarto has been the 
 whole business of the Board, that is, of the President, 
 from last November ; nothing else done of any sort or 
 kind. This is pitiable. He corrected the proofs and 
 made them dance up and down to Wycombe, and wait 
 as if time was of no consequence, and a whole Session 
 will pass with this for its only emplojmient. My ' Hert- 
 ford ' is ready for printing, Pitt's ' Leicester," Howlett's 
 ' Essex,' and Plymley's ' Salop,' and all at a stand ; not 
 one proof of the second part of the ' Essays ' at press in a 
 fortnight, and nothing else thought of. He is as fit to 
 be President of the Board as Grand Llama of Thibet ; 
 such is the way that all public business is conducted. 
 If I saw as much of the Treasury, have no doubt but 
 similar though not equal neglect would appear. But 
 what a table of cyphers to meet week after week and 
 urge nothing to satisfy the public. The whole of this 
 
 yoke. The English were quite right to part company with you. You 
 would like to set up scaffolds and stakes, but I will prevent you. All 
 authority comes from God." '
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 379 
 
 flows from the most fastidious coxcombical pretension 
 to purity of language : the time is spent in making 
 phrases, as the French express it, which ought to be 
 employed in devising and executing plans of improve- 
 ment and pushing on the county surveys. Lament- 
 able ! A fine folly, however, has taken place ; the 
 President and two other members went to see Salis- 
 bury's botanical garden — there he agreed to hire six 
 acres at rent and taxes 14Z. an acre for Board experi- 
 ments 1^ miles from Hyde Park Corner. I was not 
 consulted, and 60^. paid for a lease before I knew a 
 word of the matter ; then I was ordered to view 
 it, which I did, but no opinion asked. Next I was 
 directed to draw up a plan of experiments, which I did, 
 without corn, for myriads of sparrows from nurseries 
 would eat all up. These were partly accepted and 
 partly rejected, and potatoes scouted hecsbuse people are 
 sick of the name of potatoes. ' Suppose another famine, 
 my Lord, what will those persons then think who are 
 now sick of potatoes ? ' 
 
 It stands over for the Board. The whole idea is 
 stark, staring folly ; it will cost 250^. a year, and the 
 harvest well deserved ridicule. 
 
 April 11. — Last Wednesday, Lord Carrington took 
 me into his room and told me that his brother having 
 the loan, he had spoken to him to write me down for 
 500/., and that the rise having been 4 per cent, he had 
 directed it to be sold, and it would produce me 200Z. clear 
 of charges. I thanked him much. Such a thing never 
 entered my thoughts, and consequently surprised me 
 much. It was very kind and considerate, and I am
 
 380 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 certainly much obliged to him for it. Next evening he 
 sent for me, and gave me a draft on Smith and Payne, 
 2211. 17s. 6d., for the rise was 4^ per cent. I was 
 thankful to God for this, and meditated much on it. 
 If God had not been willing it would not have entered 
 his head, and I find it comfortable to attribute every- 
 thing to God, as, indeed, everything ought certainly to 
 be attributed, and the more we trust entirely to Him 
 the better I am persuaded it is for us. This is the first 
 lottery for many years that I have been out of, but 
 meeting with a passage in some of Scott's things 
 against lotteries I would not put in, or have anything 
 to do with it. If God pleases to give me money He has 
 a thousand ways of doing it, and in these reflections 
 I have had hard work to guard my mind against the 
 temptation to consider it in the light of a reward which 
 would be vile where there is no merit, no desert. I 
 offend too daily and hourly to deserve anything but 
 wrath at His hands, and this I cannot dwell on too 
 much or too deeply. But for two years past of His 
 infinite goodness He has made all money matters very 
 favourable to me, and I thank Him for an uninter- 
 rupted stream of His bounty without let or hindrance, 
 and this notwithstanding my sensual mind and many 
 offences. I cannot be too grateful for so much good- 
 ness, and I pray Him to give me grace to be kind and 
 charitable to others while He is so good to me. I 
 think of these things with fear and trembling, lest they 
 should throw my mind and conduct into an improper 
 train. 
 
 Of late I have been ruminating on a short publica-
 
 DIARY CONTINUED 381 
 
 tion against the Deists, to consist merely of an attack 
 on them to show the difficulties and absurdities of their 
 system ; it will consist chiefly of extracts. I have read 
 Bogue,' and Fuller and Berkeley's^' MinutePhilosopher,' 
 and Leslie,^ but none of them come up to my idea. It 
 should be unmixed with a defence of Christianity, which 
 should come in by way of appendix. I cannot get it 
 out of my head, and shall certainly attempt it ; the worst 
 is I must read their works {i.e. of the Deists, &c.), which 
 is bad, but I shall not do it without prayer to God to 
 fortify me against their sophistries and delusions. 
 
 Yesterday morning I hoped and expected to leave 
 London, but Lord Pelham, Secretary of State, has sent 
 us the returns of acres cropped last year from the clergy 
 of the Kingdom, and so a Committee to-day, and to- 
 morrow Good Friday ; for Saturday I have taken places 
 Thus, after twelve weeks in London, I lose four days. 
 Very unlucky, and very disagreeable, and for such 
 nonsense as disgraces common sense. He wrote a 
 circular letter to all the clergy of the Kingdom last 
 June for this purpose, and from 10,000 parishes received 
 accounts from about a half. Precious ones, to be sure ! 
 A very probable matter that the farmers would give 
 the number of acres sown with every sort of grain to 
 the parsons ; such attempts degrade Government in the 
 eyes of the people. What opinion can they have of 
 men's abilities who expect thus to gain such facts ? 
 
 ' D. Bogue, D.D., On the Divvie Authority of the Neic Testament, 
 1801. 
 
 - Bishop of Cloyne, Alciphron ; or, the Minute Philosopher, 1732. 
 
 •■' C. Leslie, died 1722, author of The Rehearsals : Tracts against the 
 Deists and Socinians, 4 vols.
 
 382 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 I was in danger of returning to London without one 
 entry in this Journal, but going up to wipe my dear 
 Bobbin's book has thrown my mind into a fit of 
 melancholy that I know not how easily to get rid of ; 
 yet will it go too soon ? I have been whitewashing 
 the house, cleaning about it, and keeping all things in 
 pretty good order to do justice to the place as well as I 
 am able ; but my dear child's recollection brings forcibly 
 to my heart the impression that it is the will of God I 
 should have hardly any chance of this prosperity being 
 kept in my famil5^ My son has no children, nor likely 
 to have any. Mary, no chance of marrying, so that 
 my posterity ends with the next generation. The will 
 of God be done, but human vanity and feelings will rise 
 in the bosom, and they cannot rise without these un- 
 pleasant ideas forcing themselves into my mind. Brad- 
 field has been ours 200 years, and I should have liked 
 that my name and family might here have continued. 
 But God has punished me for my sins ; I can have 
 nothing at His hands that I do not deserve. Blessed 
 be His holy Name, be it my endeavour to submit to His 
 will with resignation and cheerfulness. 
 
 Betsy and O. dined with me on Tuesday, but the day 
 so bad I could not show her the round garden, which 
 was got in very neat order. I have had a letter from 
 the Duke of Liancourt in which he speaks of coming to 
 England. I wrote to advise him against it, for he 
 would, I fear, be very ill received. The Duke of Grafton 
 read me a letter expressed in most indignant terms on 
 the passage relative to him and his family in Mons. de
 
 DIAKY CONTINUED 383 
 
 Liancourt's travels.' The new Diike of Bedford writes 
 to desire me, in very kind terms, to go to the Wobm*n 
 sheep-shearing ; asks it as a sort of favour. I had some 
 very fine days on coming down, but of late the weather 
 has been cold, damp, and melancholy, but I never come 
 without wishing to live here constantly. I cannot help 
 wishing it, but I hope without discontent — that would be 
 black ingratitude to God. He fixes me where I am ; all, 
 all things I am well persuaded come from His Almighty 
 hand, and therefore a cheerful submission is one great 
 article of a religious life. I brought down linen for the 
 poor, but the number that want, and I cannot relieve, 
 is melancholy : I think I have fixed straw work here, 
 for above twenty-five have learned, and my splitting 
 machines are all distributed. Some days since I sent 
 off to Dunstable the first product of their work, and 
 hope I shall have a good sale for the poor children. 
 
 June 1 : London. — I keep this Journal as I do every- 
 thing else, lest good purposes be turned aside by trifles 
 and want of resolution. This is the thanksgiving-day ; 
 and last night was the Union masquerade, and the 
 coaches are now (5 a.m. in the morning) rattling, and 
 one fool in some monkey dress has walked by my 
 windows. 
 
 A letter from the Duke of Bedford asking me to go 
 to Woburn, which I shall do, and then I hope to 
 Holkham, where Mr. Coke will take me in his coach — 
 
 ' Voyage en Amirique, 2 vols. 1800. It seems that the Fi-ench 
 imigris, after being most hospitably treated in England, showed little 
 return in the way of graciousness. See Letters of Maria Josepha 
 Holroijd ; also the Jcmingham Letters.
 
 384 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 and there I am on my ground for the survey of Norfolk ; 
 but it is not yet decided whether I am to do it. It is 
 a duty I owe to God to use the vacation in the best 
 manner I can, but I can ill afford to travel at my own 
 expense, determined as I am, if possible, to pay TOOL 
 of debts. 
 
 I should like to make a long journey in enquiries 
 concerning the poor ; I know not what would be best, 
 and have prayed to God to guide me, but I am utterly 
 displeased with myself in my religious pursuits. My 
 mind is sensual, and my progress slow ; may the 
 mercy of the Almighty be shed on me in grace to mend. 
 I have planned a new work, ' Deism Delineated,' and 
 made some progress, but do not please myself. It 
 must be done gradually as I read, and my time is fully 
 occupied with many pursuits. 
 
 Post to Chesterford, and having received a letter 
 from the present Duke of Bedford requesting me to 
 meet Lord Somerville and Mr. Coke at Woburn in 
 order to consult upon the best means of carrying the 
 late Duke's intentions into execution, especially in 
 relation to the sheep-shearing, I set off accordingly, 
 and got to Woburn at night, where I found Lord 
 Somerville and Mr. Coke, and we considered the matter 
 as well as the late Duke's proposals to breeders. At 
 the meeting the Duke's attention was very pleasing, 
 for he had great solicitude to arrange everything down 
 to the minutest trifles in exactly the same manner as 
 his brother had done on former occasions. 
 
 Before dinner, the first day, he came up to me and 
 said, ' Mr. Y., I beg you will take your old seat, and
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 385 
 
 preside at one end of the table, for which purpose I 
 have ordered a servant to keep your chair.' Everyone 
 remarked the extreme attention of the duke that all 
 the business of the meeting should be well conducted. 
 
 IQith. — Heartily tired of London, and the scenes I 
 have endured at home. I left town, and took Betsy's 
 new chaise, which I had bought for her (170 guineas) 
 for Chesterfield, where her whole family were. It was 
 a hurrying day. 
 
 Next morning, Sunday, to church, and in the after- 
 noon, contrary to many feelings, to Baldock. No post- 
 chaise to be had, so went on in my whisky to Shefford, 
 then post to Woburn by particular desire of the Duke of 
 Bedford, to concert matters with Lord Somerville and 
 Mr. Coke for the shearing business. It was 11 p.m. at 
 night before I arrived ; nobody there except they and 
 Cartwright. 
 
 On the Thursday, with Mr. Coke and Mr. Talbot, in 
 Coke's chaise to Brandon, and on Friday morning to 
 Holkham. 
 
 Farmed on Saturday and too much on Sunday, so 
 here have been two Lord's days profaned. How 
 difficult it is to be in the world and preserve oneself 
 uncontaminated by common practices ! At church, 
 however, in the morning. 
 
 The sheep-shearing the four following days, at 
 which I had never been before. He does it hand- 
 somely ; 200 dined on plate. 
 
 The dinner better than at Woburn, I think from 
 vicinity to the sea, which gives plenty of fish. 
 
 At the Holkham meeting, had I entertained my 
 
 c c
 
 386 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 former feelings of pride and discontent, I should not 
 have been too well pleased, for Mr. C. was personally 
 civil and attentive ; and yet he took not the smallest 
 public opportunity of mentioning me, the Board, my 
 report, or anything about it, though the occasion certainly 
 called in reason for it. Once this would have mortified 
 me, but now I value such matters not a straw. May 
 God permit me to do my duty to Him, and as to what 
 men think of me, I regard it less than the idle wind. 
 I went to bed every night directly after coffee, between 
 9 and 10 p.m., and was up between 3 and 4 a.m. 
 
 [In London] at Mrs. Montagu's. — Sir Sidney not 
 there ; Ryder, the Privy Councillor, and his brother 
 and Montagu, had been at Paris, and we had little 
 conversation except on Bonaparte, &c. They contended 
 that every scrap of land is cultivated and much that 
 was waste. Sir F. combated the idea, and urged 
 reports of prefects, speeches, &c., as proving rents 
 sunk, price of land fallen, produce as four to six, 
 population lessened, and the price of labour risen, &c. 
 &c. The last no proof of decline. 
 
 Ryder, on com, observed that the same fact of wheat 
 being dearer in peace than in war is found in the 
 French prices annexed to Arnold.' 
 
 They would not be introduced to Bonaparte. Fox 
 had much conversation with him, and he plainl}' 
 urged the fact that Wyndham was concerned in the 
 infernal machine, asserting that he had the proof. 
 Sir F. says that this proof was one George, being much 
 
 ' Ambrose Marie Arnault, French economist, 1750-1812. See 
 Vapereau.
 
 DIAEY CONTINUED 387 
 
 with W., and afterwards going on the expedition to 
 Quiberon. A party was taken amongst whose papers (on 
 the arrests for the infernal machine) were letters on that 
 conspiracy to or from George, which combination was 
 Bonaparte's proof. The Government, [he says, is] the 
 completest military despotism that ever was in the 
 world. 
 
 At the theatre some Frenchmen finding Montagu 
 was English, spoke much of me ; and said they wanted 
 of all things that I should come and examine France a 
 second time under the new regime. 
 
 Dined with Swirenove, the Kussian chaplain of the 
 embassy, greatly employed by the nobility of that 
 Empire in agricultural commissions. Patterson, bailiff 
 to Lord Hardwicke, is going to Kussia, and left me to 
 make a bargain for him, which I did. He is to have 100 
 guineas first year, and increasing 20 yearly till 200 
 guineas ; 60 for his son-in-law, and 20 for his daughter, 
 and 25 for a ploughman. Count Kostopchin, at 
 Woronowo, near Moscow, who has an immense estate, 
 is the man. A Russian count there, Benwakin, I think, 
 [he named] whose peasants pay him 30 roubles a year ; 
 but paper money so multiplied and at 50 per cent, dis- 
 count, that all prices are greatly risen nominally. The 
 Emperor's going to farm so largely has already had a 
 great effect in turning the attention of the nobility to 
 it. My annuity yesterday remitted from Ireland, 72Z.' 
 Thank God for that uninterrupted stream of His bounty 
 which I have enjoyed of late years without let or 
 
 ' See Chap. IV. ' Ireland,' for this curious bargain, by which A. Y., 
 instead of a sum total of 700/., in 1776 was to receive 72/. per annum ! 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 hindrance, and which my vile ingratitude returns so 
 badly. 
 
 Lord Winchilsea called yesterday, and sat an hour 
 with me. He is, I believe, one of the very best of the 
 nobility, and a really respectable moral character, and 
 benevolent to the poor. 
 
 August 22 : Bradfield. — Here is a blank of many 
 weeks, which shows once more how difficult it is to 
 keep journal resolutions. After a long tour in Norfolk, 
 which would have afforded much pleasure had not 
 business occupied all my time, I met Betsy and 0. at 
 Harleston, on the 9th. 
 
 War much talked of. The militia calling out. 
 These things, whatever the event, are certainly God's 
 providences. His will be done. But when I consider 
 the almost universal vice and iniquity of the kingdom, 
 the amazing protection and blessings which have been 
 showered down on us, and the vile ingratitude to God 
 which pervades all ranks in an utter forgetfulness of 
 Him, or contempt of His judgments, I must own I 
 tremble at the thought. 
 
 I have lived some time without making a will, 
 which has been very wrong. I am under such complex 
 settlements that I do not understand what power I 
 have ; and Gotobed's draft was so full of law jargon, 
 that I understand nothing of it. I wait no longer, but 
 have made one plain and simple, and such as I hope, 
 with the blessing of God, will not nor can be misunder- 
 stood. I have disposed of what I have to the best of 
 my conscience, that is, if I was to die at Christmas.
 
 DI.VEY CONTINUED 389 
 
 Here is only 300Z. to be made up by sale of timber, 
 'Annals,' &c. &c., but a farm auction would produce 
 more than 900Z., and rents are always behind, some 
 over due. I pray to God for better economy, and 
 much hope, by a fresh and careful attention to my 
 farm and ' Annals,' to bring things speedily to a better 
 account. 
 
 I forgot 1001. due to me from the Board for Nor- 
 folk Report, so that I evidently leave enough for all 
 demands, probably without cutting any timber. 
 
 I have never lived so well with Mrs. Young as for 
 five weeks past. 
 
 War ! To look into futurity is idle. The event is 
 in the Lord's hand, and will depend on the number 
 and piety of true Christians amongst us, and not 
 be governed by fleets and armies. France is so 
 unprepared at sea, that no war ever opened in that 
 respect with better prospects. But this is the arm of 
 flesh, and may mark the vanity of all trust in such 
 circumstances. 
 
 The following letter to A. Y. may fitly close the 
 chronicle of this year : 
 
 ' Drinkstone : Dec. 8, 1803. 
 
 ' Sir,— A letter from Lord Euston to Sir Charles 
 Davers recommends that in case of invasion all horses 
 and draft cattle that cannot be driven out of the reach 
 of the enemy be shot ; and that all the axle-trees or 
 wheels of all carriages likely to fall into the enemy's 
 hands be broken, the fullest assurance being given 
 of complete indemnification, provided no horses, draft 
 cattle, or carriages of any description fall into their
 
 390 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 hands through negligence or want of proper exertion 
 on the part of the owners. 
 
 ' All other stock is to be left for the use of the troops, 
 unless there be evident danger it may fall into the 
 invader's hands, in which case the measures formerly 
 determined upon must be resorted to. 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your obedient humble servant, 
 
 ' Joshua Grigby.'
 
 391 
 
 CHAPTEK XV 
 
 APPKOACHING BLINDNESS 
 
 1804-1807 
 
 A great preacher— Arthur Young the younger goes to Russia — Cowper's 
 Letters — Mrs. Young's illness — Dr. Symonds — Novel reading — 
 Skinner's 'State of Peru' — Death of Pitt — Burke's publishing 
 accounts — Literary projects — Approaching blindness. 
 
 Fehruarij 24.— The sins of a journal are like those of life, 
 much offence and a little repentance, minutes applied 
 and months neglected. Last night, for the first time 
 in my life, I was at a religious conversazione. Mr. Fry 
 has it once a fortnight. 
 
 Mrs. Wilberforce and thirty more, I suppose, began 
 with singing a hymn, and then a prayer, and ended in 
 the same manner ; the subject discussed was Providence. 
 Scott, Macaulay, and Fry were the only speakers ex- 
 cept myself, who threw in a word or two in a bad 
 manner and not in unison ; but I went without pre- 
 paring the temper of my mind, and it proved to me a 
 mere temptation to sin, as everything is sure to do 
 when we trust in our own strength and do not pray for 
 divine assistance. I like the thing itself much, and the 
 recollection since it passed has produced in my mind a 
 degree of humiliation which might not have been in it 
 had I not gone there. I wished to touch on the state 
 of the King's health, where the hand of God is so
 
 392 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 evident; but they would attend onlj' to little and 
 private things, and probably were right. They made 
 every possible event, the most trivial, providential. 
 Scott is a predestinarian, but impresses the necessity 
 of attending to the means by which God acts as much 
 as if the divine decrees were not universal. The next 
 subject is Temptation. 
 
 May 22. — My dear friend ' at Bradfield writes me 
 in a most melancholy strain, on the ill success of her 
 husband's farming, I doubt I shall lose largely by a 
 scheme which was executed merely to keep him out of 
 greater mischief. 
 
 The new Bishop of Bristol is in dress and manners 
 much like what we call in Suffolk a leather breeches 
 parson. 
 
 Somebody called on Mrs. Pelham, and found her 
 lying on a sofa reading a novel, rouged as much as any 
 Madame la Marquise. They thought she seemed to be 
 too high flown to be asked to a sober party of whist. 
 What a gradation of evil amongst the worldly even in 
 the respectable {soi-disant) class. 
 
 An application from Phillips for another edition of 
 the ' Farmer's Calendar.' He printed 2,000 of the fifth, 
 and 1,200 sold in a month ; they will all be gone before 
 it can be reprinted. I had lOOZ. for that edition, 401. 
 more for this six months after publication, and in 
 future 25Z. each succeeding one. 
 
 How grateful I ought to be, but am not, to God for 
 a success which has smoothed many difficulties, and 
 enabled me much to lessen, in assistance to other cir- 
 
 ' Mrs. Oakes.
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 393 
 
 cmnstances, my debts. The sale is an extraordinary 
 one. 
 
