vey information to posterity, it is necessary that the writer be void of all fear, but that of trespassing against the law, against the established rules of decorum, and against truth. Under impressions like these, and not without a proper share of timidity and distrust, we pretend to give a summary sketch of the life and writings of one of the most deservedly eminent, most able, and most useful men which the present age has produced.

ance.

Arthur Young, according to his own account, published in the Annals of Agriculture, was born at Bradfield Hall in Suffolk, the paternal estate, consisting of about 200 acres of land, on which the family had resided nearly two centuries, and which, until the days of his father, was their only dependHe himself was a younger son, and according to report being intended for commerce, was apprenticed in early life to a wine-merchant at Lynn in Norfolk. The truth of this report is immaterial, but being granted, there is little doubt of its having been the consequence of a common family arrangement, to which the younger children are obliged to submit, and which, however promising in respect to the future fortune, was probably very little agreeable to the inclinations of our true-bred farmer. During this engagement, to whatever term it may have extended, it is fair to suppose that the young clerk's leisure was employed in those studies which laid the foundation of that celebrity in life which he has since attained.

About the year 1761 we find Mr. Young's mer

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cantile

cantile concerns, if in reality such ever existed, at a conclusion, and that he had exchanged the countinghouse for a more congenial sphere-the cultured field ; we accordingly find him farming Bradfield Hall for the family. Here it will not be wondered at by the experienced, that he had after a while to lament heavy losses and disappointments, although a more common practical man would have cultivated the same land to considerable advantage. Young, eager and totally ignorant, excepting probably of theories, which he was not yet of an age properly to digest, he plunged headlong into a course of costly experi→ ments, choosing at the same time the most infallible method that could possibly be devised of counteracting his proposed ends: the entrusting them to the honesty and practical skill of a common bailiff. These failures, and certain others which have occurred in the course of his life, may not improbably have given a bias, in a certain degree erroneous, even to the strong mind of Mr. Young. Injudicious management, and consequent losses, produced family dis putes, which in a few years were ended by the prudent intervention of a mother, of whom Mr. Young ever speaks in terms which do cqual honour to her character, and his own gratitude and filial duty: the event was separation, and his removal from Bradfield.

Happily for the agriculture of this country, and indeed of the European world, the mind of Arthur Young was too steady in its favourite pursuit, and too confident of its own powers, to be deterred by

this unfortunate beginning. His candour has convinced us, that he was not blind to his own errors, and his good sense pointed out to him the road by which he was to retrieve them. As a second attempt in that which had now become his profession, he hired a farm in the neighbouring county of Essex, known by the name of Sampford Hall; but here a circumstance of a truly unfortunate kind attended him he was prevented from taking possession of his new bargain by being disappointed of a promised loan of money, and ultimately obliged to forfeit his agreement. This was unlucky, for Essex, from the natural fertility of its soil, from the ease, and consequently small expence, with which its rich and light loams may be cultivated, and from its proximity to the metropolis, is one of those counties where the farming business may be reckoned more secure and advantageous than most others in Great Britain, and the farmers of that happy district, while viewing their less fortunate brethren, the cultivators of harsh and ungenial soils, may truly and feelingly exclaim, Oh! fælices, bona si sua norint!

Undismayed, and, instead of being wholly discouraged, rather stimulated to new exertions by this second disappointment, Mr. Young determined to travel in search of a proper spot on which he might commence business with a probable chance of advantage. If this expedition was not successful in its professed aim, he however received ample amends in another point of view, which probably had not before opened upon his mind, but which has since

proved the grand mean of his utility to his country, and the basis on which he built his own reputation. It was in the course of these journies that he formed the plan of making an agricultural survey of England, which he afterwards so ably accomplished in his future tours.

The farm which he fixed upon at last was situated in Hertfordshire, near North Mimms, and it appears that it repaid him for nine years cultivation with little else than experience and loss. It was not the kind of soil where, with the best culture, money could be obtained in immoderate profusion, more especially under the management of a warm-headed, professed, and as yet insufficiently seasoned experimenter.

The experiments made at North Mimms, some useful and curious, others of a different stamp, and of but little account at this time of day, have been long since published and appreciated.

The experience of nine seasons having convinced our inquisitive farmer that he had already lost money enough, quitting his Hertfordshire concerns, he retired once more to his paternal home, Bradfield Hall, which has been ever since, and probably will continue to be to the last, his country residence. His excellent mother dying soon after, he came into possession as heir to the estate, and that independence on the uncertain chances of life, so congenial with his laudable ambition, and so necessary to his views, was at once and for ever established.

It is now that we are to begin to view Mr. Young in a somewhat different light. From the recent change

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change in his circumstances he seems to have meditated, and actually put in practice, a change in his plan of life. We are no longer to consider him either as farming for his subsistence, or as much engaged in experiments, at least on his own account. The plan of his tours, as has been observed, was already laid, and the very extensive circulation obtained by his writings, both at home and upon the continent, gave him the highest degree of encouragement to persevere in a course so beneficial to the country, and so full of credit and probable future emolument to himself. Mr. Young had now become a successful author, and had begun to reap the most solid advantages from that too generally precarious profession. He undoubtedly humoured his own ambitious inclinations more, and probably thought he could serve the cause of agriculture and his country better, by an actual survey, and by pointing out the most prominent errors, and recommending the most advantageous practice, through the grand and effectual medium of the press, than by his own solitary example, fixed to one confined spot. But we shall form the best judgment of his views from his own description of them.

"It is very surprising to think of the general advantages enjoyed by this nation, and yet to see what large tracts (much the greatest part of the kingdom) are under a culture infinitely inferior to that of other parts. After viewing the husbandry of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent, to observe the miserable management of so many other counties, must convince every spectator of the importance of spreading the knowledge of what is good; of letting the unenlightened parts of the kingdom know what is done elsewhere;