196 THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 



contain, his tours, with their fresh word-pictures, their gossip, their 

 personal incidents, and even their irrelevancies, have the charm 

 of private diaries. His Ireland was described by Maria Edgeworth 

 as " the first faithful portrait of the inhabitants," and his France 

 was recognised by Tocqueville as a first-hand authority on the rural 

 conditions of the country on the eve of the Revolution. In 1784 

 he began his Annals of Agriculture, a monthly publication to which 

 George III., under the name of his shepherd at Windsor, " Ralph 

 Robinson," occasionally contributed. The magazine was con- 

 tinued till 1809, when, owing to failing eyesight, Young discon- 

 tinued its publication. He had written more than a quarter of 

 the forty-six volumes himself. 



Young had now succeeded, on the death of his mother in 1785, 

 to the Bradfield estate, his elder brother having broken his neck 

 in the hunting-field. His Travels in France show that he sym- 

 pathised with the peasants in their early efforts to free themselves 

 from the ancien regime. But the subsequent course of the Revolu- 

 tion filled him with horror. In 1793, he wrote an effective 

 pamphlet on The Example of France a Warning to Great Britain, 

 urged the formation of a " militia of property," and himself joined 

 the Suffolk yeomanry. In the same year Pitt established the Board 

 of Agriculture, with Sir John Sinclair as President. Arthur Young 

 was appointed Secretary with a salary of 400 a year and, later, 

 an official residence in Sackville Street, London. One of the first 

 objects of the Board was to collect information respecting the 

 agricultural conditions of each county. For this purpose Com- 

 missioners were appointed. They were not always wisely selected ; 

 but for this choice, against which Young protested, the President 

 was responsible. Their Reports were severely criticised by William 

 Marshall J (1745-1818), an embittered, disappointed man, who had 



1 Marshall's Qeneral Survey . . . of the Rural Economy of England has been 

 frequently quoted. His valuable records fill twelve volumes published 

 between 1787 and 1798, two volumes being allotted to each of the six depart- 

 ments into which he divides the country : (1) the Eastern : Norfolk, 2 vols. 

 (1787) ; (2) the Northern : Yorkshire, 2 vols. (1788) ; (3) the West Central : 

 Gloucestershire, North Wilts, and Herefordshire, 2 vols. (1789) ; (4) the Mid- 

 land : Leicestershire, etc., 2 vols. (1790) ; (5) the Western : Devonshire and 

 parts of Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, and Cornwall, 2 vols. (1796) ; (6) the 

 Southern : Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, 2 vols. (1798). Of the first 

 ten volumes a second edition was published in 1796. A second edition of the 

 Southern volumes was published in 1799, with the prefix of a sketch of the 

 Vale of London. 



Marshall has none of the charm of Young. He is a heavy, didactic writer. 