 What would be with me the result of moral re- 
 flections and trust in human means, in the power of 
 a vile heart to cure its own iniquities ? I have a con- 
 viction amounting to sensation in its truth, that every- 
 thing but looking unto Jesus is weaker than water — 
 vain and frivolous. This is the grand consideration, 
 result, and object of religion in the soul, all beside is 
 wide of the mark and without power and efficacy. Oh, 
 my God, my God ! write these truths in my soul, 
 impress them in my heart, that by communion with 
 Thee I may b}' Thy grace be purified, washed, and 
 cleansed from every evil thought. Blessed be Thy Holy 
 Name for keeping me from acts of sin. Oh ! have 
 mercy on my mind and take away every thought of it. 
 
 I shall have to experience another temptation, and 
 should be preparing for it. I have little doubt but Lord 
 Carrington will be again President of the Board. He 
 likes not me, and I shall be much more uncomfortable 
 than I have been with Lord Sheffield ; but such changes, 
 if they happen, will be from the Lord, for nothing is so 
 idle as for a Christian to suppose that anything takes 
 place by chance. 
 
 I do not mean to leave town till the Woburn meet- 
 ing, but I am restless, and want to get away. This is 
 a common folly, and ought carefully to be checked. It 
 is the spirit that wastes half a life, ever looking to a 
 future moment and never enjoying the present, which 
 is that alone that is truly our own.' 
 
 ' This recalls Goethe's line, ' Der Augenblick ist Ewigkeit.
 
 894 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHrR YOUNG 
 
 There is not a more valuable lesson than to learn 
 how to apply every portion of time to use, and not to 
 suffer the expectation of, or waiting for, any future 
 moment to make the intermediate ones tiresome or 
 unpleasant. It is wasting life and time that is never to 
 return. 
 
 Yesterday, at 7 p.m., I dined with Mr. Anson — a 
 fanning party : Duke of Bedford, Earl of Galloway, Earl 
 of Albemarle, Lord Somerville, Sir Eobert Lowley, Sir 
 John Wrottesley, Mr. Coke, Mr. Motteaux, Mr. Child, 
 Sir G. Pigot, Mr. Western, Mr. Wilbraham, all M.P.'s 
 or in high life. 
 
 Nothing but a farming conversation makes the 
 company of these people proper for me to have any- 
 thing to do with ; and that it is not to be conceived 
 how little they know on the subject, considering it's 
 a favourite pursuit. Such great fortunes and a life of 
 luxury and bustle and motion are hostile to every kind 
 of knowledge ; and the conversation abounds with in- 
 formation for those who watch for and have a memory 
 to retain it, yet it demands a good deal of knowledge 
 previously digested and arranged to make a due use of 
 it. A splendid house, one of the best in London ; 
 magnificent furniture, plate, servants, wines, and every- 
 thing, equal to 30,000Z. or 40,000^. a year, but he has no 
 such income, 
 
 I have — I think I have — no envy of these doings. 
 Such situations are so hostile to the religious principle 
 that ought to animate the soul, that I should think of 
 them with fear and trembling. I hate parties, and my 
 heart condemns me whenever I go to them, in which
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 395 
 
 not a word ever occurs to give God the glory due to 
 His Holy Name, which is sometimes profaned but 
 never honoured, where Grace before and after meat is 
 discarded. And this is a sort of denial of Christ which 
 gives me no slight disquiet and remorse, and ought 
 entirely to banish me from all such company ; it works 
 in me, and I cordially hope it will soon produce that 
 effect, for the pleasure I receive is little and the offence 
 to God I fear is much. ' Come out from among them 
 and touch not the unclean thing,' is applicable to more 
 cases than I have applied it to. I am determined to go 
 only to Woburn this year and not to Holkham ; four 
 days of noise and bustle are too much, I will get away 
 in three ; but a whole fortnight is horrible. I will get 
 to Cambridge by Saturday, and I hope Jane will meet 
 me there to spend Sunday, and perhaps Monday, with 
 Simeon, and make him promise to meet Fry at Brad- 
 field. Yesterday and this day hurry, bustle, packing up, 
 paying bills, and recollection on the stretch lest anything 
 should be forgotten. Wrote to Cordell, the bookseller, 
 to settle with me for the Irish Tom*. It has been years 
 out of print, and the last settlement in 1795. I have 
 half the sale ; 154 were then left, my half, 30Z. at least, 
 and it never came into my head before. Very careless 
 indeed, and in money to receive ! Such busy days are 
 unpleasant because both mind and body are fatigued. 
 
 18th at Woburn. Came with Lord Sheffield yester- 
 day. I detest this profanation of the Sabbath, but he 
 urged me so to accompany him that I yielded like a 
 fool. A great dinner, Lords Albemarle, Ossory, Ludlow, 
 Duke of Manchester, Sir H. Fetherstone, Sir R. Pigot,
 
 396 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 the Wilbrahams, &c., twenty in all. Several apartments 
 newly furnished, and many very expensive articles, 
 clocks, &c., from Paris to the amount of 2,000Z. Much 
 done to the greenhouse, and everywhere a profusion 
 of expense. The late rains have given a fine verdure, 
 and the place in full beauty. Such a flow of worldly 
 blessings as are seen in one of these very great residences 
 makes me melancholy when I reflect on the immense 
 temptation and dreadful responsibility that attaches. 
 AVhat have not these people to answer for if they forget 
 the Giver in the profusion of His gifts ? and where am 
 I to go to find a great house and establishment with a 
 society and conversation that shows the Gospel of our 
 Lord to be held in reverence and affection ? 
 
 This poor Duke of Bedford, whose nominal income 
 is so enormous, will, I fear, involve himself with the same 
 imprudence. Cartwright has built him a steam engine 
 (700/.) for threshing and grinding : 12 per cent, interest 
 in the least to be calculated, or 84/., and yet a one-horse 
 mill, price 50/., would thresh all the corn that will ever 
 be brought to this yard. 
 
 An extravagant duchess, Paris toys, a great farm, 
 little economy, and immense debts, will prove a canker 
 in all the rosebuds of his garden of life. The providence 
 of the Almighty governs all, and will not permit an 
 utter forgetfulness of Him to produce even the temporal 
 happiness which is alone sought for. 
 
 I am tired of the whole, and long for the retirement 
 and quiet of Bradfield after so many weeks of London, 
 and this finishing of hurry and bustle. I would not 
 have another week of it for a hundred pounds. What
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 397 
 
 has a Christian to do with such scenes ? How a person 
 of fortune and the world can be one I know not. They 
 are never cool, and have no time for reading or thought. 
 It is madness to continue in such a state, but to travel 
 120 miles in order to enter a fresh scene of it, and 
 perhaps within earshot of such a profane beast and fool 
 as that Captain G. I sat near last year — this would 
 be insanity. What a spectacle at Woburn was that 
 miserably swearing profligate, Major B., of Sussex, at the 
 age of eighty-one, sticking to the last moment to worldly 
 dissipation, and utterly regardless of what is to become 
 of him hereafter. Like Lord Lauderdale, who declared 
 that he feared nothing in this world nor in the next 
 either ! These people call themselves Deists ; I think 
 they must be atheists, or they are utterly in contradic- 
 tion to themselves. It is a sin, and ought to be repented 
 of, to go into such company. I feel myself here, looking 
 on the tranquil bosom of the Ouse, as having escaped 
 from a multiplicity of temptations, and that this is 
 the first moment of my summer holidays, quiet and 
 alone. This morning I had a letter from Jane, by which 
 I find it is quite uncertain whether I shall meet her 
 at Cambridge. She asks my directions, but had she 
 thought, must have known that she could not receive 
 an answer in time. I hope to hear Simeon ' twice on 
 Sunday, and much wish that she may be there, as I 
 wrote before to request it ; and she says she should 
 like it of all things. 
 
 ' Ch. Simeon, 1759-1836, an eminent divine of the Evangelical 
 school. His works, consisting of 2,536 sermons, &c., were published in 
 twenty-one volumes in 1832.
 
 398 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 24:th : Cambridge. — I dined here yesterday. Inquired 
 for that great and good man, Simeon, but he was not 
 to be in town till the evening. I walked behind 
 Trinity and John's, &c., twice — a delightful day. Wrote 
 and left a letter for him ; at nine he came, and will 
 certainly meet Fry at Bradfield. Thank God ! I shall 
 hear him twice to-day and Mr. Thomason once, for I 
 shall go thrice to Trinity Church. I mentioned Fry's 
 calculation of three millions of Christians ; but he 
 very properly thought it very erroneous. He thinks 
 Cambridge a fair average, and in 10,000 people knows 
 but of 110 certainly vital Christians — more than 150 
 can scarcely be from a seventy-fifth to a hundredth 
 part therefore ! There are, I am rejoiced to hear it, 
 many very pious young men in the colleges. 
 
 Night. — I have been at Trinity Church thrice to-day. 
 In the morning a very good sermon by Simeon, a 
 decent one by Thomason, and in the evening to a 
 crowded congregation a superlative discourse by Simeon 
 on the twelfth verse of chapter iv. of the Acts : ' There 
 is no other name under heaven,' &c. Vital, evangelical, 
 powerful, and impressive in his animated manner. 
 
 Sunday, July 8 : Bradfield. — This day se'nnight took 
 the Sacrament with Jane at Bury, suddenly, and there- 
 fore without any preparation, and got there in the Lessons. 
 The week has been vile and miserable. Fry cannot 
 come, but had a letter from Simeon, he will be here 
 to-morrow ! Lord, of Thy mercy give a blessing to 
 his presence, that conversation and prayer with him 
 may give a turn to my mind ! Were it not for what I 
 think a firm faith in the Cross of my Redeemer, I should
 
 APPKOACHING BLINDNESS 399 
 
 think that I was almost in the jaws of hell. But if I 
 perish it shall be looking at the brazen serpent. Fiery 
 serpents innumerable bite ; let me turn instantly to the 
 Cross, and there see and trust to the blood of sprinkling. 
 What should I have thought of this before my con- 
 version ? Is it true and saving faith now to think and 
 feel it— or rather to know it in my understanding than 
 feel it in my heart ? I am full of apprehensions, and 
 the only sign of spiritual life in me is some sense and 
 feeling of my own iniquity and the plague of my carnal 
 thoughts ; but if they were truly a load to me, would 
 not the Lord ease me of the burden ? 
 
 10th. — Yesterday, Simeon came. His character 
 singular. His piety — his strong expressions — his fer- 
 vency in prayer — a powerful mind ! 
 
 ISth. — Simeon went this morning. I have been 
 horribly negligent in not waiting down many of his 
 conversations. What he thinks of me I know not, 
 but he spoke to Jane with great freedom and candour, 
 and as became a good Christian. 
 
 His abilities are considerable, his parts strong, 
 his ardour and animation uncommonly great. His 
 eloquence great, and his manner impressive. His 
 prayers admirably adapted to the cases of all who heard 
 him. He came with a servant and two very fine 
 horses, on which he places a high value. From his life 
 and expenses must have a considerable income ; for 
 his preferment is only expense, and costs him more 
 than he receives from it. His fellowship is as good as 
 400 guineas a year to him. He must have a very good 
 private fortune, from some circumstances, as I judge.
 
 400 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 which he dropped in conversation. He went to 
 Cambridge from Eton and became a Christian on the 
 third day, now about twenty-five or twenty-six years 
 ago. Dm:ing all which time he has never doubted of 
 his future salvation. He is remarkably cheerful and has 
 much wit, or something nearly allied to it. 
 
 I wrote to N. H., requesting his pulpit for Sunday, 
 but he refused it ; and after church apologised, saying 
 it was not from himself, but he was talked to. 
 
 Oh ! for the dumb dogs of our clergy who will 
 neither preach the Gospel themselves nor let others do 
 it. I told him that my request was to him a safe one, 
 for I asked, of course, only for a regularly bred clergy- 
 man, and who possessed preferment in the national 
 church. Very unlucky ! Symonds dined here, and his 
 conversation never does any good. He explained his 
 chance for salvation in the merits alone of Jesus Christ, 
 but denies original sin. This seems a contradiction ; I 
 would not think so for a thousand worlds ! How can he 
 be sensible of what he wants in the blood of the Saviour 
 without knowing the utter depravity of his heart ? 
 
 Tuesday morning, C. Coke, of Holkham, Allen, 
 and Moore called on me to see the farm, and would 
 have me dine with them at Moore's. Haunch of 
 venison, &c. Mrs. M. young, and in the worldly 
 sphere very agreeable ; her dress horrid. She con- 
 trives to force out her prominent bust in a manner 
 that must take no small attention in dressing, is very 
 big with child, and thinly clad ; such a figure is common 
 in these times, but the fashion is contrived purposely. 
 
 Mr. Smirenove came last night to dinner, and
 
 APPKOACHING BLINDNESS 401 
 
 brought Count Rostopchin's snuff-box. It is turned in 
 his own oak, hned with gold, and has a tablet contain- 
 ing the representation of a building dedicated to me. 
 The inscription in Eussian, A Pupil to his Master, set 
 round with sixty-six diamonds. Query — Should not all 
 such toys be turned into money and given to the poor ? 
 He was Prime Minister under Paul, and has 50,000Z. 
 English per annum. 
 
 On Monday I breakfasted, dined, and slept at Lord 
 Bristol's ; Lady B. and her sister, Miss Upton, sung 
 Italian airs till twelve o'clock at night. They were many 
 years ago a horrible temptation, now [they are] a frivolous 
 waste of time, but ever a bad tendency on the heart. 
 Pressed me greatly to stay ; but I was engaged next 
 day to dinner at Gooch's, and yesterday I dined at 
 Betsy's. All this visiting is very bad for my soul. 
 
 Friday I dined again at Lord Bristol's, by desire 
 of the Oakes, as they expected meeting none they knew, 
 but there were several. Music in the evening, slept 
 there ; in the morning, at Bury, met Benjafield on justice 
 business. He wanted to commit a woman for being a 
 lewd woman, on the statute of King James, by which it 
 can only be for a year ; if this was executed, all the 
 prisons in the county would not hold them, and the 
 time is far too severe ; nor do I conceive that the case 
 comes within it. I declined, and desired they might 
 be heard on Wednesday, as appeared the week before, 
 I go on in repentance miserably, my heart is cold, and 
 I am languid in devotion. Oh, could I sufficiently hate 
 and abhor myself ! ! 
 
 Nooemher 2. — If I go ten yards from home it can 
 
 D D
 
 402 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 be only into the world, and therefore I never move but 
 for mischief. I have every post a packet of letters 
 from Lord Sheffield, filling the tables and for many 
 hours employment every day. There seems to be no 
 great reason for apprehending any famine, or even such 
 a scarcity as before, but the price must be too high 
 for the poor, without being half high enough for the 
 farmer : I mean of wheat, the crop of which is full as 
 bad as it has been for ten years past, but there is a 
 stock in hand which will keep it down. 
 
 December 30, — I went to London on account of the 
 Smithfield Club and there received the first Bedford 
 medal of the Bath Society for an essay on the Nature 
 and Properties of Manm-es, there being four other can- 
 didates. At London also I dined wdth M. de Novosili- 
 koff, a particular friend of the Emperor Alexander, 
 who is here on a political mission of great importance. 
 
 Davidson, who manages the Emperor's farm, and 
 Smirenove were present ; their plan at present is to 
 have reports of their Governments made upon the same 
 system as ours, of counties, and Mr. de N. talked much 
 of the great advantage of my going. I would not offer 
 myself, but said that the whole would depend on the 
 sort of men employed. Since I came down I wTote 
 to Smhenove, offering Arthur (by his own desire), pro- 
 vided the sum granted for the purpose w^as adequate. 
 
 De N. was out of town, so no answer yet. 
 
 The attention I give to all these worldly matters, 
 though they do not sit at all close to vsiy heart, yet 
 occupy too much of my time. 
 
 I do not give enough to the far greater interests
 
 APPEOACHI^^G BLINDNESS 403 
 
 of the eternal world ; and I have been for months 
 past, and am at present, in a dead, sinful state, remote 
 from the only God of hope and consolation. 
 
 His mercy to me is great, fori have life and health. 
 I am not in hell ; but I find a horrible difficulty in 
 coming to God, and a deadness of heart which hurts 
 my prayers and plunges me more and more in sin 
 and offence. 
 
 Lord, of Thy mercy listen unto me. Oh ! look 
 with compassion on my wretchedness. 
 
 1805. Jan. 30.— The 19th I came to London ; the 
 23rd breakfasted with Mr. Novosilikoff, and made my 
 proposals of terms on which Arthur would go to Russia, 
 having before received a letter from Smirenove an- 
 nouncing an entire approbation in Mr. N. of my son 
 for the expedition. The terms were that he and his 
 wife should go by land, getting out hence the beginning 
 of March, in order to be at Moscow the beginning of 
 May ; that is, if out a year he should have a thousand 
 pounds, and proportionably for a longer time, and all 
 his expenses paid to, at, and from Russia. He came 
 into it readily, and when the conversation was over, 
 Mr. Davidson, who was present, said, ' Well, now it 
 seems all settled, and it only remains to know where 
 Mr. Y. is to be supplied with money for his journey.' 
 Mr. de N. said Mr. Smirenove would be directed to 
 advance it. 
 
 Reflecting afterwards on this conversation, I thought 
 that some admission of the terms in writing should be 
 obtained, as in case of deaths or revolutions they might 
 be questioned ; I therefore wrote to Mr. de N., recapitu- 
 
 D D 2
 
 404 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUK YOUNG 
 
 lating the terms on both sides and begging to know if 
 I was correct. 
 
 No answer was returned ; but Lord Somerville, 
 calHng on me two days after, mentioned in conversation 
 that he had recommended a Mr, Green, who had farmed 
 in Normandy, and been seven years in a French prison, 
 of which he had pubHshed an account, to Mr. de N. to 
 go to Russia to survey a government, hinting at the 
 same time his knowledge that my son was in contem- 
 plation also. He said that G. had breakfasted with 
 de N., who was much pleased with him. 
 
 All this awakens suspicions in my mind that, com- 
 bined with the silence of Mr. de N., make it appa- 
 rently necessary to know how we really stand, and I 
 determined to write to Smirenove requesting that he 
 would speak to Mr. de N., as any uncertainty was 
 unpleasant, while my son was actually arranging his 
 farm, &c., for his departure. This I have now done, 
 and shall send it before breakfast, for no answer is yet 
 come. 
 
 I do not like the complexion of the business, but 
 think it likely that Green speaking French, which will 
 save the necessity of Jane going as an interpreter, and 
 perhaps his taking one or two hundreds instead of 
 IjOOOZ., may have induced de N. to think again of the 
 matter. 
 
 I have prayed earnestly to the Lord that He would 
 prevent the journey taking place if it would turn out in 
 any way injurious to the state of their souls, putting 
 the matter entirely in His Almighty hands, and deter- 
 mining to rest assured that if it does not take place, it
 
 APPKOACHING BLINDNESS 405 
 
 will be the Lord's will, and that I should be thankful 
 for His interference to prevent it. 
 
 The government of Moscow which A. was to have 
 done is thirteen times as big as Norfolk. It would take 
 two years to do it well without any doubt. A. is much 
 disappointed, for he liked the thoughts of the scheme 
 much. 
 
 I threw out in conversation with N. that if the 
 business of the Board would permit, and they approved 
 it, I would go over in June, and stay till November to 
 assist in the work ; that I should ask onh' my expenses. 
 He seemed much to approve of this, but it was men- 
 tioned only as a contingency. Here the matter rests. 
 I shall know soon what the event will be. 
 
 Many things have had a very lowering aspect of 
 late, the ' Annals ' with Phillips are certainly at an end. 
 They do not answer with him, and he has demurred at 
 settling the account, with 100/. or more due to me. 
 This will be a loss of 180Z. a year. My plan is to print 
 four numbers a year on my own account, for the sake 
 of selling old stock ; by this I shall lose 40/. more. In 
 Ar.'s (Arthur's) farm the rent will be sunk from last 
 Michaelmas 20/. a year, and I am engaged to pay 
 Noxford 20/. a year more tithe. This year the Ex- 
 chequer annuity of 150/. a year ceases. 
 
 On the whole here is full 400/. a year loss of income, 
 which will be very distressing if every expenditure be 
 not pared down in a most economical manner. May 
 the Lord's mercy give me grace to be steady and deter- 
 mined in this matter, for it is a most important one. 
 I have very little to suffer personally in the reduction.
 
 406 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 for- the expenses do not run that way, but comforts 
 must be cheerfully lessened. 
 
 Feb. 3. — No answer came from Novosilikoff; I wrote 
 therefore to Smirenove, who replied last Friday that N. 
 was gone to St. Petersburg, that he had replied to my 
 letter, and was surprised that I had not received it ; that 
 he approved of all the contents of mine, and had left 
 orders with him to supply money. 
 
