300 iVIewo/r o/' Arthur Young, Esq. 



memoir will not allow the introduction of some copious extracts, 

 in illustration of the terse and agreeable style of his diary. 

 He thus describes a French inn : " They are better in two 

 respects, and worse in all the rest, than those in England ; 

 eating and drinking are better beyond a question, and the beds 

 will not admit of a comparison : after these two points all is 

 blank. You have no parlour to eat in ; only a room with two, 

 three, or four beds. Apartments badly fitted up: the walls 

 white-washed, or paper, of different sorts, in the same room ; 

 or tapestry, so old, as to be a fit nidus for moths and spiders ; 

 and the furniture such that an English innkeeper would light 

 his fire with it : for a table, you have every where a board laid 

 on cross-bars, which are so conveniently contrived, as to leave 

 room for your legs only at one end ; oak chairs with rush 

 bottoms, and the back universally a direct perpendicular that 

 defies all idea of rest after fatigue ; doors give music as well 

 as entrance ; the wind whistles through their chinks, and 

 hinges grate discord ; windows admit rain as well as light, 

 when shut they are not easy to open, and when open not easy 

 to shut." The custom of dining at noon, so common in France, 

 he found to be subversive of all pursuits, except the most 

 frivolous ; " we dress for dinner in England with propriety, 

 as the rest of the day is dedicated to ease, to converse, and 

 relaxation ; but by doing it at noon, too much tiiue is lost. 

 What is a man good for after his silk breeches and stockings 

 are on, his hat under his arm, and his head bein poudre ? — 

 Can he botanize in a watered meadow ? — Can he clamber the 

 rocks to mineralize ? — Can he farm with the peasant and the 

 ploughman ? — He is in order for the conversation of the ladies, 

 which to be sure is in every country, but particularly in France, 

 where the women are highly cultivated, an excellent employ- 

 ment ; but it is an employment that never relishes better than 

 after a day spent in active toil, or animated pursuit; in some- 

 thing that has enlarged the sphere of our conceptions, or added 

 to the stores of our knowledge." At Florence he visits the 

 celebrated statue of Venus. " After all I had read and heard," 

 says he, 'f of the Venus of Medicis, and the numberless casts 



