xiv Travels in France 



I was impeded in it by the sudden appearance of her 

 husband." ^ 



At Florence, after feasting his eyes with all that art or 

 science could produce, and passing his time " between Farmers 

 and Venuses," Young turned homeward, and Bradfield Hall 

 saw him again on January 30, 1790. The rich land of the 

 Bourbonnais had tempted him to settle in France ; a compact 

 estate of 4000 acres fascinated him, whose annual value the 

 incurable optimist declared he could quadruple in five years. 

 The brooding revolution whose thunder-laden clouds he had 

 seen gathering during his travels alone withheld him. This 

 was the last of Young's important journeys. How far his 

 roving life was due to his own restless temperament, how far 

 due to domestic incompatibilities, it is impossible to determine. 

 He protested to Fanny Bumey, in 1773, that if he began the 

 world again no earthly thing should persuade him to marry, 

 and in the diary may be found significant entries: August 4, 

 1800, Bradfield, Sunday, " Mrs. Y. in great health and, when 

 that is the case, in too much irritation — God forgive her! " 

 August 29, 1807, " Mrs. Y. going to the sea for seven weeks, 

 therefore seven weeks' peace here." Elsewhere he complains 

 of her "grossest falsehoods and blackest malignity." - During 

 the summer of 1790 Young carefully worked up the notes of 

 his journeys in France and Italy for publication, but with small 

 apprehension of their future success. No bookseller, he 

 believed, would purchase the book. " It will rest on the shelf, 

 no bad memento to remind me that here ought to finish for 

 ever such errors of conduct." In 1791, however, a bargain, 

 and not a bad one, was concluded with the bookseller Richard- 

 son — the author was to receive six shillings for all quarto 

 volumes sold at a guinea. 



Thrice the unquiet mind of Arthur Young had contemplated 

 emigration to America, but in this same year, 1791, being 

 called to a Grand Jury at Bury he learned in conversation with 

 Lord Loughborough that a large estate of 4400 acres of fenced 

 Yorkshire land was in the market for ;^40oo. Vast schemes 

 of experiment and improvement surged up in Young's active 

 imagination. The black desert should be made to smile with 

 fruitful farms ; grouse should give place to a happy industrious 

 peasantry ; the magic of property turn bleak Yorkshire moors 

 into gold and every instant of his existence should " make two 



' A piquant description of the incident will be found in the Travels. 

 See p. 243. ' History is silent as to Mrs. Y.'s diary. 