 This I despatched to A., who was become very 
 uneasy and impatient. So now the business seems 
 concluded and the die cast, but may the Lord prevent 
 it taking place if it is to be productive of evil to the 
 eternal interests of either ! I pray for this, may He 
 hear my prayers. I have little notion of comfort in 
 anything that is undertaken without consulting God, 
 opening the business to Him, and begging His direction 
 how to proceed. I have had a letter from Orbell's ^ 
 friend, who agrees to my terms of letting Ar.'s farm, 
 so, thank God, that is settled. 
 
 nth. — Many difficulties have occurred relative to a 
 post-chaise for them. Brown has examined my old 
 one and sent an estimate of the repairs, 561. Smirenove 
 approved of it, but his second advice is that it would not 
 do. He proposed one of his, and letters backwards 
 and forwards. But yesterday I found one at Holmes's 
 in Long Acre, built for a Mr. Lock to go to Malta, 
 which will do exactly, and in which they may have 
 bedding and sleep at full length ; a journeyman said the 
 price was 50 guineas. H. not at home, in the evening 
 a letter, and 70 guineas named. 
 
 ' Orbell Oakes, husband of ' my friend,' the beautiful Betsy.
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 407 
 
 I got lip as always at 4 a.m., and have been reading 
 and praying. Fry last Sunday alluded to an apostate 
 from the truth, and Wilberforce asked him who it was, 
 saying that of course he would not answer if the 
 question was improper. 
 
 It was Townsend,^ of Wiltshire, the traveller in 
 Spain, who began his career quite in the style of Whit- 
 field's energy and openness of declaring his principles in 
 the fields or in barns, &c. The Lansdown folks told 
 him they could never make him a bishop with such 
 conduct or such principles ; upon which he dropped 
 the whole, giving out to his friends that he only sus- 
 pended his conduct and meant to resume it at a better 
 season. That never came, and he has continued an 
 apostate from all religion, and from having 200 com- 
 municants at his church, has now only two or three 
 besides himself and his clerk. 
 
 This miserably constituted Board of Agriculture is 
 ever in a dilemma when a new president is to be elected 
 Lord S. will keep it no longer, and he is in a difficulty 
 to propose another. He has written to the Duke of 
 Bedford, and I fear in a way that may make the 
 duke suppose that Government approves of it. Lord 
 Carrington I suspected intended to come in again, but 
 he assures me that he would not. 
 
 March 3. — I borrowed of Mr, Wilberforce, Owen ^ 
 on ' Indwelling Sin,' to which are annexed two other 
 
 ' J. Townsend, 1740-1816, English divine, and author of A Jcmmcy 
 through Spain, 2nd edit. 1792. 
 
 -' John Owen, D.D., lGlC-1683, the great Nonconformist divine who 
 accompanied Cromwell to Scotland. In 1817 A. Y. published Oiveniana 
 (or selections from his works).
 
 408 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 essays on Temptation and the Mortification of Sin in 
 Believers. The last work is incomparable, chapter ix. 
 of it perhaps the most useful paper ever written. I 
 have made many extracts from all three. The essay 
 on Mortification I meditate printing a new edition of, 
 being out of print, to which I could add notes that 
 might be useful. The reading these treatises has had 
 an effect on my mind which I hope, with the blessing of 
 the grace of God, will produce a more serious attention 
 to the state of my heart with God than reading any 
 book has done since Wilberforce's. 
 
 April 20. — At Bradfield. Yesterday returned from 
 Harwich. Arthur and Jane went on board the ' Diana ' 
 packet, Capt. Stewart, Thursday, the 18th, at 3 o'clock, 
 and I have taken a long and melancholy farewell of 
 them ! Oh ! may Almighty God give His blessing to the 
 undertaking, and that we may all meet again in health 
 and happiness. But when the fearful uncertainty of all 
 earthly events is considered, such partings ought to be 
 more melancholy than they are. She felt much, and 
 has a cordial affection for me. 
 
 The undertaking, thus employed by a foreign 
 sovereign to make a report of one of his provinces, is 
 the first thing of the kind that has occurred, and will 
 either give Arthur a great reputation, or sink that 
 which he has gained. It is a very difficult work, how- 
 ever, to produce a good book from a very ill-cultivated 
 province, and in the large experience of all our own 
 reports we see that very few are well executed ; the 
 object has either been ill understood or poorly done, 
 the surveyors deal in reflections instead of giving the
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 40^^ 
 
 experience of individuals, yet the husbandry of a 
 county is made up of nothing else but private exertions. 
 They do not half travel [over] the districts, and do not 
 take notes of the practice of one hundredth part of 
 those persons that might be applied to. Arthur goes 
 with every possible advantage except languages, I hope 
 he will exert them. 
 
 Bradfield is very melancholy without them. Jane 
 was always cheerful, always affectionate and kind to 
 me, ever pleased with my presence, and never parted 
 from me but with regret. The loss of such a friend with 
 much conversation and an excellent understanding no- 
 thing human can make amends for. It is a loss that 
 ought to turn all my attention and all my heart to that 
 better world where parting, sorrow, and death will find 
 no place. 
 
 24^7i. — Last night I slept at Bury, at the Oakes', 
 having walked there in the morning and dined with 
 them. It raised my low spirits a little — but badly — for 
 such company is mere dissipation. 
 
 On Monday morning, hankering after some sort of 
 dissipation to divert my melancholy, I fortunately recol- 
 lected that Jane had left Cowper's Letters, and that I 
 had not read the third volume. I got it, and beginning 
 knew not how to lay the book out of my hand, and 
 before night read the volume through. There is an 
 uncommon charm in his sentiments and his style ; 
 something that interests the heart wonderfully. The 
 religious passages are peculiarly valuable, and a few 
 struck me very much. 
 
 On the Sabbath he is extremely just. On turning
 
 410 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 the mind from creation's beauties to creation's Author, 
 the observation is fine ; his remarks on the life of 
 dissipation at Brighton, beautiful ; on religion, page 
 106, on local attachments, on familiar commmiion with 
 God, on natural music, terminated by a most sublime 
 passage — ' There is somewhere in infinite space a 
 world that does not roll within the precincts of mercy ; 
 and as it is reasonable and even scriptural to suppose 
 that there is music in heaven, in those dismal regions 
 perhaps the reverse of it is found. Tones so dismal as 
 to make woe itself more insupportable, and to acmni- 
 nate even despair ! ' "What a striking thought ! But 
 how many are there that will believe in neither hell nor 
 devil, and what must their belief and feelings be who, 
 closing their ears here, open them to the sounds of such 
 a world as that ! How many passages do we meet with 
 in great authors which seem sufficient to strike a 
 reader's mind to conviction and conversion ; yet read 
 by thousands, perhaps admired, without the smallest 
 effect on the heart. 
 
 15th. — A Mr. Cole called here to ask about pass- 
 ports for Kussia. He has hired 30,000 acres in the 
 province of Minsk, which he is to have with 300 boors, 
 paying half the profits as rent. He was advised not to 
 take a grant of land, as it would cause a difficulty after 
 it to quit Russia. I must caution Arthur about this, 
 for he may entangle himself without being aware of it. 
 In the melancholy, solitary moments I pass here, I 
 have been thinking of the manj' blessings the Almighty 
 has been graciously pleased to shower down upon me. 
 First, He gives me great health, at sixty-four, as good
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 411 
 
 as at any time for twenty years past, and much better 
 than forty years ago. Secondly, He has been pleased 
 to leave me two children. Oh, that He would call 
 them to feel truly His faith, fear, and love ! Thirdly, He 
 has granted me an ample income very far beyond what 
 I had, upon entering the world, the smallest reason to 
 expect. I have many doubts of money ever being a 
 blessing, but that is owing to the receiver and not to the 
 giver, it certainly is that which might be made by grace 
 a very considerable one. Fourthly, He has given me the 
 power of being greatly useful to my country ; it would 
 be foolish not to reckon that which I know beyond the 
 possibility of vanity deceiving me. Fifthly, He has 
 given me a paternal estate and residence which I 
 greatly love and never w^ish to change. I could go on 
 and reckon many other things, but these are sufhcient 
 to call for a heartfelt and deeply abiding gratitude. I 
 ought to be able to add, that I am miserable for want 
 of feeling this as I should do ; in truth I am in this 
 respect a brute beast devoid of everything that marks 
 the Christian and the penitent. Lord, of Thy mercy 
 soften this obdurate heart by the grace of Jesus Christ ! 
 Fill it with contrition for offences. Purify and renew 
 it, bring it in holy faith to the foot of the Cross, and 
 make it feel its iniquities, till it be changed and im- 
 pressed with Thy holy image. 
 
 26^A. — I read the concluding entry of yesterday, 
 and it struck me that I had not thanked God for the 
 friends He had given me, and this made me muse for a 
 while. Had I wrote before I became serious, how 
 warmly should I have thanked Him on this score !
 
 412 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 How it is with others I know not, but with me rehgion 
 has cooled, checked, or annihilated those feelings ; real 
 friendship cannot be felt by a Christian but to a 
 Christian. 
 
 "What surprises me much more is that I do not feel 
 any very striking advantage from the society of Chris- 
 tians. This I attribute as a fault in myself, and dare say 
 it is for want of more grace and prayer. I love their 
 company, and, some hankerings apart, desire no other. 
 I hope with God's blessing to improve in this respect — 
 hitherto solitude has been my best friend. Here there 
 are none to be acquainted with but a very few poor 
 people who are never at their ease with me ; and at 
 London those I know are too much engaged to see 
 many more than for a moment. Going to bed at nine 
 o'clock prevents the society I might otherwise have there 
 if it were followed up. 
 
 28^A. — Symonds slept here the night before last 
 and dined twice, which obliged me to postpone more 
 business than I otherwise should have done. He told 
 me one anecdote I had not heard before. In Lord 
 Bute's administration, as his lordship told him himself, 
 the King settled with him to give the Koyal Society 
 500/. a year for ever, which was accordingly communi- 
 cated, and to Lord Bute's amazement refused. On 
 enquiry he found that the motive was an apprehension 
 that he should become too popular if it was accepted ! 
 Was ever such folly heard of ? 
 
 Another anecdote of Symonds. He dined last year 
 at Sir C. Bunbury's, where he met the rich Mr. Mills, 
 the brandy merchant, who bought Mure's estate, and
 
 APPROACHINa BLINDNESS 413 
 
 who said he found my * Annals ' there, which were good 
 for nothing. ' What, nothing good in them '? ' said S. 
 ' No, nothing at all.' ' That is unfortmiate with so 
 many correspondents. But if the " Annals " are bad, have 
 you read Mr. Y.'s travels ? ' ' Yes, and very poor stuff 
 they are.' ' That is still more unfortunate, for I know 
 that the Marshal de Castries and the late King of 
 Prussia spoke in the highest possible terms of them, 
 and books in French by respectable writers have been 
 dedicated to Mr. Y. in consequence of that publication.' 
 ' I can see nothing in them,' 
 
 The next day he wrote Symonds a letter with many 
 apologies, as he understood that he had been talking to 
 a gentleman who had contributed much to the ' Annals.' 
 
 So much for my rich neighbour. 
 
 Letters from London, and I am very sorry to find 
 that my poor wife is much worse. Nothing but bad 
 news. Sir J. Banks writes me that Sir J. Sinclair is to 
 resume the chair of the Board under promises of good 
 behaviour. My wife's miserable state is a much worse 
 business. 
 
 May 22. — I am entirely alone and not without 
 melancholy. "Worldly people have a thousand resources, 
 as I had once, but every atom of them leads to mischief, 
 and I am a thousand times better without them. Lord 
 Carrington the other day, speaking to Sir C. Willoughby 
 about his son going to school, said, ' Oh, send him to a 
 great one, which will give him a manly character fit for 
 the world, make him a man of the world.' So it is 
 with these people ; Jesus Christ tells us to hate the 
 world, and that what is in high estimation amongst
 
 414 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 men is abomination in the eyes of God ; but worldly 
 men declare, and think, and feel, and act, directly hos- 
 tile to Scriptm'e ; they urge one another and impress 
 as respectable everything that Qod abhors. Words 
 cannot express a character more in contradiction to the 
 Christian than that which is meant by a man of the 
 world. 
 
 23rd. — I was awake at 2 a.m. and laid without 
 sleep till 3 a.m. My thoughts were not edifying, so I 
 jumped out of bed, and having prayed to the Father of 
 mercies, I began with business. But the train of thought 
 I had been in came again and interrupted me ; it was 
 upon the event of what would befall me as secretary to 
 the Board. I have many reasons for thinking that 
 several of the members do not like me, and should any- 
 thing happen that gave them any handle, would be glad 
 to get rid of me. This was not the case when I was one 
 of themselves, but they know that I associate with 
 religious people, go to the Lock (a very black mark), 
 and read the Bible, and now and then words drop which 
 I understand. Should Sir J. Sinclair become president 
 or Lord Carrington, they might make it very unpleasant 
 to me. Sir John is as poor as a church mouse, and 
 would like well to have his lodging here. Should my 
 family lessen, it would be quite unbearable, and if the 
 idea was started, I must resist it, the question would pro- 
 bably be lost, and then I should resign ; this would fix 
 me in repose at Bradfield, and I should be to the full 
 as happy as at present, but my family would not, and 
 then— all this is very wild. I will have done with it 
 for so much as I am persuaded that everything is in
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 415 
 
 the hands of God ; nothing can be greater folly than 
 pretending thus to look forward, it is equally useless 
 and uncomfortable. 
 
 June 3. — Since the last entry I have had letters 
 from Jane and Arthur at Berlin, where they seemed to 
 have stayed a week. They had been received with 
 great politeness and attention by the Princess of Hol- 
 stein, Prince Baratinsky's mother ; had dined with her, 
 and she carried them to her villa ; they had dined also 
 with the English and Russian Ambassadors, and been 
 at Charlottenburg with Sir G. Rumbold. 
 
 I begin to be a little restless to get into the 
 country. 
 
 Ihth. — Bradfield. I got here the 6th, earlier than 
 ever before or since the institution of the Board, which 
 is a great blessing. I have managed to escape both 
 Woburn and Holkham. 
 
 I have missed Jane terribly, but I have endeavoured 
 to turn it to a religious account. Poorly and weakly, 
 but still better than not at all. The weather has been 
 bad, which has caused my taking less exercise than 
 is good for me, but blessed be God, my health is 
 excellent. 
 
 I have stuck close to my great work the * Elements,' 
 and have gone through my own Norfolk report and the 
 fourth volume of the Board ' Communications.' What 
 an immense labour has it been, and for how many 
 years to collect and arrange materials. I could not 
 have conceived how much it is necessary to do before 
 I can fairly say, Now all is before me and in order, 
 ready to compare and draw conclusions.
 
 416 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 I mean it to contain everything good that has ever 
 been printed. Till all that is collected and before me, 
 how can I know^ what is already done, and what wants 
 to be added ? 
 
 But the labour, when continued year after j^ear, is 
 what I never dreamt of when I began. I have worked 
 hard at the first division — Soils, and brought it into 
 some form ; and it is a specimen of how much attention 
 every division will demand. I have also began the 
 second, on Vegetation. I fear making the work too 
 voluminous, and that by-and-by I must curtail greatly. 
 Success is pleasant, and I should fear that if it exceeded 
 two large quartos. 
 
 Since I have been here I have read a little work 
 of Flavel's,^ 'A Saint indeed,' which is truly admirable; 
 ^ome [passages] in Marshall ^ on ' Sanctification,' and 
 very many of Cowper's letters, all the religious ones. 
 
 IStk. — Cowper is invaluable to a country gentleman 
 that would enjoy his residence without the world's 
 assistance. Reading his letters has made me more 
 attentive to every beauty of this place, of which I was 
 always so fond ; there is something very amiable in the 
 manner in which he converts every flower, tree, and twig 
 to enjoyment, and I walk out better prepared for this 
 pleasure from the perusal of that most agreeable writer. 
 There is but one danger from which, poor man, his 
 poverty secured him, and that is the mind insensibly 
 running into speculation of improvement. I have 
 
 ' John Flavel, Nonconformist divine, 1627-1662, author of numerous 
 works. 
 
 - By Walter Marshall, 1692 ; frequently repiinted.
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 417 
 
 made many here, and the taste is very insatiable ; this 
 miay without a guard lead to too much expense. But 
 I endeavour to correct the wanderings of imagination, 
 and to dwell on the beauties of every single tree, shrub, 
 and spot, and to be content with them all as they are. 
 The laburnum in the back lawn is more beautiful than 
 I ever saw it, so entirely covered with rich clusters of 
 its golden flowers, that I can admire it for an hour 
 together. This enjoyment, however, is very poor and 
 fading if we do not, with Cowper, turn our minds 
 habitually to the great and beneficent Author of all 
 these beauties. This sentiment is impressive and 
 durable, and leads the mind to the richest contempla- 
 tions. If for such a race the earth is thus clothed, 
 what must heaven be ? 
 
 A reading habit is a great blessing. I am sure 
 I find it so, for though I have risen at 3 a.m. since I 
 have been here, and not once been in bed at four, still 
 I am not tired ai night. A walk is a refreshment to be 
 had in the country in a moment, but at London half 
 a mile of street thronged and noisy, and then only a 
 crowded park, with sights to wound or to tempt. I 
 do not like snow, but a deep one and blustering wind 
 here is preferable to calm sunshine in the streets of 
 London. 
 
 But much as I like Bradfield even alone. I must 
 leave it and get quickly into Essex. I could write the 
 Report from materials before me, and from a long 
 knowledge of the county, and produce a valuable work, 
 but that would not be honest. I shall take their money, 
 and will therefore travel as much in it, and give as much 
 
 E E
 
 418 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 attention to it, as if I had no materials at all to work 
 upon. 
 
 August 12. — Letters from Jane and Arthur at St. 
 Petersburg. They give sad accounts of the treatment 
 the English have received there if most specific agree- 
 ments be not made beforehand for everything. I wish 
 cordially they were well home again, and so do they, 
 I believe. 
 
 October 20. — At Eayleigh. To keep a journal in this 
 manner is nonsense, and worse than nonsense ; besides, 
 I have time to do better, and therefore ought to do it. 
 
 Three nights past I slept at the Earl of St. Vincent's, 
 who, being a great character, forces a note. I had much 
 inclination to have called on him, as I heard of Sir T. 
 Leonard that he farmed, but I thought it would be a 
 forward step, and so passed on to the Squire of the 
 parish. Towers. He was in with the gout, but his sons 
 told me that they had lately dined in company of Lord 
 St. v., who mentioned my being in the country, and that 
 he expected to see me. Whence this expectation came 
 I have no conception. He received me politely, plea- 
 santly, and cordially ; kept me all day to dinner and to 
 sleep, and desired me if ever I came near him again 
 to be sure to make his house my headquarters. He 
 showed me every acre, cow, ox, and pig, and talked 
 sensibly enough on farming, as far as he knew of it. 
 "When he returned he told me he did not dine till 6 p.m., 
 and as he should be out again, I should have a fire 
 in Lady St. V.'s dressing room, and a pen and ink, and 
 that I was my own master. Montague Burgoyne 
 coming, he sent him up to me. At and after dinner
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 419 
 
 mucli political conversation, for Burgoyne is a desperate 
 politician. It was plain that Lord St. Vincent thought 
 himself very ill used by opposition as well as by Mr. Pitt ; 
 he seemed to think that they made a great cry about 
 him while it served their own purpose, but that when 
 this would not answer, they cared little for him and 
 forgot him, but he praised Lord Sidmouth greatly. 
 Burgoyne, who wanted Fox in when Lord Sidmouth 
 accepted, told Lord St. V. the only sin he ever com- 
 mitted was joining that lord, as he could not have made 
 an administration without him. He said it was impos- 
 sible to resist, the state of the country was such that his 
 conscience would have condemned him ; it was greatly 
 to his personal injury, for he was, as commander of the 
 Channel fleet, in the receipt of a good 25,000Z. a year, 
 which he gave up for a miserably paid Cabinet place 
 then of only 3,000/. That the King urged him to keep 
 the command with the Admiralty, and Lord Sidmouth 
 agreed to it, but he would not do it, it would have been 
 wrong. The King urged the precedent of Lord Howe, 
 who kept both, and why should not he ? But he was 
 firm. He hates all religions, called Lord Barham an 
 old canting hypocrite — all of them — and ' little Wilber- 
 force too ! ' I said something against that, but not half 
 enough. He remarked that the old hypocrite would 
 soon, very soon, be removed. I hope in this he will 
 find himself mistaken. He swears pretty much, not 
 quite as sailors do, but he says grace before and after 
 dinner ; is not this hypocrisy ? He has great spirits, a 
 good understanding, and is very pleasant. 
 
 December 9. — My old friend Symonds being danger- 
 
 E E 2
 
 420 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 ously and in all probability fatally ill, I went yesterday 
 to see him. I was there four hours. He dozed much, 
 but when awake had the perfect use of his faculties, 
 though not quite speech enough or recollection to 
 explain himself as when well ; my dear Jane took 
 him to be a real Christian, though not without thinking 
 he had bad notions on certain points. I ever doubted 
 it, and thought I saw much in him of sound, good 
 doctrine, but great deficiencies. 
 
 He utterly disbelieved original sin, which appeared 
 always to me a fatal sign. 
 
