By ARTHUR YOUNG. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited : london , paris , new york & melbourne . 1897....

Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergyman, at Bradfield, in Suffolk.  He was apprenticed to a merchant at Lynn, but his activity of mind caused him to be busy over many questions of the day.  He wrote when he was seventeen a pamphlet on American politics, for which a publisher paid him with ten pounds’ worth of books.  He started a periodical, which ran to six numbers.  He wrote novels.  When he was twenty-eight years old his father died, and, being free to take his own course in lif

A St. Michael, etc., the subject confused, by Michael Angelo.  A St. Francis on wood, a large original of Guido.  A St. Cecilia, original of Romanelli.  An Assumption of the Virgin, by L. Carracci.  A Quaker’s meeting, of above fifty figures, by Egbert Hemskerk.  A sea view and rock piece, by Vernet.  A small flagellation, by Sebastian del Piombo.  A Madonna and Child, small, by Rubens.  The Crucifixion, many figures in miniature, excellent, though the master is unknown.  An excellent copy of th

Beef, 21s. per cwt., never so high by 2s. 6d.; pork, 30s., never higher than 18s. 6d., owing to the army demand.  Slaughter dung, 8d. for a horse load.  Country labourer, 6d.; about town, 10d.  Milk, seven pints a penny.  Coals, 3s. 8d. to 5s. a barrel, six of which make a ton.  Eggs, four a penny. Cork labourers.  Cellar ones, twenty thousand; have 1s. 1d. a day, and as much bread, beef, and beer as they can eat and drink, and seven pounds of offals a week for their families.  Rent for their ho

To judge of Ireland by the conversation one sometimes hears in England, it would be supposed that one-half of it was covered with bogs, and the other with mountains filled with Irish ready to fly at the sight of a civilised being.  There are people who will smile when they hear that, in proportion to the size of the two countries, Ireland is more cultivated than England, having much less waste land of all sorts.  Of uncultivated mountains there are no such tracts as are found in our four norther

For a country, so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so much the start of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly.  But from this commendation the turnpikes in general must be excluded; they are as bad as the bye-roads are admirable.  It is a common complaint that the tolls of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that disgrace the kingdom. The following is the system on which the cross-roads

Quid leges sine moribus, Vana proficiunt! It is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish remarks upon a country to sit down coolly in his closet and write a satire on the inhabitants.  Severity of that sort must be enlivened with an uncommon share of wit and ridicule, to please.  Where very gross absurdities are found, it is fair and manly to note them; but to enter into character and disposition is generally uncandid, since there are no people but might be better than t