Introduction xiii 



considered himself more indebted to him than to any other 

 man in his dominions, and never travelled without the Annals 

 in his carriage. Forty-seven volumes of this periodical were 

 published between 1784 and 181 5, to which Young contributed 

 no less than 330 articles; but owing to ill-judged methods of 

 publishing, the Annals were less a pecuniary than a literary 

 success. An even more stupendous project, nothing less than 

 an encyclopaedia of agriculture, was also initiated in 1785, of 

 which the only remaining memorials are the ten folio volumes 

 of MS. now preserv^ed in the library of the British Museum. 



Having travelled 7000 miles in England and Ireland Young 

 turned longing eyes to the fair land of France, and, as luck 

 would have it, in the spring of 1787 M. Lazowski, tutor of two 

 of his Bradfield pupils, the Comte de la Rochefoucauld and 

 Comte Alexandre de la Rochefoucauld, came with a proposal 

 no less practical than welcome: the tutor and the agriculturist 

 were to accompany the young Comte de la Rochefoucauld on 

 a tour to the Pyrenees. This, says Young, touched a string 

 tremulous to vibrate, and on May 17, after nine hours rolling 

 at anchor, the travellers landed and set forth on horseback 

 from Calais to ride the length of France: — the classic 

 Travels in France and Italy, on which Young's fame in England 

 and still more in France chiefly rests, were begun. The 

 travellers crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, and traversed 

 Catalonia as far as Barcelona. This portion of their journey 

 Young did not include in the Travels,'^ but printed it in the 

 Annals : it was the least successful part of his itinerary owing 

 to difl&culties with interpreters. 



Returning to Bradfield in mid-November a second journey 

 was projected for the summer of 1788, and on July 30, in that 

 year, Dessein's famous hostelry at Calais again received Arthur 

 Young — this time alone. Over 1500 miles the indefatigable 

 voyager rode through Western France on his blind mare, and 

 in mid-October reached Bradfield again. Eastern France 

 remained unsurveyed, and on June 2, in the momentous year 

 1789, Young, for a third time, crossed the straits and pursued 

 his way through France into Italy. 



Wherever he went the English farmer's fame preceded him ; 

 Lionised and entertained at successive stages of his journey in 

 France and Italy he at length reached Florence, being " electri- 

 fied at Bergamo," he tells us in the diary, " by the fine eyes 

 of an Italian fair, and just as I was making a nearer approach 



^ See page 37. 