 He talked to me of Naples, Bonaparte, &c., said he 
 had something particular to say to me, upon which 
 B. left the room. It was to tell me that Cocksedge 
 would not give 4QI. for a very well done map and survey 
 of the Eldo estate, and that therefore he should take 
 care that he should have nothing done to accommodate 
 him, no part of the furniture should be his, &c. This 
 will he talked of, and therefore mention the motive. 
 What stuff to occupy the attention of a dying man ! I 
 took four or five opportunities, or rather made them, to 
 turn his mind to Christ, but they passed, and he was 
 silent, not one religious or serious word came out of 
 his mouth, nothing of the kind seemed to be in his 
 mind. He was in general quite easy and composed, and 
 slept perfectly free from any apparent disturbance. 
 Awful is such insensibility. 
 
 10th. — I was with him again yesterday, and through 
 such a day of rain that I hope I shall not take cold. He 
 was just the same, mentioned Casburn's account of the 
 Blue Coat Hospital, and being washed four times a day ;
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 421 
 
 talked of the water gods, smiled, and joked. I could not 
 endure the moment passing without another attempt 
 to turn his mind to more serious impressions. I asked 
 C. if he had had any prayers said to and for him. No, 
 he had not mentioned it, but two nights before he had 
 prayed shortly for himself. I told him that there ought 
 to be prayers in the room, and that C. could read them. 
 He said, ' Yes, he could,' and for the family also ! It made 
 no impression, and soon after closing his eyes as if for 
 sleep, said, ' Your servant, I only keep you,' so I left 
 him. I have fears that it is a sort of judicial blindness 
 and insensibility of his state to have his senses and 
 make no better use of them, I am much shocked. 
 
 11th. — Yesterday there again, but he was getting up 
 to have his bed made, and White, the physician, thought 
 I had better not go up. 
 
 January 10, 1806. — Peggy Metcalfe lent me ' Marie 
 Menzikoff ' as a true history, and I, like a fool, read 
 much of it, after finding it a mere romance. I have 
 not looked at anything of the novel kind for many 
 years, but this French thing seized my attention and 
 hurried me on. I wish she had been further before 
 putting it in my hands. It has unhinged me, and 
 broken my attention to better things, which shows 
 strongly how pernicious this sort of reading is, and 
 what a powerful temptation to vice such productions 
 are sure to prove. 
 
 Oh ! the number of miserables that novels have 
 sent to perdition ! 
 
 IQth. — I have been looking over Dr. Johnson's 
 ' Pravers and Meditations,' and, upon the whole, the
 
 422 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 feeling they have impressed is that of pity ; he seemed 
 by one passage to think his complaints nearly allied to 
 madness, and often speaks of his morbid melancholy ; 
 his sloth seems to have been dreadful. What a con- 
 trast to the life of John Wesley ! 
 
 His religion seems to have been against the very 
 grain of his soul, and all the tendencies of his mind to 
 have arisen from his understanding only, and never to 
 have been truly in his heart. Company, and engage- 
 ments, and indolence keep him from church from 
 January to March ; he scarcely ever got to it in time 
 for the service, and he aimed in resolutions only at 
 taking the Sacrament thrice in the year ; he does not 
 name a book (the Scriptures excepted) that was likely 
 to give a right turn to his devotion. To study religion 
 and to read the Scriptures was a matter for resolution, 
 like rising early, but he does not seem to have been 
 carried to the employment by the comfort, hope, joy, 
 and consolation to be derived from them, they were 
 never his pleasure. 'Tis well his mind was morbid, for 
 he seems to me (from this work) never to have been 
 really converted. Fasting, penance, and a gloomy 
 superstition banished from his soul the felicities of 
 piety founded in faith. But I must look it over again 
 with more care. Yesterday morning I went to Flemp- 
 ton and called on Carter ; with him I had some very 
 proper conversation. He is far from the truly evangelical 
 state, and his mind fully occupied with being satisfied 
 with the opinions and conduct of the regular clergy in 
 general ; he has no affection, no regard for truly evan- 
 gelical ones, a readiness to sneer at them, and with all
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 423 
 
 a laxity in doctrines, a comprehensive candour, which 
 gives me but an ill opinion of his doctrines. He is a 
 very worthy respectable man in all worldly points. 
 
 My neighbour Gooch called yesterday. He has 
 taken the curacy of Wattisfield of Plampin, who has 
 evaded the curate's law. Gooch gave me twenty cases 
 at least of rectors who decidedly cheat and impose 
 on their curates by most unworthy evasions ; but if a 
 farmer cheats them of a turnip in tithe, they pro- 
 nounce them all the rogues to be imagined. Most 
 lamentable is this for those who should be the 
 ministers of Christ's gospel. 
 
 But in no country that I have heard of is there such 
 a set of clergy as in this neighbourhood. Dreadful ! 
 
 I have been sketching out an essay on the defence 
 of the kingdom in case of invasion, and yesterday 
 added to it. The regularity with which I have made 
 entries in my journal since I determined to write one 
 line in it, shows the infinite importance of method and 
 regularity in every pursuit and business of life. What 
 is regularly undertaken will be regularly executed, but 
 desultory endeavours at fits and starts perform nothing. 
 
 21nd. — Yesterday I went up into my dear Bobbin's 
 room, in which I had not been for a year or more. I 
 wiped the mould off her books, &c., with a heav}^ heart, 
 and prayed to God that I might join her spirit in 
 heaven. It made me very melancholy ! She has 
 been dead nine years, would therefore have been two- 
 and- twenty had it pleased God to spare her. But what 
 a world is this for a girl of that age ! 
 
 23rd. — To-day I pack up and prepare, and to-morrow.
 
 424 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 with God's permission, to London. May He protect 
 me from all dangers ! Mr. Pitt dead ! This has 
 struck a damp into my soul that I cannot shake off. 
 
 I^th. — Arrived safelj^ thanks to the Lord. Yester- 
 day I unpacked and set all my things in order. Mrs. 
 Y. better than I expected, but I cannot perceive that 
 warmth of gratitude to God which I hoped to find. I 
 know not what to make of her state of soul ! Pitt's 
 death made a considerable sensation, and I wonder not 
 at it. The providence of the Almighty has taken the 
 two men perhaps the most necessary to our worldly 
 prosperity in order to show us that it is on Him only 
 we should depend, and to convince us that vain is the 
 arm of flesh. May He protect us ! Providence is 
 better to depend on than a hundred Kelsons and 
 Pitts if we consider them in any light except that 
 of means in the hand of Him who governs the fate of 
 nations. 
 
 Ministry not arranged. It is said that Fox is as 
 much plagued with the apprehensions of some of his 
 own people as with those of the Grenvilles. Grey First 
 Lord of Admiralty ! Is it possible ? "What a scheme ! 
 
 Could not sleep longer for three nights past than 
 half-past two or three ; evil imaginations were genera- 
 ting. Plunged out of bed, but as I cannot get to bed 
 before ten (at Lady Egremont's last night but one, and 
 De Kees' last night) it makes me heavy. De Eees says 
 that all foreigners agree as to the folly of our expedi- 
 tions ; that to the Mediterranean should have been in 
 greater force to Venice, which w^ould have preserved that 
 city, and enabled the Archduke Charles to have stood
 
 APPKOACHING BLINDNESS 425 
 
 his ground. It is obvious, if driven from the Continent, 
 Venice at least would have been saved. 
 
 FebrucD'y 2. — I have seen Smirenove, he thinks his 
 Emperor will have a great army on the Danube early 
 in the spring, for preparations are active ; they think, or 
 have intelligence, that Bonaparte has ceded to Austria 
 much more than Servia, probably large provinces, to cut 
 Russia off from contact with the Tm'ks. He has Trieste, 
 and now his dominions embrace both shores of the 
 Adriatic and join the Turkish Empire. This must be 
 productive of great events, and I cannot but look for- 
 ward to the destruction of that Empire which seems 
 clearly advancing, and we all know how very important 
 an epoch that will be towards the winding up of all 
 things. 
 
 8th. — Mary dined with Lord Coventry, and met 
 Mrs. Lyggon and Mrs. Nesbit, and heard that D. Moira 
 will take nothing. He wanted to be Prime Minister, and 
 the King would rather have had him. The Queen of 
 Wurtemburg has written a letter to our Queen and to 
 Lady Harrington in praise of the politeness and good- 
 ness of Bonaparte. De Eees in the evening ; Fox was 
 in powder, which made everyone stare. 
 
 14^/i. — Read much in Skinner's ' State of Peru,' ' 
 which has some curious things in it. I work every 
 morning on my ' Elements,' but though I have been 
 near thirty years reading and making extracts for this 
 work (but with long intermissions), yet now I am 
 arranging the chapters and sections I find numberless 
 gaps to supply as I advance. 
 
 ' Joseph Skinner, Present State of Peril, 1805.
 
 426 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 15^^. — Dined with the Duke of Grafton against my 
 will, for I think it wrong to go to the house of a Uni- 
 tarian, or have anything to do with them ; the only 
 defence of its lawfulness even that I know of is St. 
 Paul's supposition of his converts being invited to a 
 feast, and if you are disposed to go, &c., then do so. In 
 the evening Walker, an engraver, who has been twenty 
 years at St. Petersburg, and who brought letters from 
 Jane some time ago, called. He gives but a bad 
 account of Russia, and it is from every authority a 
 very bad country to live in, in every respect that should 
 make a country desirable, except the people being good 
 tempered and very ingenious. England ! England ! 
 thou art the first of countries ! Oh ! that thou 
 wert grateful to Heaven for the multitude of thy 
 blessings. 
 
 20tli. — Lord Carrington half an hour, then Van- 
 couver,' who has seen Vansittart ^ on his tour scheme, 
 and who did not seem to approve of it at all, but desired 
 him to have an interview at Tyrrwhitt's with Dr. Beke 
 to hear his opinion, whom he esteems much, the 
 greatest political arithmetician of the time. This is 
 accordingly to take place. Vansittart told him the whole 
 income of the public is 200,000,000 sterling. V. replied 
 that it was three times as much. At night I went to 
 the Lock and heard a most excellent sermon by Fry on 
 Luke xi. 21, 22. 
 
 ' ' There is now with us a Mr. Van Couver, of Vancouver's Island, 
 who would entertain you very much. He is making an agricultural tour 
 in Sussex.' — Letters of Maria Josepha Holroyd, p. 326. 
 
 -' Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley, sometime Governor of Bengal 
 of great financial reputation.
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 427 
 
 227icZ. — It was so fine a day that I took a walk to 
 Kensington Gardens Gate. The Marquis of Hertford 
 chatted with me for some time as he walked his horse, 
 and wants a drainer for his estate in Ireland. I saw 
 Marshall ' also, and I never see and converse with him, 
 but I think I see the haughty, proud, ill-tempered, 
 snarling, disgusted character which he manifested in his 
 connection with Sir John Sinclair. A thousand pities 
 that so extremely able a man, for of his talents there 
 can be no question, should not have more amenity and 
 mildness. Government, however, should have promoted 
 him without any doubt ; and it is a blot in their 
 scutcheon that they have not done it. 
 
 The funeral of Mr. Pitt. I think him a very great 
 national loss, and did not go near any part of the busi- 
 ness. Pomp and pageantry of all sorts do not accord 
 with my feelings. A pamphlet published to prepare us 
 for peace, ' The Relative Situation of France and Eng- 
 land,' said to be by Wraxall.- I dread a peace politi- 
 cally, but as a Christian all is directed by Him who 
 cannot err. 
 
 Ibth. — I have of late been uneasy lest Dodsley, the 
 bookseller, should have lost much money by my ' Ex- 
 perimental Agriculture,' and called on Becket to know 
 what became of him, and who he left. There I found 
 that Nicoll was one of his executors, and now the only 
 one left. I went to him and desired some information. 
 
 ' W. Marshall, 1778-1817, a voluminous writer on agriculture, 
 Minutes of Agriculture, etc. &c. 
 
 '' Evidently alluding to Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a voluminous writer 
 in France, whose works are now forgotten.
 
 428 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 On examining the list of his books he found there 
 was but one single copy, and that consequently to sup- 
 pose he lost by the work would be idle. ' I can tell 
 you what he gave you for the copy, for here is one of 
 the greatest of curiosities.' This was Dodsley's book 
 for authors' receipts ; in that he showed me William 
 Burke's receipt for 61. 6s. on account of Edmund Burke, 
 for the copy of the ' Vindication of Natural Society.' 
 That book, said Nicoll, was so much admired in France 
 by d'Alembert, Diderot, &c. &c., that it made them 
 mad, and really produced the Be volution. 
 
 ' And now ' (he added) ' I have shown you what Burke 
 had for kindling the Bevolution, let me also show you 
 what he had for putting it out,' and then he pointed 
 out his (Burke's) own receipt for 1,000?. for the profits 
 of his famous volume. The [other] writings, &c., one 
 other of his later pamphlets, were sold together for 300Z. 
 He seems, however, to have left it to Dodsley, and 
 when the things were sold, to have taken what D. said 
 was fair. Melmoth had a great deal of money of him, 
 for his translations, &c. 
 
 At night letters to us all. Three came from Jane and 
 Arthur. A sad account of the interpreter provided for 
 him, who is an ignorant puppy of a nobleman who is 
 too lazy to do anything. Of all the Governments I have 
 heard of, it seems to be the most stupid, the most 
 ignorant, and the most profligate : the fact, I dare say, 
 is that the army alone is attended [to]. They had the 
 news of the battle of Austerlitz, with a loss as they sup- 
 posed of 40,000 Eussians. Not a family at Moscow but 
 must have lost a relation, yet a grand ball that night.
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 429 
 
 and nothing but gaiety and festivity. They have no 
 feeling. The governor took Jane into a window and 
 told her that he was informed she disapproved of 
 all her husband's farming ideas as much as anyone 
 could do, and ridiculed all his schemes. Upon ex- 
 planation it came from Marshall Komanzoff, who 
 had it from a German baron that had been at 
 Bradfield, who, admiring the number of experiments, 
 Mrs. Y. told him that she detested them all, and that 
 I had ruined myself by them. A true report I will 
 answer for, for this was her conduct through life. 
 Lamentable it was that no enemy ever did me the 
 mischief that I received from the wife of my bosom by 
 the grossest falsehoods and the blackest malignity ; of 
 just such anecdotes of her conversation I have had 
 instances from every part of the world. But do such 
 things rise from the dust ? Oh ! no, they come from 
 God, and were far less than what I merited at His hands. 
 I had such as I deserved, or much better. 
 
 '11th. — I was up at four o'clock and kept the fast till 
 8.30 at night ; and as I have a strong stomach that will 
 bear it pretty well, I determined to take no snuff, of 
 which I every day take much, and am almost uncom- 
 fortable if at any time I forget my box. This was more 
 a fast with me than abstaining from food ; but whether 
 it was not done in a right spirit, or that I had thought 
 about it too much, I know not, but I was dead, and 
 sleepy, and sluggish in body and soul all day except at 
 the evening sermon. Unluckily the night before the 
 fast long letters from Russia, and an account that 
 Ai-thur had been warned much as if he would be
 
 430 AUTOBIOGEAPHl" OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 murdered, so determinately hostile to the object are all 
 the Russian nobility. 
 
 March 1. — Yesterday was a most worrying mo- 
 ment, full of labour and anxiety. In the morning 
 to Smirenove, to read him my letter to Novosilikoff. 
 He advised me to call on Count Strogonoff, who is here 
 on a political mission, and who treated with Arthur at 
 St. Petersburg. Accordingly, as soon as I returned, I 
 wrote to request he would name a time for my waiting 
 on him, which he did, and fixed Sunday, 10.30. Oh, 
 how the world values that day ! 
 
 Then to copy fair my letter to Novosilikoff and 
 inclose it to Arthur in his ; this, with two hundred other 
 things, kept me till dinner on the table to the chin in 
 anxiety, for if I did not trust in the goodness and mercy 
 of God's providence, I should be fearfully apprehensive 
 of my son's personal safety, the hints he has had are 
 alarming. 
 
 Their general conviction at Moscow, that he is 
 come with full powers or intentions to emancipate the 
 boors, have made them all hostile to the plan. 
 
 March 17.— Yesterday morning, at 4 a.m., I came 
 down to pray according to custom, and it pleased God 
 that I should pray with more than usual fervency. I 
 then meditated a little and fell asleep. I awaked with a 
 certain sweetness of frame that I noticed at the time, 
 and a transitory idea crossed my mind that God had 
 heard my prayers, and that what I felt might possibly 
 be His grace, or an effusion in some small degree of 
 the Holy Spirit in my soul. It struck me also that I 
 should know if it was by the current of my thoughts
 
 APPROACHING BLINDNESS 431 
 
 and imaginations ; for any proof of the Spirit unattended 
 by good effects would be a mere fanatical idea. I took 
 the blessed Sacrament, and in the evening Fry preached 
 on the means of ascertaining whether a man has the 
 Spirit or not — a very excellent sermon, and one well 
 adapted to urge and assist self-examination. The day 
 closed, and I was not sensible of giving way to any loose 
 and wild imaginations. 
 
 23rrf. — Thanks to the ever blessed God, I think that 
 I spent last week in a more satisfactory frame of heart 
 and mind than any for an age past — more upon the 
 watch against sin — more in contemplation of the great- 
 ness and goodness of God ; vile thoughts have intruded, 
 but I dismissed them by struggling, and my prayers 
 have been more fervent. 
 
 April 19. — I have only to-day and to-morrow in 
 the country. Solitude agrees best with my soul. I 
 read all daj^ and only divinity, temptations are distant. 
 Wesley could not bear the country, from the hurry and 
 bustle of his perpetual labours having given him habits 
 quite contrary to it. 
 
 June 3. — I was up again this morning at 3 a.m., 
 and by it escaped falling into evil imaginations. This is 
 an evil I thus fight against and struggle to avoid. I 
 think the Lord will hear my prayers and free me from 
 this buffeting of Satan, this thorn in the flesh, which is 
 a horrible disquiet to me. 
 
 4:th. — I found the devil at work with me this 
 morning, and jumped out of bed at twenty minutes 
 before 3 a.m., dressed, and came down to prayers. 
 
 Paying debts formerly with me had but little effect
 
 432 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNa 
 
 from the necessary contraction of new ones ; but at 
 present I have abstained steadily from all, so that 
 though I want shirts, &c., and have only one coat, and 
 that much worn, yet I order nothing, that I may 
 endeavour effectively to get quite free as scon as 
 possible. 
 
 11th. — A letter from Arthur, he has had a week's 
 fever, and went back to Moscow, which recovered him. 
 It was caused by want of sleep, owing to bugs, lice, 
 fleas, &c., fatigue and vile food. They are horrid savages, 
 and five centuries behind us in all but vice, wickedness, 
 and extravagance. The interpreter behaves much 
 better, which is comfortable. 
 
 I'^th. — The last Board for the season sat yesterday 
 and adjourned till November. Mr. Coke was here, 
 pressed me to go to Holkham ; but I have long deter- 
 mined against it ; there is not one feature which could 
 carry a Christian there for pleasure, but a thousand to 
 repel him, and this is so much the case with all public 
 meetings that they are odious. The Norfolk farmers 
 are rich and profligate ; of course oaths and profanations 
 salute the .ear at every turn ; and gentlemen and the 
 great, when without ladies, are too apt to be as bad as 
 the mob, and many of them much worse. I am never 
 in such company, but the repugnance of my soul to it 
 is so great, that much as I love agriculture I can 
 renounce it with more pleasure than I can partake of it 
 thus contaminated. I shall get to Bradfield as soon as 
 possible, I hope on Saturday, and having much to do 
 there, God send that employment may keep me out of 
 all temptation.
 
 APPEOACHIXG BLINDNESS 433 
 
 July 13. — Every Sunday I hear sixteen or eighteen 
 children read the Scripture and say their Catechism, 
 and I pay for the schooling of all that will learn. They 
 are sadly careless and inattentive, but still they come 
 on. If it pleases God to turn it to account by their 
 reading the Scriptures it will be well. The rest of the 
 day I pass in reading ; the spirit of visiting in the 
 country among servants prevents much that might be 
 done, but still I am not satisfied, and must find the 
 means of doing more in the instruction of the parish 
 poor. 
 
 1-itli. — I have been reading over my ' Inquiry into 
 the Propriety of applying Wastes to the better Mainten- 
 ance of the Poor.' I had almost forgotten it, but of all 
 the essays and papers I have produced, none I think 
 so pardonable as this, so convincing by facts, and so 
 satisfactory to any candid reader. Thank God I wrote 
 it, for though it never had the smallest effect except in 
 exciting opposition and ridicule, it will, I trust, remain 
 a proof of what ought to have been done ; and had 
 it been executed, would have diffused more comfort 
 among the poor than any proposition that ever was 
 made. 
 
 February 21, 1807. — To think of keeping a journal 
 regularly is all in vain ; the gaps in mine are terrible. 
 
 March 9. — Mrs. Wilberforce lent me Crichton's 
 ' Diary of Blackadder,' ' and gave me Dr. Owen on the 
 180th Psalm. I have read much of the former and 
 find it a reproach to my whole soul, life, and conversa- 
 
 ' J. Blackadder, lieut. -colonel, afterwards minister, died in prison 1685. 
 
 F F
 
 434 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 tion. What a Christian was there ! and what a wretch 
 ami? 
 
 10th. — I am very much struck with ' Blackadder's 
 Diary ' and letters to his wife, so much so that I have 
 prayed earnestly to God to enable me by His grace 
 to have the same constant trust and reliance in His 
 mercj^ and goodness that this excellent Christian 
 had. 
 
