8 Arthur Young. 
personal attractions, he was a welcome guest at every enter- 
tainment. 
An attack of haemorrhage from the lungs caused him to stay 
at Bath for a time in 1761, and one can understand how joyously 
he would have entered into the round of pleasure and excitement 
of which that city was then the centre. But even there his 
skill as a chess-player gave proof of the reflective and studious 
order of his nature. 
We have an amusing picture left us of Arthur Young in 
early life, by a clever and vivacious young lady — one among his 
numerous admirers. 
It was headed as she wrote it, “ My own portrait,” and her 
manuscript is endorsed in Arthur Young's own handwriting, 
“ Peggy’s wit : her portrait of me, supposed by myself.” Thus 
it runs : — 
“ I came into the world a fine thriving boy, and thus gave 
an early promise of becoming in due time what is called a 
proper-looking, handsome man — such, at least, my glass told 
me — and I was not disposed to quarrel with it as a flatterer. 
My height was above the middling stature, being about five feet 
ten, the then standard of perfection ; but, as an act of degenera- 
tion has since taken place, what would now be condemned as 
gigantic, out of nature, horrid. There was, however, something 
in my air and figure imposant and sufficiently attractive to secure 
as much of the notice and attention of the part of the creation I 
most worshipped as was necessary to feed and satisfy my 
amour propre. My eyes were of the hawk kind, Piercers , 
looking into and through the thoughts of men and the 
hearts of women ; a nose somewhat long, perhaps, but of an 
aquiline form, and in good harmony with its companions the 
mouth and chin ; the general outline or contour of the face not 
bad ; my countenance, ‘ the index of the mind,’ full of fire, of 
animation, of expression ; and if my smiles were pleasing my 
frowns were horrible. 
“ So much for my exterior, and now a few words to give my 
character. 
“ Bold, ardent, impetuous, enthusiastic, and gentle, it was 
difficult to dissect or analyse any part of it ; the lion and the 
lamb had so whimsically blended themselves in aid of the whole, 
that it seemed impossible to dissolve the union, although the 
first upon most occasions asserted its superiority. All that my 
mind fixed upon it grasped. My energies were not to be con- 
trolled ; they burst the bonds of difficulty and opinion ; what I 
chose to be I was. I quitted my study only to take the field. 
It was'my passion, my pursuit; but, far from straightening my 
scythe into a sword, I bent my sword into a sickle. 