 I2th. — The Marquis Saloo, from Sicily, gave me 
 many accounts of Bolsamo, and how much he referred 
 in his lectures to his master, Arthur Young. If there 
 be glory in this sort of fame, oh ! my Father, let me 
 have done with glorying save in the Cross of the Lord 
 Jesus. I have been glorying in foreign and domestic 
 fame for forty years in true fleshly vanity. 
 
 I have been seven weeks in London, and, blessed 
 be the Lord, I have had only four or five invitations to 
 dinner and accepted but two. There has been a great 
 kick up in the Ministry. Tyrrwhitt, from Carleton 
 House, called here, and tells me that Lord Sidmouth and 
 his friends were actually out, but the Foxites made it up 
 with the King, pacified him, and they were immediately 
 restored ; but Lord Howick and the rest are to give 
 their opinion in the House of Commons, and the 
 obnoxious clause to be left out. The King is ready to 
 turn many out the moment there is strength enough 
 to carry on business without them. 
 
 Called at Lord Egremont's ; that detestable atheis- 
 tical profligate kinsman -was with him. Lord E. 
 
 loud in the commendation of the Dactylis glomerata ; ^ 
 
 ' ' Cock's foot grass, considered valuable as a pasture grass in light 
 soils.' — Loudon.
 
 APPEOACHIXa BLINDNESS 435 
 
 it succeeds so greatly with him on cold, strong, wet 
 lands that oxen fatten where they could never be kept 
 before, and it grows all winter. I was the first man in 
 England that had five acres of this grass. I believe 
 they had a root of it twenty years ago ; I had much, and 
 recommended it greatly. 
 
 A letter from Tyrrwhitt, Carleton House, to inform 
 me that Vansittart and Lord Grenville approve my 
 plan, which I proposed to T. It is this : The Baltic 
 and CO. [country] around it being shut up or eaten 
 up, and 400,000 men in our grainery [granary], should 
 we this year have a short crop of wheat or a bad 
 harvest, or a mildew, the supply being cut off, the 
 price would rise beyond all experience ; therefore I 
 propose that the Government should supply money to 
 enable the Board to give great premium for the culture 
 of potatoes for the use of cattle and horses ; without 
 this object an alarm might spread and more mischief 
 than good accrue. T. writes me they approve the 
 idea, and will advance the Board 2,000Z., but I will 
 have this explained ; it must not be to lend 2,0001. but 
 to give it. 
 
 March 26. — I am very sure that I do not give to 
 poor Christians so much as I ought to do, but I am in 
 doubt whether I do not give more than I ought to do 
 to others. Here is a German, Behrens, once a merchant 
 in good circumstances, whom Sir John received papers 
 from and sent to me. He translated a paper for the 
 Board, and made known such poverty that I promised 
 him a pair of boots ; but writing to him on the trans- 
 lation, I took occasion to enquire what religion he 
 
 I- K 2
 
 436 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 was of ; he was educated a Lutheran, but I see plainly 
 he has none. He shall have the boots, but I shall give 
 him nothing else. I can do nothing for Christians if I 
 give to all others that apply. 
 
 April 6. — At Bradfield, There is a poor fellow in 
 the gaol condemned to die next Wednesday for forging 
 or uttering bank notes. I heard some bad accounts of 
 him, and as I came from Bury early in the morning, 
 yesterday called to see him. I found that he had been 
 attended by the minister, Mr. Hastead, and also by a 
 Methodist, recommended by a brother of his. I had a 
 good deal of conversation with him, and prayed with 
 him. He was very ignorant, and had no feeling of reli- 
 gion till he was condemned, but has since been instructed 
 and spoke properly enough, lamenting his want of 
 faith at times, and at others being full of faith. I gave 
 him the best instruction I could, and urged little more 
 than (which is his only possible hope) faith in the Lord 
 Jesus. He prayed aloud for some minutes, and more 
 to the purpose than I should have expected. He 
 thanked me much for coming, and as he begged me to 
 come again I promised, and accordingly this morning 
 went on purpose. It comforted him much. I prayed 
 earnestly and fervently for him, and his amens and 
 ejaculations seemed to come quite from his heart. 
 I left him tranquil, and, blessed be a merciful God, I 
 think he may without presumption hope strongly for 
 pardon at the throne of mercy. 
 
 I am planting lands, and forming an experiment on 
 the application of vegetable substances as manure. 
 
 Qidth. — London. At eight o'clock at night I received
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 437 
 
 the following note from Sir John Sinclair. I hurried 
 away to the place named in the cover, Great Shire 
 Lane, where I found Sir John ; and Dr. Garthshore on 
 the same errand as myself. 
 We signed a bail bond. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — A most extraordinary circumstance 
 has happened to me. A rascally saddler, whom I em- 
 ployed at Edinburgh to furnish accoutrements to my 
 regiment of Invincibles, brought me in so exorbitant an 
 amount, that I refused to pay it ; and instead of bringing 
 an action against me at Edinburgh, he has arrested me 
 for 7oOZ. So many of my friends are out of town, that 
 J must trouble you to give bail for my appearance. 
 
 ' Sincerely yours, 
 
 'John Sinclair. 
 
 ' Tuesday.' 
 
 Sir John's regiment has been disbanded nine or ten 
 years, and consequently this rascally saddler has been 
 at least so long kept out of his money. What can 
 these people think of themselves ! To live quietly 
 while thus depriving tradesmen of their right for such 
 a number of years ! 
 
 May 16. — This is the first fine day that has 
 occurred since I left town ; the lilacs are coming fast 
 into blossom, and the fresh verdure of the grass and 
 trees is highly pleasing. 
 
 August 29. — As the time approaches to go this 
 Oxford journey, I dislike it more and more, and wish I 
 had firmly rejected it. I am not in a situation at all 
 comfortable here, and have only one maid — no man or
 
 438 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUKG 
 
 boy — and only the carpenter to put my horse in the 
 whisky ; but with a httle exertion all this could be 
 arranged. Mrs. Y. going to the sea for seven weeks, 
 and therefore seven weeks' peace here if I stayed. I am 
 in a regular habitual application to my ' Elements,' and 
 have made a good progress in them, so that if I kept 
 here I should have gone through many meetings of the 
 Board ; and then if it pleased the Lord to take me, they 
 would at least be in a state to be serviceable to man- 
 kind, and the great collection I have made in divinity 
 would gradually be brought into order. 
 
 All around here is a region dead in iniquity and sins, 
 as far as ladies and gentlemen are concerned. Amongst 
 the Sectaries there is Christianity, and nowhere else, 
 which is a horrible thing to think of. The clergy are, 
 if possible, more dead than any others ; many of them 
 very profligate, many thoroughly worldly minded, but 
 some of very respectable moral characters, but without 
 a spark of vital religion. 
 
 I associate only with Mrs. 0. Oakes. Having written 
 till I am tired, I go once or twice a week to relax with 
 the mild green {sic) of her soul, because I can be free 
 and do as I like, and I try hard to make her a Christian, 
 but hitherto in vain. If evil ideas at any time plague 
 me, then I keep away, and, thanks to God, I have of 
 late had an miusual command over my imagination, 
 which for years plagued me terribly. Prayer is my 
 refuge. 
 
 November 23.— The 17th, 18th, and 19th at Euston, 
 and I had much conversation with the duke, in which 
 I earnestly endeavoured to impress on his mind the
 
 APPEOACHING BLINDNESS 439 
 
 fact, that by his tenets he placed himself entirely 
 under the covenant of works, and that he must be 
 tried for them, and that I would not be in such a 
 situation for ten thousand worlds. He was mild and 
 more patient than I expected. 
 
 He lent me, and I read it there, Priestley's Life, by 
 himself. He asked me what I thought of it ? My reply 
 was that through the whole it was the recital of a man 
 perfectly well satisfied with himself, not the confessions 
 of a sinner lamenting what has been wrong in him. 
 He seems to have had no feeling of the sort ; as if, 
 when tried by the test of his own merit, it would be a 
 great injustice in God not to be satisfied with him, and 
 that I had no conception of any man having it in his 
 power to review or detail his life with any religious 
 aspect without much self-condemnation, and beseeching 
 God to try him in any way rather than by an appeal to 
 his life or his own merit, but (if he be really a 
 Christian) by the merits only of the blood of his 
 Kedeemer. He said it was my view of things, and not 
 that of the doctor, whom he believed was undoubtedly 
 a very good man. The conversation continued, but 
 we were as far as the poles asunder. The duke has 
 drawn up memoirs of his life, and he and Lady 
 Augusta read to me that part which concerned his own 
 administration, which is very satisfactory, as it consists 
 much of original letters. He appears to much more 
 advantage in it than I conceived he would have done, 
 and it was certainly a wise step to leave such a 
 memorial in justification of himself. Lord Templeton 
 there one day. They seem to me to grow more and
 
 440 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 more economical, and to descend to minute attentions 
 which are below their rank and fortune. 
 
 I do not feel comfortable, though he always re- 
 ceives me well, and desires me to come again. It is 
 long since I was there before, and will be long before 
 I go again ; such visits, however, have very little of 
 dissipation in them, and so much the better. 
 
 The less we like them the safer they are. 
 
 [Note, probably by Mary, Arthur Young's only sur- 
 viving daughter] : '1807. It was upon this journey [into 
 Oxfordshire] that Mr. Y. first perceived the approach 
 of that dimness of sight which afterwards terminated 
 in its total eclipse. His first suspicion arose from 
 looking at the planet Jupiter, and perceiving what 
 appeared to him to be two very small stars near him, 
 at which he was much surprised, as he knew that the 
 satellites were invisible to the naked eye, and nobody 
 saw these stars but himself. This multiplication of 
 bright objects increased the following year, till at last 
 one lamp appeared to him to be five. Objects became 
 by degrees more and more confused, and at last totally 
 disappeared.' 
 
 (Total blindness appears to have resulted from the 
 failure of an operation for cataract, as will be seen 
 later on.)
 
 441 
 
 CHAPTEK XVI 
 
 LAST YEARS, 1808-1820 
 
 Gradual loss of sight — Illness and death of Mrs. Oakes — Daily routine — 
 A disappointment — Eiots — Death of Mrs. Young — Anecdotes of 
 Nai)oleon — A story of the Terror — National distress — Close of diary 
 —The end. 
 
 In February I was obliged to take a reader as my sight 
 was failing fast. 
 
 Fehruarij 27. — For some months past I have had 
 the comfort of seeing my debts drawing to such a 
 conclusion that I might consider myself as free ; and 
 I have certainly thought too much of it, and rested 
 too much satisfaction in it, and not sufficiently been 
 thankful to God for so great a blessing. If I am so 
 ungrateful as not to thank God sufficiently for blessings, 
 how can I expect to avoid misfortunes '? My eyes ! 
 My eyes ! Is not His hand upon me here, too, for the 
 same reason '? 
 
 What has been my gratitude to Him for their 
 preservation during sixty-seven years ? and what uses 
 have I made of them ? 
 
 April 4. — How employment can be carried further 
 than with me I am at a loss to conceive. Notwith- 
 standing the state of my eyes I am generally up at
 
 442 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 4 A.M., though I do not call St. Croix [his reader] 
 before five. 
 
 Last Tuesday I read the first lecture that was, 
 I believe, ever read on agriculture in England, my 
 subject ' Tillage at the Board.' The room was well 
 filled, and several of much ability and more of rank ; 
 but the day was a bad one, which kept others away. 
 I found that they were well satisfied. 
 
 So many years in the habit of incessant employ- 
 ment has made any idleness irksome to me. But my 
 eyes force me to have time for contemplation ; and 
 I pray to God to enable me to fill it as a Christian 
 ought to do whose conversation is in heaven ; but 
 my mind will run out too much on worldly objects, 
 and sometimes on sinful ones. 
 
 How much in all things do I want washing in the 
 fountain opened for sin and uncleanness ! 
 
 May 13. — Much of my time has of late been lost 
 by people calling on the malt business.* I am tired of 
 sugar and malt before the question comes into the 
 House of Commons, which will not be till Monday. I 
 sent another letter to Cobbett last Monday, but he 
 did not insert it. I care little about it, and I wish that 
 I cared less, for these questions only connect one more 
 nearly with the world than a Christian ought to be 
 connected with it. 
 
 However, it is in my vocation, and my conscience 
 is not at all wounded by the part I take, for I am well 
 persuaded that the consequences of this measure will 
 be mischievous and tend to scarcity, which is so 
 
 ' See Hansard.
 
 LAST YE.\ES 443 
 
 greatly to be guarded against for a thousand reasons. 
 Sir John Sinclair spoke once against it in the House, 
 and he tells me that Percival looked as black and 
 indignant at him as if he had been talking treason. 
 
 July 25 : Bradfield. — I am tired of the thoughts 
 of such a journal ; had I kept it of late it would have 
 been employed on my departing sight. I can see to 
 write a little, but can read scarcely anything. 
 
 Praised be the mercy of God that enables me to 
 pay a reader ; St. Croix is with me. And I have been 
 hard at work on my ' Elements ' to get those papers 
 into such order as to want as little as possible my 
 own sight in the future progress of completing them. 
 Whenever it may be the will of God to make me quite 
 blind, oh ! may I receive His dispensation with the 
 submission of a Christian ! 
 
 1809. May 16. — April twelvemonth I read my own 
 lectures by means of Baker's great hand and black 
 ink ; but last month Mr. Cragg read the two, and one 
 new one for me, for I am unable to do it ; yet I can 
 write a little, but cannot read when written. The 
 Lord's will be done, and may He sanctify the affliction 
 and turn all my attention to Himself. 
 
 Mrs. Oakes arrived at Bury last Sunday fortnight ; 
 and on Sunday se'nnight she broke a blood-vessel and 
 brought up two spoonfuls, and on Saturday evening 
 last had another smaller attack. My own fear and 
 opinion is that it will end fatally. Her fatigue coming 
 from Bath and Bristol, and at London, contrary to 
 advice, has caused it. I have prayed most earnestly 
 for her. Oh ! may the Lord of all mercy hear and
 
 444 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUXa 
 
 grant my petitions. My thoughts are all employed on 
 the state of her soul. The long intimacy and friend- 
 ship I have had for her, and the kindness and attention 
 I have ever received from her, noM^ lacerate the heart 
 with wounds that sink deep ; and my conscience 
 reproaches me that I have not done all that T might 
 have done to turn her heart more to God. 
 
 Maij 18. — I am very, very unhappy, and cannot 
 think of her without wretchedness. In every worldly 
 respect what a loss will she be to me ! A placid, sweet 
 temper, with a good understanding ; that ever rec**. 
 [received] me with kindness, and attention, and prefer- 
 ence, with whom I was at my ease, and where I could be 
 at any time ; a resource in blindness fast coming on that 
 would have been great. The hope has fled and a sad 
 and dreary vacancy, which freezes me, is in its place. 
 
 May 19. — Good news though not of better health. 
 Hastead has been with her, to be sure, by desire, which 
 shows an attention to her soul. 
 
 Poor thing ! she has been bled twice more, and the 
 blood as highly inflamed as ever ; bleeding gives relief 
 to her lungs. 
 
 The Duke of Bedford and Mr. Coke [have written] 
 desiring me to go to Woburn and Holkham ; but all 
 great meetings, and anything like festivity, have for 
 some years become so insipid and disagreeable that I 
 shall have done with them wholly. They, like so 
 many other things, are links of that worldly harness 
 which it is high time for me to throw down for ever. 
 
 June 1. — Eead the ' Edinburgh Review ' on ' Coelebs 
 in Search of a Wife,' by Sydney Smith. Wretched
 
 LAST YEAES 445 
 
 stuff; false and frivolous, reasoning on cards, assemblies, 
 plays, ^ &c. 
 
 June 3. — Yesterday, as the ' Edinburgh Eeview ' 
 was read to me, I was much struck with a reference to 
 Necker on the finances, saying that 7,000 pedigrees 
 of the nobility in the archives of the old Government 
 were destroyed in the Revolution. It occurred at 
 once to me that this was the exact number of names 
 of men slain in Revelations. It is in the eleventh 
 chapter : ' The tenth part of the city fell in a great 
 earthquake, and 7,000, &c.' The commentators all seem 
 to have reckoned France as the tenth part of the city ; 
 but of the names of men they knew not what to make, 
 but 7,000 pedigrees answer to a wonderful degree, and 
 the coincidence of numbers is truly amazing. 
 
 June 6. — Yesterday's letter bad. Poor thing, she 
 has been bled eight ounces, and much inflamed ; had 
 been out twice, and I suppose took cold. She wrote 
 herself, and there are some comfortable expressions 
 relative to the state of her mind with regard to 
 religion. I have little hope of her recovery. 
 
 July 4. — Betsy continues just the same, whether 
 better or worse, the cough does not go, and therefore I 
 conclude the case bad. But, thanks to God, her mind, 
 T hope, goes on ; she has the Testament read to her by 
 all the four children. 
 
 Jiihj 6. — I work at the ' Elements ' every day, and 
 
 ' ' No cards, because cards are employed in gaming ; no assemblies, 
 because many dissipated persons pass their lives in assemblies. Carry 
 this but a little further, and we must say — no wine, because of drunken- 
 ness ; no meat, because of gluttony ; no use, that there may be no 
 abuse.' — Sijdncij Smith on Hannah More.
 
 446 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNa 
 
 find every time they are read to me something to cancel, 
 something to add, and much to reconsider and correct. 
 
 July 8. — The gradual declension of my sight in 
 viewing the scenery of this place, but especially in 
 knowing faces, makes me surprised that I can manage 
 to write ; I cannot read in the least degree, or know 
 anything of the views in Lord Valentia's Travels.^ 
 It is a very great deprivation, but much better than 
 feeling the torture of very painful distempers, so that I 
 am very thankful to God for the less affliction. It was, 
 I doubt not, very necessary for me to have some heavy 
 one, and what I am likely to suffer is comparatively a 
 mercy to what might have been the dispensation of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 Mrs. 0. the same, and the weather as unfavourable 
 to her ; I drank tea there on Thursday. 
 
 Juhj 19. — Drank tea with her last night. [She 
 was] bled in the morning, and going to have a blister. 
 All her symptoms worse, I suppose she has caught cold. 
 
 August 4. — I have been so provoked, my dear 
 Jane,'^ with so many of my letters miscarrying that I 
 am determined to begin a book to use some safe oppor- 
 tunity of conveying it to you, for I know nothing so 
 provoking as to write twenty letters for one or two that 
 arrive safe. In your last you made many enquiries into 
 what I was doing ? How I passed my time, &c. &c. 
 A very short account will answer this. I rise from four 
 to five in the morning, pray to God for half an hour, 
 
 ' Voyages and Travels in India, Ceylon, dc, 1809. 
 
 - A pathetic interest attaches to this sentence. Here A. Y.'s fine 
 bold handwriting (of late rather painting in black ink) ceases. A few 
 desperate splashes, and we seem to see the pen despairingly cast aside 
 and the journalising handed over to his secretary.
 
 LAST YEAES 447 
 
 more or less, according as He affords me the spirit to 
 do it. At half-past five I call Mr. St. Croix, who comes 
 to me at six, and reads a chapter in Scott's Bible with 
 notes. I then dictate such letters as want to be written, 
 after which we sit down to my ' Elements of Agricul- 
 tm:e,' which have been more than thirty years in hand, 
 and at which I have worked for two years past with 
 much assiduity, wishing to finish it before my sight is 
 quite gone. At half-past eight the servant brings me 
 the water to shave ; from nine to ten we breakfast, 
 and sit down again to work for two or three hours, 
 as it may happen, as I take the opportunity of sunshine 
 for a brisk walk of an hour, very often backwards and 
 forwards on the gravel between yours and the round 
 garden. I wish much to have my thoughts during that 
 hour employed upon death and the other world, but 
 my weakness and want of resolution are lamentable, 
 so that I sometimes think on every subject except that 
 which I intend should occupy me. "We then sit down 
 to work again, till the boy and his dicky arrive with 
 the letters and newspapers. When they are read we 
 work again, but usually catch half an hour for another 
 walk before dinner. When alone we dine at four, and 
 always at that hour in the height of summer, but if 
 any person be in the house, as it prevents an evening 
 work, five is the dinner hour. What is read afterwards 
 is usually some book not immediately connected with 
 work. At eight we drink tea and go to bed at ten, 
 but the Sunday is an exception ; you know there is 
 service but once a day. At the church hour, whether 
 morning or afternoon (when no service), about thirty 
 children from Bradfield, Stanningfield, and Cuckfield
 
 448 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF .lETHUK YOUNG 
 
 come to read in the Testament and repeat their 
 Catechism, and undergo some examination from Mrs. 
 Trimmer's ' Teacher's Assistant.' Whatever is well 
 done receives a mark against the name ; the girl or boy 
 that has fewest marks receives nothing, the next a 
 halfpenny, next a penny, and so on, all which does not 
 amount to more than two or three shillings. I cannot 
 boast much of their progress, though I pay for most of 
 them as constant scholars. In the evening, between six 
 and seven o'clock, forms are set in the hall to receive all 
 that please to come to hear a sermon read, and the 
 numbers w^ho attend amount from twenty to sixty or 
 seventy, according to weather and other circumstances. 
 Such, my dear Jane, is the tenor of my life both in 
 summer and winter while I am in the country. 
 
 December 1} — Here is a pretty breach in the 
 continuance of this book letter, but you are not to fail 
 to remember that during this period I have sent 
 off two letters to j^ou, not short ones, which, from 
 Smirenove's account of the conveyance, I hope may 
 get to you safe. I have also received two short ones 
 from you, and another from Arthur at Odessa, de- 
 scribing the severity of the winter, and an escape he 
 had of being burnt in a Tartar combustion of old grass, 
 but, most provokinglyj saying not one word of his own 
 intentions, or a syllable of what he is about. This is 
 very mortifj-ing to me, for what are frost and fire to 
 me compared with his own plans and views? Nor 
 does he say a word about coming to England ; and the 
 idea of the possibility of your coming in autumn is 
 
 ' Still addressed to Jane Youns;.
 
 LAST YEAES 449 
 
 now all past bj^ and I am precluded from the possibility 
 of seeing you till next summer, by which time I shall 
 have no eyes to see you. 
 
 April 9, 1810.^ — The discovery lately made by 
 your letter of the enormous expense of postage must 
 limit my correspondence to private hands, and will not 
 permit the communication of anything but topics the 
 most immediately interesting to your future motions. 
 My notes of the riots, therefore, are preserved for your 
 eye by copying a letter to Mrs. Oakes : — 
 
 ' I know not what reports may have reached you 
 relative to the state of London, nor what newspapers 
 you read, bat I have been witness to such a scene as 
 I hope, through the blessing of God, will not occur 
 again. On Friday night the mob was extremely 
 agitated in Piccadilly, especially near Sir Francis 
 Burdett's, and they took the unaccountable whim of 
 forcing everyone to illuminate. I lighted up as other 
 people did, and when I went to bed left orders with 
 the servant who sat up to be sure to keep the candles 
 burning till daylight, instead of which, when others 
 put out their candles, ours were extinguished also. At 
 two o'clock the mob returned and broke many windows, 
 and ours among the rest. The servant ran into my 
 room and waked me out of my sleep to tell me the 
 windows were smashing. We hurried the candles out 
 again, and, upon examination, found the alarm exceeded 
 the damage, for only three panes were broken. All 
 Saturday passed in a very quiet manner, and in the 
 evening the illumination was more general, but troops 
 
 ' Written from London. 
 
 G G
 
 450 AUTOBIOGEA^PHY OF AETHUK YOUNG 
 
 pouring into London from all quarters, we hoped to be 
 secure without violence. The mob, however, were so 
 determined, that by twelve o'clock we heard platoons 
 firing in Piccadilly, and a few in other directions more 
 remote, the Eiot Act having been read. A person who 
 saw much, and clearly, told me that orders being 
 received by the commanding officer to fire with ball, 
 about fifty cavalry fired twice over the heads of the 
 people, that the whizzing of the balls might inform 
 them what they had to expect ; still, however, they 
 were audacious, insomuch that the officer was forced 
 to fire on them. In five minutes all Piccadilly was 
 cleared. We afterwards heard a little more distant 
 firing, and a party of horse scoured up Sackville Street, 
 firing in a scattered manner at the flying mob ; but, 
 from the reports of the pieces, I believe with powder 
 only. The reports relative to the mischief done are 
 extremely vague and not to be depended on. Some 
 say that one trooper was killed, others three or four ; 
 what was the loss suffered by the mob is, I believe, 
 quite unknown, but certainly it was very inconsiderable. 
 During Sunday the agitation of the streets threatened 
 a bad night, but Government had brought in so many 
 troops, that had we known it we need not have 
 been alarmed. A train of artillery in the park, horses 
 attached and matches lighted, two pieces of artillery 
 in Berkeley Square, two others in Soho Square, and 
 many more about the town, and doubtless many others 
 of which I knew nothing, all ready at a moment's 
 warning, with parties of troops scouring the streets, 
 showed such a state of preparation as effectually awed
 
 LAST YEARS 451 
 
 the mob, notwithstanding the efforts of Sir F. Burdett 
 to inflame them. He was at his house ready to resist 
 the Speaker's warrant for commitment, and had the 
 audacity to write to the sheriff to bring the posse 
 comitatus to assist him in so doing, printing the letter 
 in the Sunday's newspaper. They say he is still at 
 his house, and that he will not be seized before the 
 House meets this day. It really is a tremendous m.oment, 
 for if they do not carry it with a high hand, as a means 
 of prevention, we shall have an organised mob and 
 great mischief will follow. It is expected that the 
 gallery of the House will to-day be cleared by acclama- 
 tion and a Bill brought in to suspend the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, and the rascally authors, printers, and publishers 
 of those inflammatory papers which have done so 
 much mischief seized and imprisoned ; but whether 
 the Ministry, with such a violent opposition, will have 
 resolution enough for this will depend on the influence 
 the Marquis of Wellesley has among his colleagues in 
 the Cabinet. I am much inclined to expect that good 
 will result by drawing close to the Ministry all the 
 honest men in both Houses, with all others that might 
 be wavering ; for it is a question now whether we are 
 to be governed by Parliament or the mob. Many 
 circumstances, however, are unfortunate, and not the 
 least, that though the public revenue amounts to 
 62,000,000^., yet the expenses of the year will rise to 
 above 80,000, OOOZ., and must be made good by means 
 that will occasion the necessity of having additional 
 taxes. This will cause a yell for peace — and such 
 a peace as must be ruinous if made. We have also 
 
 G o 2
 
 452 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 one adversary armed at all points, and whose depth of 
 policy is such as ought ever to create alarm and the 
 exertions of all the talents the country possesses to 
 oppose him.' 
 
 May 3, 1811. — I do not think that for the last 
 twenty years of my life my general health has been 
 better than at the moment when discontent, I fear, 
 with the will of God, induced me to oppose that will. 
 In the most mild and merciful manner He had nearly 
 deprived me of sight without \Jiy feeling the smallest 
 pain. Heavy as this dreadful deprivation is and must 
 remain to me, I feel, in proportion to my convalescence, 
 that even blindness itself may be a temptation ; as a 
 dispensation from God, it must have been meant as a 
 calamity, and a calamity to be deeply felt. Is there not 
 danger then that a mind which has been accustomed 
 to look upon the favourable side of objects, should 
 gradually so accustom itself to its new situation as 
 to deprive it in a good measure of the misery which 
 might be the direct intention of the Almighty ? The 
 capacity of continuing the attention formerly given to 
 old objects by means of the eyes of others, may leave 
 the mind almost as full of the world as when by sight 
 I could enjoy its visible objects ; this is a circumstance 
 which ought undoubtedly to be guarded against, that 
 is, praj^ed against. For a man of seventy to be struck 
 blind and to continue worldly-minded, with his head 
 and heart full of objects which, though not of sight, 
 command attention, is to tempt God to send some 
 deeper affliction in order to bring his heart home to its 
 trae centre. This is a subject which merits great
 
 LAST YEAES 453 
 
 attention, and may the Lord of His mercy enable me to 
 consider it as I ought to do ! 
 
 May 8. — Twelve o'clock at noon my dear friend 
 Mrs. Oakes breathed her last, after a long severe 
 illness, and many and great sufferings. Thanks to God 
 she was attentive throughout this sad period, as I am 
 well informed, to the state of her soul with God. Thus 
 is termmated in this world a very intimate friendship 
 of twenty-six years, with a temper so mild and cheerful, 
 with manners so gentle and persuasive, that had it 
 pleased the Almighty to -have spared her, she would 
 have been the source of great comfort to me in my 
 melancholy state. 
 
 May 16, 1812. — At this time a new oculist appeared 
 in town, a desideratum much wanted. The highest 
 accounts were universally circulated of his skill and 
 success, and the most unequivocal good effects attended 
 his new attempts at removing cataract. I was unwilling 
 to go to him, cherished no hope of my own case, and 
 considered this calamity as the appointment of Provi- 
 dence, concerning which I had but one wish — that of 
 submitting to it with the most unaffected resignation. 
 But the persuasions of my friends, more sanguine than 
 myself, and the high reputation of Mr. Adams at length 
 prevailed, and a day was appointed finally to decide my 
 state — to give some expectation of recovery or to destroy 
 all hope. 
 
 The feelings of the mind may be subdued, but they 
 cannot be destroyed. From the reluctance I showed 
 to name the day even after resolving to go, the dread of 
 hearing my doom, and the natural desire to enjoy a
 
 454 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AUTHUE YOUNG 
 
 little longer the precious glimmering of hope, may 
 be inferred. At length the long-wished-for dreaded 
 morning came. The sun shone brightly as I walked 
 to the house ; I felt its warmth, and the thought that 
 perhaps his light may still, ere long, ' revisit these sad 
 eyes,' lent new interest to his cheering beams. 
 
 The man who has never had his mind enlivened 
 and his senses cheered by contemplating the scenes of 
 nature or the employment of his fellow creatures, would 
 feel much less at the thought of learnmg whether this 
 would ever be his fate or not, than he who, once having 
 felt in every variety the extent of the blessing, loses it, 
 learns by experience the sadness of the contrast, and 
 goes with a throbbing heart to enquire if any hope 
 exists of again enjoying that power he would gladly 
 forfeit all his possessions to recover. 
 
 I was shown into a room, where I waited a few 
 minutes (they were painful ones), and Mr. Adams 
 appeared. ' I wish, sir, to be informed what is the 
 state of my eyes,' looking very attentively at him. 
 ' You have not, sir, undergone an extraction for cata- 
 ract ? ' ' ' That you must decide.' ' Why, yes, and I 
 
 ' This is explained in a letter from Mary Young to her brother 
 Arthur, dated March 27 ; no year added, but evidently written in 1811. 
 The Duke of Grafton died March 14, 1811. ' It seems that the poor 
 patient was very intractable, and that the operator said, "Indeed, sir, 
 if you are not more patient I must leave you." . . . Mr. Wilberforce, 
 with the best wishes imaginable, called [after the couching], and was 
 shown up to his bedroom ; and the very first words he said were, " So 
 we have lost the poor Duke of Grafton!" then began and continued in 
 his mild, soft manner a most pathetic dissertation on the duke's pious 
 resignation, &c. &c., till your father burst into tears, which was, Phipps 
 (the ocuhst) vowed, the worst thing possible, and which anyone knew in
 
 LAST YEAES 455 
 
 fear unsuccessfully.' ' Is there any hope of recovery ? ' 
 Mr. Adams started, and looked down with evident 
 marks of bitter disappointment the first instant he saw 
 me. ' I grieve, sir, to say that the eye itself is destroyed, 
 the cornea gone, and there has been such an excessive 
 discharge of the vitreous humour, that the coats are 
 collapsed.' ' No chance, then, of course ? ' 'I fear, 
 sir, none ; ' then, after a pause, ' I believe I am 
 addressing Mr. A. Young ? ' I bowed. ' I have heard 
 your case differently reported ; it was the subject of 
 much conversation, and excited unenviable interest 
 last spring when it happened, and I had hoped that 
 it would have been possible to relieve you, but I now 
 see the contrary.' ' I am much obliged to you, sir, 
 good morning,' I replied, and came away. 
 
 Mr. Adams was a yomig man, his aspect was 
 pleasing and intelligent, and there was a sorrowful look 
 when I departed that well became the sad occasion. 
 There were two things worth repeating on that morning, 
 one was his liberality in clearing his brother professor 
 from the character of carelesness, which he endeavoured 
 to do. I complained that I was sure I could not 
 have been well prepared. But Mr. Adams replied 
 that preparation was not necessary for extraction, that 
 people of the worst habits had been treated in that way 
 with no preparation and complete success ; that the 
 fault was not of the operator, but of the operation, 
 which must always be liable to failure. Mr. Adams' 
 
 his lamentable state of inflammation was destruction. It flung him 
 back, being only a week after the operation. Oh, Ar., as 1 greatly 
 believe he will be entirely blind, do try to come to him.'
 
 456 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 own method of removing cataract was not this ill-fated 
 scheme of extraction. The second remark is this. It 
 had become much the custom to use hot water for 
 the eyes when weak or inflamed. The author of this 
 memoir had been afflicted with a transient indisposition 
 of them, and on application to Phipps, hot water had 
 been recommended and used for a twelvemonth without 
 effect. 
 
 Mr. Adams, on being questioned with regard to the 
 expedience of its continuance, decidedly answered, that 
 by increasing the relaxation, hot water would only 
 augment the disease ; prescribed the frequent use of the 
 citrine ointment ^ (to be had at any druggist's) and cold 
 water constantly. On the way home, I was for a few 
 mioments depressed. ' How happy,' I cried, ' are those 
 beings who can see ; no one can tell the misery of 
 blindness, the dark gloom over that mind never cheered 
 by the light of the sun, especially now with me, who am 
 certain never to see again. If it were not for religion, I 
 should wish to be the poor man who is to be hanged 
 next Monday ; but, thank God, I can consider the whole 
 affair as His appointment, intended not for a curse but 
 a blessing, and can reconcile my mind to it completely 
 as His will. You will see,' I added after a pause 
 [presumably addressing Mr. Adams], smiling, ' I shall be 
 as cheerful and happy as ever,' and so I was. 
 
 1814. — This year I paid much attention to the 
 ' Elements.' 
 
 My son came from Russia. 
 
 ' ' Citrine ointment : a mercurial ointment, the unguentum hydrar- 
 gyri nitralis.' — Webster.
 
 LAST YEAES 457 
 
 1815. — Arthur, Jane, and myself went post to 
 London the last day of January, Mary remained at 
 Bradfield with Mrs. Young, who was unable to move. 
 
 About this time ' Baxteriana ' ' was published. 
 Through the following spring I was, at various times, 
 too apt to fall into reflections which tended, more than 
 they ought to have done, to discontent ; but in thirteen 
 weeks to the present day I have not once entered the 
 doors of any other person than those of Mr. Wilber- 
 force, and I have not dined once with him, having 
 been only at breakfast for the pleasure of hearing his 
 Exposition and Prayer ; for the conversation at and 
 after breakfast has been entirely desultory, and not 
 once on any religious question. And as to any Chris- 
 tian calling on me, John Babbington, from Peter- 
 borough, once breakfasted here, and is, I believe, never 
 in town without calling. Mrs. Strachey, who was in 
 town a month, was so kind as to call three or four 
 times ; Mrs. John Wayland twice, and here, I think, 
 except Miss Francis,- dining once a week, is the whole 
 amount of my communication with those whose con- 
 versation would please me. 
 
 It would be natural to suppose that a poor old 
 blind man who, through the blessing of God, retains 
 his health and strength might have received something 
 more of friendly attention than this, but such dis- 
 content should be banished, for let me not a single 
 moment forget the great mercies of God to me ; and 
 while many are on beds of torment from dreadful 
 
 ' A selection from the writings of Baxter, by A. Y. 
 
 - This lady afterwards became assistant secretary to A. Y.
 
 458 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF .IKTHUR YOUNG 
 
 diseases, I am free from bodily pain. These are points 
 that should give a perpetual spring of gratitude in my 
 bosom, and if the neglect which I have been apt to 
 think of too much turns my attention more to the 
 Lord Jesus, it is a benefit and not a misfortune. Let 
 me only take care to be looking unto Jesus, and then 
 I shall esteem, in the manner it deserves, all that the 
 world can do for me. 
 
 Monday, March 6, most execrable riots began in 
 
 London, on account of the Corn Bill, then in the 
 
 House of Commons, attended with circumstances 
 
 proving decisively the abominable effects (sufficiently 
 
 proved before) of printing in all the newspapers those 
 
 violent and mischievous speeches which are made as 
 
 much to the Gallery as to the House, and can be 
 
 intended for nothing else but to inflame the people, 
 
 which they have done to a degree of desperation. 
 
 Petitions from a multitude of cities and towns pour in 
 
 to the Houses every day they meet, and, in fact, the 
 
 prayer of them all is to beg that they, the petitioners, 
 
 may be starved, which would probably be the result 
 
 of granting their desire. 600,000 qrs. of French wheat 
 
 of an excellent quality have been poured into our 
 
 markets to meet a crop generally mildewed ; this has 
 
 reduced the price on an average of the kingdom to 59s. 
 
 per quarter, and that average taken in so preposterous 
 
 a way that the real price fairly ascertained would 
 
 not amount to 50s. ; 90s. per qr. [quarter] would not 
 
 pay the farmer in so bad a year. If importation was 
 
 to be continued, at least half the farmers in England 
 
 would be ruined, and wheat consequently must rise in
 
 LAST YE.IES 459 
 
 a year or two to scarcity, and if iraportation should 
 be prevented, by many probable events to famine. 
 Country labourers throughout the kingdom are in the 
 greatest distress, as I know from many correspondents. 
 For want of emplojinent they go to the parish, but 
 these poor families never petition, even when starving, 
 and a Legislature which attended not to their interest 
 would deserve the abuse now vomited forth by towns. 
 From thirty to forty houses at London have had their 
 windows broken, many their doors forced, and everj'- 
 thing in them destroyed ; and after much mischief, with 
 general anxiety and appehension, the military were 
 called forth ; but it was the last day of the week before 
 their numbers were sufficient to secure any tolerable 
 tranquillity. 
 
 Monday, March 13. — I breakfasted with Mr. Wil- 
 berforce : a file of soldiers in his house, because his 
 servants had been violently threatened that it should 
 be speedily attacked. 
 
 The bawler bearing ' last week, in the House, read 
 a denunciation in a petition from Carlisle against the 
 Board of Agriculture, which made it necessary for me 
 to hire a bedchamber elsewhere, as blindness would 
 not permit an escape by the roof of the house. 
 
 I wrote to Mr. Vansittart, transcribing a resolution 
 of the Committee of 1774, proposing to lay the millers 
 under an assize. The Bill for that purpose passed the 
 Commons, but was lost in the Lords. 
 
 In Mr. Vansittart's answer to me, he mentioned 
 
 ' This must be a mistake of the French secretary. Surely Baring is 
 intended.
 
 460 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNQ 
 
 the difficulties in the way, but observed that as Mr. 
 Frankhn Lewis had taken up the business of bread 
 and flour in the House, he would mention to him what 
 I proposed. From Lord Sidmouth's speech it seems 
 they intend to remove the assize of bread, which will 
 leave in case of scarcity the bakers without protection 
 in case of riots, and also leave the millers in full pos- 
 session of their rascality. 
 
 At Mr. Wilberforce's I met Miss Francis and Mr. 
 Legh Richmond, who read to us, with Lord Calthorpe 
 and General Macaulay, a most interesting letter from 
 a Russian Princess, describing her conversion to vital 
 Christianity by Mr. Pinkerton instructing her children, 
 and her translating into Russian the ' Dairyman's 
 Daughter,' and thanking Mr. Richmond for his other 
 tracts sent her for the same purpose. Her English 
 extremely good, and real Christianity, with expressions 
 of the deepest humility, breathing in every line. 
 
 This was an eventful year, for my poor wife 
 breathed her last after a long illness, and it gives me 
 great comfort to be informed that she showed great 
 marks of resignation and piety. My daughter was 
 with her to the last. 
 
 May 12. — A few days ago, writing to Miss Francis, 
 I used the expression, ' If a Christian was to call on me 
 it should be entered in a pocket-book with a mark of 
 exclamation.' Mr. Wilberforce saw this note, and 
 yesterday morning Mr. Pakenham called on me, and 
 introduced himself by saying that he came for some 
 conversation with me, by desire of Mr. W. He was 
 quite unknown to me, but I found that he was the
 
 LAST YEAHS 461 
 
 grandson of that Lord Longford with whom I was in 
 Ireland in 1776, forty years ago, which lord was in the 
 Navy ; and the present gentleman is also in that em- 
 ployment, about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of 
 age ; his father living and an admiral. I soon fomid 
 that he was a firmly established Christian, ready to 
 converse on the good subject, which he did with good 
 sense and no inconsiderable energy. 
 
 He is in mourning for General Pakenham, and the 
 Duchess of Wellington is his first cousin. Mentioning 
 Miss Francis, he said he met her twice at Mr. Wilber- 
 force's, and speaking in commendation of her, I told 
 him that she was to dine with me at five o'clock, 
 and that it would give me much pleasure if he would 
 meet her ; this he readily complied with, and came 
 accordingly. 
 
 I have not had so much religious conversation for 
 an age past ; and had not Dr. Halliday from Moscow 
 called between seven and eight, expecting to see my 
 son, this conversation would have been uninterrupted. 
 I wish he had come on some other day. Kemarking 
 that I had some apprehension of the ensuing war, 
 because we should be, in fact, fighting for the restora- 
 tion of the Pope, the Jesuits, and the Inquisition, 
 Mr. P. replied, that Lord Liverpool had informed 
 Mr. Wilberforce that Bonaparte was reconciled to the 
 Pope, pretending to be a most dutiful son of the 
 Church. It seems agreed by all that the first victory 
 gained on either side will have most decisive con- 
 sequences. I hope I shall hear more of this young
 
 462 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AKTHUK YOUNG 
 
 man, whose determined avowal of his religious principles 
 pleases me much. 
 
 May 15. — Breakfasted at Mr. Wilberforce's. 
 General Macaulay there ; he told me that in his late 
 tour in France, travelling from Lyons to Geneva, he 
 met with a Monsieur Michaud, who, speaking much 
 of his farm and offering to show it, the general 
 accompanied him to view it, and found everything in 
 the highest state of management, and so much superior 
 to all the rest of the country, that he enquired into the 
 origin of such great superiority. The answer was, ' My 
 cultivation is entirely that of Monsieur Arthur Young, 
 whose recommendations I have carried into practice 
 with the success you see.' 
 
 Much conversation about Bonaparte ; the general 
 is well persuaded that the allies will be entirely suc- 
 cessful, as B. is, and must be, very badly provided to 
 resist them, and that the first campaign will carry 
 them to Paris. 
 
 May 17. — Last night, being at West Street Chapel, 
 Mr. Gurney, after the sermon, came into the pew, 
 when I told him he had not performed his promise, 
 by calling, on which he came home with me, and gave 
 us a long account of his life and conversion, beginning 
 at four years old with a magpie which his father found 
 in a nest, in a haunted wood, where he went at night 
 in search of a reputed ghost, and which proved to be 
 only a white pony. This magpie was, by a strange 
 series of little events, his introduction to Drummond, the 
 banker, and to procuring himself a school and college 
 education, a knowledge of several of the nobility, and
 
 LAST YEAES 463 
 
 eventually, through Lord Exeter, the appointment to 
 the Eectory of St. Clement Danes ; and all this from 
 having been no more than a poor country labourer's 
 son, and one of tioenty-two children. The detail was 
 very interesting, from being not only well told, but, 
 from the providence of God, clearly marked in many 
 little circumstances, and attended by what to him 
 were great events. These were so remarkable as to 
 induce him to make many memoranda, and to think at 
 times that they ought to be published, but on this 
 point he does not seem to be at all determined. I 
 urged it strongly as a sort of duty. He is uncommonly 
 lively and animated in conversation, and contrived to 
 talk with little interruption, from drinking tea and 
 smoking several pipes, till twelve o'clock at night. 1 
 much hope that we shall see him often. 
 
 1816. — This was a very barren year, for the memo- 
 randa made are uncommonly few, but among them is 
 the preparation for the publication of * Oweniana.' ' 
 The extraction from my religious papers of those 
 published under the titles of ' Baxteriana ' and 
 ' Oweniana ' has greatly diminished the mass, but 
 the remainder is considerable, and increases every 
 year. 
 
 February. — Last Tuesday se'nnight Sir John Sea- 
 bright, coming up to me, said : ' Mr, Young, the 
 .\rchdukes of Austria desire to be introduced to you,' 
 and the Archduke John, who Seabright said was the 
 farmer, began a conversation on agriculture which, 
 as many persons were around, was very short. Some 
 
 ' A selection from the works of J. Owen, D.D., by A. Y.
 
 464 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUE YOUNG 
 
 days afterwards Mr. Ackerman, of the Strand, called to 
 inform me that his Imperial Highness Archduke John 
 desired to have more conversation with me, and in three 
 or fom* days he called and made many enquiries into 
 those points upon which, I suppose, he had most 
 doubts, contrasting many circumstances with the 
 system of Austrian peasants, who, by his account, are 
 in general the proprietors of their little farms even to 
 the amount of as little as three or four acres. In the 
 conversation I took occasion to mention my son being 
 in the Crimea, and intending to return to England by 
 Vienna. In a most obliging manner he desired me to 
 write to him to tell him to be sure not to pass Vienna 
 without making himself known to him (the Archduke), 
 as he would show him everything worth attending to 
 in agriculture. The conversation was in French, for 
 he speaks no English. It is a pity that he will go 
 away without seeing anything of Norfolk or Suffolk. 
 
 Sir J. Sinclair just come from Paris. He saw 
 Sylvestre ' there, the secretary to the Koyal Society of 
 Agriculture, who told him that agriculture saved his 
 life in the Revolution. He was in prison and brought 
 to trial, and told that his life should be saved if he 
 could show that he had ever done anything really 
 useful to the Republic. He replied that he had un- 
 questionably done good, for Ai'thur Young's ' Travels 
 through France ' contained much highly important 
 information, and in order to spread it through the 
 Eepublic in a cheap form, ' I published a useful 
 
 ' A. F. Baron de, 17(52-1851, celebrated agriculturist and member 
 of the Institut.
 
 LAST YEAKS 465 
 
 abridgement,' he said, ' which has been much read, 
 and has had important effects. I was pardoned and 
 set at liberty,' and then, tm:ning to Sir John, he said, 
 ' Tell your friend, Mr. Young, that he was thus the 
 means of saving my life.' 
 
 Fehruanj 17. — The Board met for the first time 
 last Tuesday, but had no business whatever before 
 them. I suggested the propriety of sending a circular 
 letter throughout the kingdom, in order to ascertain 
 by facts the real state of the farming world. They 
 approved the proposal, observing that not a moment 
 should be lost, and I retired in order to draw out a 
 letter with Queries. This they examined and altered 
 to their mind ; it was immediately despatched to the 
 printer, and all the rest of the week has been employed 
 in drawing out lists of persons from the reports, to 
 whom these letters have been addressed, post paid, to 
 the amount of 12?., and many yet to despatch on 
 Monday. 
 
 The replies have just begun to come in ; by two 
 valuable ones from Maxwell, near Peterborough, and 
 from Page, of Cobham, the probability is that much 
 important information will be gained, and a basis laid 
 for a very interesting publication, but I greatly ques- 
 tion whether they will permit any public use to be 
 made of the information, and I suspect that it will 
 disclose so lamentable a state of distress, that it may 
 prove somewhat dangerous, or, at least, questionable 
 to make it public. What are we to think of the 
 infatuation of Government in laying on a property 
 tax at such a moment, rather than borrow a few 
 
 H H
 
 466 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF .4JiTHUE YOUNG 
 
 millions to avoid the necessity, one of the great evils 
 resulting from our Government being in all money 
 matters little better than a Committee of the Bank ? 
 
 Answers to the circular letter of the Board, which 
 was despatched throughout the kingdom the first week 
 in February, flowed in rapidly till about April 10, and 
 they describe such a state of agricultural misery and 
 ruin as to be almost inconceivable to those who do not 
 connect such a defect with the utter want of cir- 
 culating medium ; the ruin of the country banks, and 
 the great want of confidence in those that remain, with 
 an issue of Bank of England notes utterly insufficient 
 to fill up the vacuity thus occasioned, has made the 
 want of money so great as to cripple every species of 
 demand. 
 
 It is difficult to pronounce what the consequence of 
 the present ruined state of agriculture will prove, but I 
 must confess that I dread a scarcity, which must have 
 dreadful effects, coming at a period when such multi- 
 tudes are almost starving for want of employment, 
 even w^th such cheap bread. What must be their 
 situation should it be dear? To my astonishment, 
 Government seems utterly insensible of the danger, and 
 has not taken one single step to prevent it, or to meet 
 it should it come. 
 
 March. — Lord Winchilsea, who I have not seen 
 for some time, called on me yesterday and mentioned 
 his having been long absent in France, Spain, &c. 
 He was at Marseilles when Bonaparte landed from 
 Elba, in Provence ; every circumstance was previously 
 arranged. Messina, at Marseilles, kept everything
 
 LAST YEAES 467 
 
 quiet on his left, and the [garrison ?] at Grenoble was 
 prepared to receive him ; of all this there was no 
 doubt. Uncertain of what might be the event in 
 France, his lordship embarked instantly for Barce- 
 lona ; from thence he crossed Spain to Lisbon, and 
 throughout the whole of his Spanish journey he did 
 not pass through a town that was not in a state of 
 ruin and desolation. He everywhere enquired the 
 cause, and was always told ' that the French had done 
 all the mischief,' with many expressions of cordial 
 detestation. He would not have conceived a country 
 to be in a more wretched and deplorable state. 
 
 April 24. — Miss Way and Miss Neve, daughter 
 of the late Sir Eichard Neve, both high Calvinists and 
 constant hearers of Mr. Wilkinson, called on me the 
 other day in order to converse on religion. They 
 appear to me to be perfectly sincere, but seem wedded 
 to the high Calvinistic notions of that preacher. Miss 
 Way lent me two manuscript sermons of his full of 
 predestination, and the impossibility of falling from 
 grace; her sister took them in shorthand. This day 
 Miss Neve called on me again, bringing with her a 
 Miss Johnson, another Calvinistic lady, who, being in 
 Italy with some relations, went to Elba to see Bona- 
 parte, and had much conversation with him. He had 
 told somebody, who told the Johnsons, that he wanted 
 to see my ' Travels in France,' which he had often 
 thought of reading, but came to Elba without them. 
 Mr. Johnson had these ' Travels,' and took them with 
 him to Elba and presented them to the Emperor, 
 who expressed much pleasure at receiving them, and 
 
 H H 2
 
 468 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ARTHUR YOUNG 
 
 Mr. Johnson afterwards heard that he had read them 
 eagerly and with much approbation. His countenance 
 indicates a steadfast, resolute, determined mind, and he 
 is known to abhor all doubtful and hesitating answers 
 that do not come immediately to the point in question. 
 In the very short interview that took place he was 
 standing with his hands in his breeches pockets 
 clinking the money in them ; but she observed that his 
 nails as well as his teeth were dirty. He enquired, 
 when they were in Provence, and especially on the 
 coast, whether there were troops at Antibes or at Nice. 
 This conversation took place on the Thursday, and he 
 left the island on the Sunday following. He asked 
 her name, and on the reply of Helen, ' Oh ! I am to be 
 sent to St. Helena,' this is ominous of my voyage.' 
 The interview was very short with him, but with the 
 Bertrands the conversation was rather longer. 
 
 I have finished reading the first volume of ' Gibbon's 
 Miscellaneous Works,' published by Lord Sheffield. Of 
 mere worldly production, it is the most interesting that 
 I have read for many years, more especially Gibbon's 
 own memoirs of himself. I have been acquainted with 
 Lord Sheffield above forty years, and more than once 
 met Gibbon at his house ; and, if I remember rightly, 
 the first time I was at Sheffield Place, which, I think, 
 was in 1770, being invited by him on my advertising 
 the intentions of the Eastern tour. Mr. Foster and 
 Lady Elizabeth his wife, daughter of the Earl of 
 
 ' Sir Walter Scott and other historians of Napoleon refer to a vague 
 rumour that in 1814 and 1815 the Allied Powers had a secret design to 
 remove Napoleon from Elba to St. Helena. He affected to believe the 
 rumour, and frequently mentioned it.
 
 LAST YEAKS 469 
 
 Bristol, were there. I thought her a most fascinating 
 woman — an opinion many times afterwards confirmed 
 by often meeting her at Ickworth. I was not therefore 
 surprised to find such advantageous mention made of 
 her by Gibbon, but, alas ! the whole volume has not 
 one word of Christianity in it, though many which mark 
 the infidelity of the whole gang. Lord Sheffield never 
 had a grain of religion, and his intimate connections 
 with Gibbon would alone account for it. Of course 
 he took no pains to instil it into his family, and if 
 Mrs. Clinton and Lady Stanley have any, they are not 
 indebted for it to their father or to his friend. A great 
 number of persons of high rank, extraordinary talents, 
 and great celebrity thus passing in review, and all of 
 them (Burke alone excepted) without the least sus- 
 picion of religion attaching to their characters, yield a 
 melancholy impression on the mind of a Christian. 
 Nineteen in twenty of the persons mentioned are gone 
 to their eternal state, and of what account is it at 
 present whether they were celebrated authors, splendid 
 orators, great ministers, or successful generals or 
 admirals? Whatever might be their worldly great- 
 ness how little are they to be compared at present to 
 the case of a poor Christian whose employment was 
 sweeping the streets ! Without doubt the propriety of 
 such observations depends entirely on Christianity being 
 true ; but what a dreadful situation is that man in 
 whose safety is attached solely to the falsehood of that 
 religion. The reflection makes my blood almost run 
 cold, and old and blind as I am, and scarcely exchanging 
 in six weeks a single word with more than one or two
 
 470 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 persons out of my family, I feel a comfort and consola- 
 tion, and I will add a measure of happiness, not one 
 atom of which would be found in my bosom if I were 
 not most perfectly convinced of the absolute truth and 
 importance of that blessed religion which forms the 
 sole enjoyment of my life. 
 
 June. — Lord Winchilsea called here and chatted 
 with me upon cottagers' land for cows, which he is well 
 persuaded, and most justly, is the only remedy for the 
 evil of poor rates. 
 
 1817. — The death of the Princess Charlotte this 
 year created the greatest sensation ever known. 
 
 1818. — On coming to London in February, five-and- 
 twenty claims for the premium on the [summary of] 
 the state of the poor, the causes of their distress, and 
 the means of remedying it, were received, and it afforded 
 me continued employment for many weeks in reading 
 and giving a character of them. Much the greater part 
 of the authors who drew up these memoirs were of the 
 same opinion as to the cause of the national distress, 
 attributing it to the peace having thrown a vast number 
 of men out of employment who were in the Army or 
 Navy, or working in the manufactures immediately 
 supported by military demands ; and this evil concurring 
 with a general stagnation from the failure of a multitude 
 of country banks, had materially affected the industry 
 of the whole kingdom. The remedies proposed were 
 various, and many of them visionary ; the most rational 
 advised the issuing of Exchequer Bills in payment of 
 various sorts of public works, such as canals, roads, 
 harbours, fisheries, and many other emplojrments. Such
 
 LAST YEAES 471 
 
 suggestions had been proposed to Government, but 
 unfortunately the ministers in England have very rarely 
 indeed listened to any such propositions. My friend 
 Mr. Attwood, of Birmingham, in a v^ork publicly 
 addressed to me, v^rote upon the subject with great 
 ability, and most justly remarked upon dismissing at 
 once both the Army and the Navy, and turning such 
 numbers loose upon the public when it was perfectly 
 well known that they could not find employment was 
 highly mischievous. This ought to have been done 
 slowly and gradually, as the expense would have been an 
 evil far less deplorable than that which was insured by 
 a contrary conduct. It was the beginning of 1818 before 
 the kingdom was decidedly found to be in a reviving 
 state, and in the mean time the infinite number of 
 offences against the peace and property of the people 
 arose to an alarming height in every part of the 
 kingdom. The first week in January I received half a 
 year's rents, and it was a great comfort to me to find 
 that the tenants continued their regular payments 
 without running the least in arrears, and this at a time 
 when complaints on the non-payment of rents were 
 very general over the greater part of the kingdom. I 
 attributed this effect, which was very general around 
 Bury and through all Suffolk, to the stability and 
 flourishing state of our country banks, whose paper 
 passed readily current, and formed a perfect contrast to 
 the deficiencies and distress so generally felt in various 
 other countries ; nor can anything be more lament- 
 able than for gentlemen of small estates finding their 
 tenants running in arrears of rent.
 
 472 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 This was much experienced in the counties of 
 Cambridge, Huntingdon, and part of Bedford. Sir 
 George Leeds informed me that he had farms in the 
 former counties abandoned and lying absolutely waste. 
 
 Here ends the diary. Arthur Young died in Sackville 
 Street on April 20, 1820, and was buried at Bradfield. 
 The following letter from Mary Young to her brother 
 in Eussia gives some details about his last years. The 
 letter (undated) apparently belongs to 1818 : ' My father 
 talks of going to Bradfield in June with Miss Francis 
 and Mr. St. Croix. He is fearful lest Miss Francis (who 
 is a granddaughter of Dr. Burney, and a daughter 
 of Mrs. Broom by her first husband) will join the 
 Wilberforces at Brighton, and leave him. When at 
 Bradfield she sleeps over the servants' hall, with a 
 packthread tied round her wrist, and placed through 
 the keyhole, which he pulls at four or five times, till 
 he awakens her, when she gets up and accompanies 
 him in a two hours' walk on the turnpike road to some 
 cottage or other, and they take milk at some farm- 
 house ; and she distributes tracts (religious ones) , and 
 questions the people about their principles, and reads 
 to them and catechises them. They return at half- 
 pa.st six, as that is the hour Mr. St. Croix gets up (his 
 secretary), who finds it quite enough to read and write 
 two hours and a half before breakfast. After breakfast 
 they all three adjourn to the library till one, when 
 Mr. St. Croix takes his walk for an hour ; she and my 
 father read, or write, or walk till three. Before she 
 went to Bradfield, Mr. St. Croix had but one hour. She
 
 LAST YE.\ES 473 
 
 has a table and great chair filled with books in all 
 languages, as she reads in every language every day to 
 keep them up — Greek, Latin, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, 
 German, Spanish, French, Dutch, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 ' My father puts children to school at Cuckfield, 
 Stanningfield, and Bradfield. Every morning, summer 
 or winter, she inspects and teaches at these schools. 
 Every Smiday they all meet in the hall and read, and 
 are catechised ; and every Sunday night a hundred meet, 
 when St. Croix reads a sermon and a chapter, and 
 my father explains for an hour, after which a prayer 
 dismisses them ! Last summer they went to church at 
 Acton or Ampton every Sunday, each church ten miles 
 out and ten home, besides teaching the schools and the 
 meeting at night in the hall. 
 
 ' He has taken out a licence for the hall, as there is 
 an assembly of people which would have been otherwise 
 liable to an information. 
 
 ' Adieu, my dear Arthur. Are we ever to meet any 
 more ? 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 'M. Y.' 
 
 The following is added by Mr. St. Croix : — 
 
 ' Mr. Young's benevolent exertions for the poor in 
 his own and the adjoining parishes, and constant plan 
 for welfare and relief of their necessities, was very 
 beautiful, and I believe and fear very uncommon. To 
 women this attention is natural. 
 
 ' H. More truly says, " Charity is the employment 
 of a female ; the care of the poor is her profession ; "
 
 474 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNG 
 
 but to see this extend to the other sex, to witness the 
 same soHcitude for the distresses of the ignorant, un- 
 extinguished by business or by ingratitude, in a man 
 of such activity of genius as Mr. Y., was indeed an 
 impressive sight. At one time he estabhshed spinning 
 matches ; a cap was the prize, and several young girls 
 contended for it, the best spinner being victorious. 
 This occasioned industry and emulation, certainly ; but 
 even this was not without its attendant evil, and Mr. Y. 
 finally abandoned it, from the dread of encouraging 
 vanity, and appropriated the money to ivinter feasts. 
 
 ' In this cold, unproductive season, there were 
 amongst the poor constant endeavours and constant 
 failure at repletion. Every Sunday after church a 
 set of poor people, chiefly children, were invited, and 
 a plentiful dinner provided for them, Mr. Y. waiting 
 on them and carving himself. 
 
 ' But this he was at last obliged to relinquish. The 
 Sunday cooking was certainly a grand objection ; and 
 some neighbouring ladies who had (charity) schools 
 remonstrated at the absence of the children, who were 
 crazy if they were not allowed to forsake everything 
 in order to attend Mr. Y.'s dinners. But another 
 scheme, more extensive and more useful, succeeded this 
 — namely, the introduction of straw-plaiting among 
 the young cottagers.'
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abercoen, Marquis of, 347 
 Aldworth, Richard, 72 
 Allen, Alderman (father-in-law of 
 Arthur Young), 32 
 
 — — (son of the above), 60 
 
 — Mrs., 36, 38 
 Althorp, Lord, 313 
 Amorette, Abate, 176 
 Anson, Mr., 394 
 
 Arblay, Madame d', 23 note 1, 32 
 
 note 3, 61 note 2, 100 note 1, 135 
 
 note 1, 196, 214, 216 
 Arbuthnot, Mr. (son of Viscount 
 
 Arbuthnot), 66,' 92, 97, 98, 124 
 Annstead, Mrs., 260 
 Ashby, Rev. George, 104 and note 
 
 2, 114, 129 
 Aspin, Miss, 15 
 Attwood; Mr., 471 
 Auckland, Lord, 314 
 Augusta of Saxe Gotha (Princess 
 
 of Wales), 16 
 
 B., Countess of, 29 
 
 Baker, Whyman, 88, 111 
 
 BakeweU, Robert, 135 and note 3 
 
 Balgi'ave, Rev. — , 355 
 
 Banks, Sir Joseph, 150, 151, 163, 
 165, 167, 174, 201, 224, 321, 339, 
 350 
 
 Baroude, A. F., 464 note 
 
 Barrington, Dr. (Bishop of Dur- 
 ham), 2.'34, 348, 352, 358, 376 
 
 Barry, James (painter), 115-118 
 
 Bayley, Butterworth, 59 
 
 Bedford, fifth Duke of, 172, 206, 
 244, 245, 246, 254, 256, 273, 276, 
 .301, 313, 318, 330,351, 360,363, 
 372, 374, 375 
 
 Bedford, sixth Duke of, 372, 373 7iote. 
 
 374, 383, 384, 396, 444 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 247, 249, 308, 
 
 341 
 Bentinck, Lady Mary, 327 
 
 — Lord Charles, 328 
 Berchtold, Count Leopold, 167 and 
 
 note, 168-170, 180 
 Bernard, Mr., 376 
 Berry, Edward, 323 
 
 — Miss Jane. Sec Young, Mrs. 
 Arthur, daughter-in-law of Ar- 
 thur Young 
 
 Bolton, M.P., Cornelius, 75, 80 
 
 Boswell, 191 
 
 Boulainvilliers, Comte de, 32 and 
 
 note 4 
 Boyd, Hugh, 92-97 
 Bristol (Bishop of Derry), Earl of, 
 
 101, 102, 103-105, 113,128-131, 
 
 228 
 
 — Countess of, 225, 227, 243 
 Brudenell, Mr., 18 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 355, 356 
 Bryant, Jacob, 245 and note, 291 
 Buccleugh, Duke of, 245, 256, 261 
 Bukaty, M., 159, 180 and note 
 Bulkeley, Lady Frances, 52 
 Bunbury, Sir C, 412 
 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 345, 449, 451 
 Burgoyne, Montague, 418, 419 
 Burke, Edmund, 67, 93, 174, 232, 
 256-261. 302, 345, 428 
 
 — W., 257, 428 
 
 Burney, Dr. Charles, 23 and note 
 1, 51, 65, 92, 100, 101, 115, 144, 
 181, 194, 196, 197, 214,232,250, 
 299, 326 
 
 — Fanny. See Arblay, Madame d'
 
 476 
 
 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AETHUR YOUNa 
 
 Burney, Hester, 51, 100 note 1 
 — Sarah, 215 and note 
 Burrell, Sir Peter, 164 
 Burton, Colonel (afterwards Lord 
 
 Cunningham), 67, 68 
 Bute, Lord, 192, 355, 412 
 
 Cadell (the publisher), 395 
 
 Cadogan, Lady, 313 
 
 Caldwell, Sir James, 69, 70, 75 
 
 Camden, Lord, 304 
 
 Canham, the elder, Bartholomew, 2 
 
 Canning, Mr., 327, 362 7iote 
 
 Carew, Pole, 202 
 
 Carnot, M., 307 and 7iote 
 
 Carrington, Lord, 314, 315, 319, 
 
 333 note, 351, 356, 360, 361, 363, 
 
 370, 379, 393, 407, 413 
 Cartier, M., 157 
 
 Cartwi-ight, Dr., 367, 373, 374, 396 
 Castiglioni, Count di, 176 
 Castries, Marshal de, 240 
 Catherine, Empress, 124 
 Charlemont, Earl of, 75 
 Chester, Bishop of, 97, 98 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 33, 34, 49 
 Chevalier, Eev. M., 14 
 Cibber, Mrs., 15 
 Clermont, Lord, 211 
 Clive, Lord, 49 
 Cobbett, William, 442 
 Cocks, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord 
 
 Somers), 52 
 Coke, J. W., 212, 384, 385, 386, 
 
 400, 432, 444 
 Cole, Charles, 243, 245, 255, 290, 
 
 297, 304, 368 
 Colhoun, Mr., 363 
 Collier, Joseph and Mary, 27 and 
 
 iwte 2 
 Cornwallis, Archbishop, 189 
 
 — Marquis of, 205 
 Cotton, Lady, 338 
 
 Coulter, Eev. Mr. (Master of Laven- 
 
 ham School), 7, 8, 23 
 Courtenay, Sir W., 192 
 Cousmaker, John, 103 
 
 — John de, 3, 126 
 
 — Miss, 102, 103 
 
 AnneLucretiade. Sec Young, 
 
 Mrs. (mother of Arthur Young) 
 
 Coventry, Lady, 20 
 Cowper's ' Letters,' quoted, 410 
 Coxe, Archdeacon, 236 
 Crewe, Mrs., 214, 233, 259, 260, 
 327 
 
 — Mr., 326 
 Crosse, Lady, 17 
 
 Cullum, Sir John, 104 and note 1, 
 
 114, 134 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 4, 6, 16 
 
 note 2 
 
 Danby, Mr., 50, 55, 76 
 
 Darnley, Earl of, 245 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, 236 
 
 Day, Thomas (author of ' Sandford 
 
 and Merton '), 166 and 7iote 
 Derry, Bishop of. See Bristol, Earl 
 
 of 
 Doddington, George Bubb, 12, 161 
 Dolmein (geologist), 368 and note2 
 Douglas, Bishop, 236, 304 
 Dryden (quoted), 35 
 Ducket, Mr., 172 
 Dundas, Lady Jane, 327 
 
 — Mr., 261, 327 
 Dundonald, Lord, 160 
 Dunstanville, Lord de, 245 
 Durham, Bishop of. See Barring- 
 ton, Dr. 
 
 Edward Augustus, Prince. See 
 
 York, Duke of 
 Egremont, Lord, 111, 179, 244, 245, 
 
 275, 299, 313, 315, 317, 324, 352, 
 
 358, 360, 363, 434 
 Elizabeth, Princess (daughter of 
 
 George II.), 16 
 Ellerton, Mr., 50 
 Erne, Lady, 267 
 Estissac, Duchess d', 175 
 Euston, Lord, 365 
 
 Fawcett, Sir William, 329 
 Fielding, Sir John, 69 
 Fife, Lord, 112 
 Folkes, Sir Martin, 2, 11 
 Folkestone, Lord, 59 note 1 
 Forbes, Mrs., 252, 253 
 Fordyce, Lady Margaret, 338 
 
 — Sir WiUiam, 147
 
 INDEX 
 
 477 
 
 Forster, Lord Chief Baron, 75 
 Foster, Lady Elizabeth, 468, 469 
 Fox, Charles James, 202, 227, 233, 
 234, 259, 424, 425 
 
 — Henry (afterwards Lord Hol- 
 land), 16, 134, 164 
 
 Francis, Miss, 457 and note 2, 460, 
 
 461, 472 
 Freeman, Miss, 20 
 Frere, J. H., 362 noti' 
 Fry, Mr., 391, 395, 398, 407 
 
 Gage, Sir Thomas, 191 
 Garrick, 10, 15, 22, 31, 32 
 
 — Mrs., 245 
 George II., 16 
 
 — III., 112, 132, 138, 160, 178, 190, 
 224, 237, 268, 321, 322 
 
 George, Prince (afterwards George 
 III.). 16 
 
 — (afterwards George IV.), 192 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 258, 259, 468 
 Gifford, W., 362 note 
 Gloucester, Duke of, 871 
 Gordon, Duchess of, 334 
 Gough, Captain, 5 
 Grafton, Duchess of, 139, 140 
 
 — Duke of, 139, 140, 141, 193, 201, 
 211, 239, 254, 305, 325, 361, 362, 
 372, 382, 426, 438, 454 7iote 
 
 Granby, Marquis of, 355 
 
 Gray, Thomas (the poet), quoted, 
 
 89,90 
 Green, Valentine, 59 
 Grenville, Lord, 360, 435 
 Grey, Sir Charles (afterwards first 
 
 Earl Grey), 327 
 — (afterwards second Earl 
 
 Grey), 233, 234, 235, 424 
 Grigby, Joshua, 390 
 Guerchy, Comtesse de, 186, 187 
 Gurney, Rev. Mr., 462 
 
 Halifax, Dr., 372, 376 
 
 Hanger, Colonel George (afterwards 
 
 Lord Coleraine), 192 and note 1 
 Harcourt, Countess of, 50 note 1, 
 
 358 
 
 — Earl of, 67, 75 
 Hardwicke, Lord, 338 
 Hardy, Professor, 238 
 
 Harte, Rev. Walter, 32 and note 5 
 
 33, 35-43, 49 
 Harvey, Fenton, 20 
 Hastings, Warren, 164 
 Hawke, Lord, 241 
 Hawkesbury, Lady, 267 
 Hawksworth, Dr., 343 
 Heritier, C. de P, 367 and note 
 Hertford, Marquis of, 427 
 Hervey, General, 105, 106 
 
 — Lady Mary, 267 and note 
 Hesketh, Lady, 233 
 
 Hill, Rev. Rowland, 359 
 Hoar, Captain, 350, 352 
 Holdernesse, Lord, 56 
 Holroyd, John Baker (afterwards 
 
 Lord Sheffield, q.v.), 58 
 Hoole, Mrs., 189, 198, 246, 250, 252 
 
 — John, 189 
 
 — Rev. Samuel, 189, 246, 251, 252, 
 361, 362 
 
 Horsley, Bishop, 359 and Jiote 2 
 Howard, Sir Charles, 28 
 
 — John, 59, 60, 248 
 Howlett, Rev. — , 97, 285 
 Hunter, Dr. Alexander, 61 and note 
 
 3 
 Hutchinson, Rev. Mr., 336 
 Huthhausen, Baron, 173 
 
 Ingoldsby, Dr., 19 
 
 — General, 4, 5, 6, 7 
 
 — Mrs., 6, 10 
 
 Jarre, General, 123 
 
 Jarvis, Lord, 267 
 
 Jefferys, Mr. and Mrs., 73 
 
 Jenkinson, Mr., 256 
 
 Jenyns, Soame, 244, 245 
 
 Jermyn, Sir Thomas, 2 
 
 Jobson, Rev. Mr., 337 
 
 John of Austria, Archduke, 463, 
 
 464 
 Johnson, Dr., 26, 27, 32 note 5, 285 
 
 note 2, 353, 421, 422 
 Joy, Mrs., 19 
 
 Kalaskowski, Count, 144 
 Kames, Lord, 84 and note 2 
 Keene, Mr. and Mrs., 3 
 Kennon, Mrs. Sidney, 10, 11, 12 
 13
 
 478 
 
 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 Kenrick, Dr., 27 and Twte 1 
 Keppel, Lord, 108 
 Kingsborough, Lord, 76, 77-80 
 Kinsman, Mr. (master of Bury St. 
 
 Edmunds School), 7 
 Knight, Cornelia, 368 and -note 1 
 
 Lafayette, 191 
 
 Lamb, Mr. (King's Messenger), 45 
 
 Lambert, Captain, 29 
 
 Langford, Dr., 142 
 
 Latrobe, B. H., 172 
 
 Lauderdale, Lord, 314, 397 
 
 Law, Thomas, 229 
 
 Lawrence, Dr., 345 
 
 Lazowski, M. de, 119 and note 2, 
 
 120-124, 154, 175 
 Leeds, Duke of, 51 
 — Sir George, 472 
 Leigh, Mr. (Clerk of the House of 
 
 Commons), 261, 262 
 Liancourt, Duke of, 119 anAiiote 1, 
 
 120-123, 154, 2.59, 382 
 Livei"pool, Lord, 339 
 Llandaff, Bishop of. See Watson, 
 
 Eichard 
 Lofft, Capel, 101 and note 1, 102, 
 
 276, 291, 317, 318 
 Longford, Lord, 71 
 Loughborough, Lord, 86, 98, 207, 
 
 208, 219 
 Louisa. Princess (daughter of 
 
 George II.), 16 
 Luther, Mr., 179 
 
 Macartney, Lord, 196 
 Macaulay, General, 460, 462 
 Macklin, Rev. Mr., 154, 267, 274 
 Macpherson, Sir John, 224, 225, 
 
 239 
 Macro, Mr., 170 
 Magellan, Mr., 150 
 Manchester, Duke of, 367, 395 
 March, Lord, 140, 141 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 26 
 Marshall, W., 427 and note 1, 429 
 Martin, Professor, 147 
 Massalski, Prince (Bishop of Wilna) , 
 
 52 
 Mauduit, Israel, 255 and note 
 Medlicott, Mr., 71 
 Milbank, Ladv, 350 
 
 Mildmay, Sir A. St. John, 348 
 Milner, Dean, 371 and iwte. 372 
 
 — Professor, 150 
 
 Miripoix, M. de (French Ambassa- 
 dor), 17 
 
 Moira, Lord, 243, 304 
 
 Moncrief, Sir Henry, 238 
 
 Montagu, Mrs., 233, 243, 244, 245, 
 312, 349, 358, 886 
 
 Montrose, Duke of, 245, 347 
 
 Mordaunt, Lady Mary, 52 
 
 More, Hannah, 233, 245, 246, 473 
 
 Mouron, M., 124 
 
 Murray, General, 171 
 
 Nepean, Mr., 341, 342 
 Neve, Miss, 467 
 Neville, Mr., 134 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 16 
 North, Lord, 60, 107, 201 
 - Eev. Mr., 344 
 Northey, Mr., 363 
 
 Oakes, Orbell Eay, 154, 266, 382, 
 388, 406 
 
 — Mrs. Orbell Eay, 266 and note, 
 270, 320, -321, 354, 3-59, 370 note 
 1, 382, 385, 388, 392, 438, 443, 
 444, 445, 446, 453 
 
 O'Connor, A., 317 and note 
 Oliver, Eight Hon. Silver, 74 
 Onslow, Dr., 191 
 
 — Genera], 4, 15, 16, 191 
 
 — Lady, 20 
 
 — Mr. Speaker, 4, 20, 28 
 Orde, Mrs., 245 
 
 Orford, Earl of, 60, 206, 207, 233 
 Orwell, Lord, 16 note 1 
 Ossory, Lord, 331, 332, 395 
 Otto, L. W., Count of Morlay, 377 
 
 and twte 1 
 Overton, J., 376 and note 
 
 Pakenham, Mr., 460, 461 
 Paley, Dr., 378 
 Parkvn, Mr., 367 
 Partridge, Eev. S., 280 
 Patulle, M., 36, 40, 42 
 Pearson, Dr.. 376 
 Pelham, Lord, 381 
 Peterborough, Bishop of, 147 
 Peterson, Lady, 20
 
 INDEX 
 
 479 
 
 Petty, Lord Henry, 370 
 
 Phillips, Sir John, 17 
 
 Pigot, Admiral, 193 
 
 Pitt, William, 134, 137, 161, 166, 
 201, 203, 2iy, 221, 254, 255,306, 
 314, 315, 327, 345, 846, 363, 371, 
 424, 427 
 
 Plampin, Betsy. See Oakes, Mrs. 
 
 — Captain John, 154, 423 
 Polignac, Prince and Princess de, 
 
 162 and note 
 Pope, Alexander (quoted), 136 note 
 
 1 
 Popple, Mr. (Governor of Bermuda), 
 
 13 
 Porteus, Bishop, 178, 179 
 Portland, Duke of, 51, 326 
 Potemkin, Prince, 102, 125 
 Poulett, Mr., 246 
 Preston, Lord, 367, 368 
 Priestley, Dr., 99, 150-153, 439 
 
 QcEENSBERRY, Duke of, 192 
 
 Radnor, Lord, 161 
 Richardson, Samuel, 192 
 Richmond, Legh, 460 
 Roberts, Dr., Provost of Eton, 142 
 
 — Lewis, 91 and iwte 1 
 Robertson, Messrs. (of Lynn), 22, 
 
 23 
 Rochefoucault, Counts de la, 119- 
 
 121, 154 
 Rochester, Bishop of, 4, 28 
 Rockingham, Marquis of, 42, 50 
 Uoper, Dr., 52 
 Rose, George (President of the 
 
 Board of Trade), 132 and tiote 1, 
 
 137, 221, 241, 242 
 Ross, Bishop, 100 
 Rosslyn, Lord, 360 
 Rossmore, Lord, 347 
 Rostopchin, Count, 387, 401 
 Ruggles, Th., 194 and note 1 
 Rumford, Count, 323 
 Ryder, Lady Susan, 327, 328 
 
 — Mr., 327, 386 
 
 St. Vincent, Earl of, 418, 419 
 Sambosky, Rev. — , 124, 125 
 Saunderson, Dr. Nicholas, 14 
 iiote 1 
 
 Scott, Rev. Thomas, 349, 359, 391, 
 
 392 
 Seabright, Sir John, 463 
 Sheffield, Lord, 132, 220, 245, 258, 
 
 344 and 7iote 2, 393, 395, 402, 
 
 407, 468, 469 
 Shelburne, Earl of (afterwards 
 
 Marquis of Lansdowne), 67, 69, 
 
 102 
 Shelley, Mr., 20 
 
 Sheridan, R. B., 164 and mte, 234 
 Shipley, Mr., 59 note 1 
 Sidmouth, Lord, 419, 434, 460 
 Simeon, Rev. Charles, 369, 395, 
 
 397, 398, 399, 400 
 Sinclair, Sir J.,; 159 and Twte 3, 
 
 160, 219, 220, 224, 241, 242, 243, 
 
 245, 247, 256, 299, 314, 315, 316, 
 
 413, 414, 437, 443. 464 
 Smirenove, Mr., 387, 400 
 Smith, Sydney (quoted), 445 9w/« 1 
 Somers, Lord, 359 
 Somerville, Lord, 245. 315, 316, 
 
 318, 347, 361, 363, 384, 385, 404 
 Souga, Anthony (Austrian Consul), 
 
 169 
 Spencer, Lord, 313, 367 
 Stafford, Lord, 161 
 Stanhope, Lady, 313 
 
 — Philip, 33 
 Stanislas, King, 119 
 Stonehewer, Mr., 193, 346 
 Sturton, Sir Thomas, 344 
 Sutton, Dr. Robert, 8 and note 2 
 Symonds, Professor .John, 103, 114 
 
 and 7wte 1, 120-124, 129, 140, 
 144, 146, 154. 160, 184, 192, 201, 
 210, 236. 239, 253, 283, 295, 304, 
 344, 355, 362, 368, 400, 412, 419- 
 421 
 
 THORNnii.T,, Major, 78, 79 
 Thurlow, Lord, 161 
 Tillet, Mr. de. 170 
 Tomlinson, Mr., 22 
 
 — Mrs. (sister of Arthur Young), 
 20, 22. 12G 
 
 Tour du Pin, Count de la, 257 
 Townsend, Rev. J., 407 and note 1 
 Townshend, Lord, 130 
 Trant, Mr. and Mrs., 73 
 Tuam, Archbishop of, 75
 
 480 
 
 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF ARTHUE YOUNG 
 
 Turner, Miss, 15 
 
 Turton, Dr., 264, 273, 274 
 
 Valpt, Dr. Richard, 106 and iwie 
 
 2, 133, 297 
 Vancouver, 426 and note 1 
 Vansittart, Nicholas (afterwards 
 
 Lord Bexley), 426 and iiote 2, 
 
 435, 459 
 Vary, Mr., 140, 141, 193 
 Vassy, Governor, 4 
 Voltaire (quoted), 39 
 
 Wakefield, Edward, 75 and note 1 
 
 Washington, General, 189, 191, 360 
 
 Watson, Richard (afterwards 
 
 Bishop of Llandafi), 97, 123, 124, 
 
 147, 150, 177-180, 236, 237, 254, 
 
 375 
 
 Way, Miss, 467 
 
 Wedderburn, Alexander (afterwards 
 
 Earl of Rosslyn), 97 and 7iote 1 
 — Colonel, 16 note 1 
 Wellesley, Marquis of, 451 
 Wentworth, Lord, 245 
 Whitbread, Samuel, 52, 59, 161 
 Wight, Alexander, 84 and 7zote 1 
 Wilberforce, WilUam, 201, 287 and 
 note, 288, 289, 297, 307, 325 and 
 Twte, 326, 345, 348, 359, 371, 
 375, 407, 454 note, 457, 459 
 Wilkes, John, 10 
 Willes, Mr. Justice, 52 
 Willoughby, Sir C, 351, 413 
 Winchester, Earl of, 245 
 Winchilsea, Earl of, 244, 315, 351, 
 
 363, 388, 466, 470 
 Windham, William, 161 
 Wollaston, Dr., 277 
 Wurtemburg, Queen of, 425 
 Wyndham, M.P., Mr., 259 
 
 Yeldham, John, 47 
 
 York, Duke of, 16, 266, 327 
 
 York, Mrs., 245 
 
 Young, Rev. Dr. (father of Ai-thur 
 Young, writer of the Autobio- 
 graphy), 2-6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 
 24 
 
 — Mrs. (mother of Arthur Young). 
 3, 22, 24, 28, 56, 57, 61, 77, 81, 
 126 
 
 — Arthur (son of Arthur Young), 
 51, 139, 143, 299, 317, 318, 323, 
 352, 363, 382, 402, 403, 406, 408, 
 415, 418, 428, 429, 432,448, 456, 
 457, 464 
 
 (last descendant of Arthur 
 
 Young), 127 note 
 
 — Mrs. Arthur (wife of Arthur 
 Young), 32 and note 3, 46, 81, 
 142, 146, 319, 339, 389, 413, 424, 
 429, 438, 457, 460 
 
 — — — (daughter-in-law of 
 Arthur Young), 323, 397, 398, 
 399, 404, 409, 415, 429, 446, 448, 
 457 
 
 — Bartholomew (grandfather of 
 Arthur Young), 2 
 
 — Elizabeth ('Bessy') (second 
 daughter of Arthur Young), 51, 
 146, 181, 189. See also Hoole, 
 Mrs. 
 
 — Elizabeth Mary (' Elisa Maria ') 
 (sister of Arthur Young), 1, 15, 
 19, 20. See also Tomlinson, 
 Mrs. 
 
 — Rev. Dr. John (brother of Arthur 
 Young), 2, 9, 57, 107, 127, 132, 
 138-143 
 
 — Martha Ann (' Bobbin ') (young- 
 est daughter of Arthur Young), 
 110 and note, 158, 159 note 2, 
 184, 185, 263-284, 286, 287, 290, 
 294, 295, 298, 323, 382, 423 
 
 — Mary (eldest daughter of Arthur 
 Young), 43, 184, 382, 425, 440, 
 454 note, 457, 472 
 
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