Chapter II: Farming and Marriage, 1759-1766

The gay world—A call on Dr. Johnson—A venture—Offer of a career—Farming
decided upon—Garrick—Marriage—Mr. Harte—Lord Chesterfield on
farming—Literary work—Correspondence—Birth of a daughter.

In 1761 I was at the Coronation, had a seat in the gallery of Westminster Hall, and being in the front row above the Duke’s table, I remember letting down a basket during dessert, which was filled by the present Duke of Marlborough. On this visit to London I had a mind to see everything, and ordered a full dress suit for going to Court. This was in September. In December I was again in London figuring in the gay world.[13] In January 1762 I set on foot a periodical publication entitled ‘The Universal Museum,’ which came out monthly, printed with glorious imprudence on my own account. I waited on Dr. Johnson, who was sitting by the fire so half-dressed and slovenly a figure as to make me stare at him. I stated my plan and begged that he would favour me with a paper once a month, offering at the same time any remuneration that he might name. ‘No, sir,’ he replied, ‘such a work would be sure to fail if the booksellers have not the property, and you will lose a great deal of money by it.’ ‘Certainly, sir,’ I said; ‘if I am not fortunate enough to induce authors of real talent to contribute.’ ‘No, sir, you are mistaken, such authors will not support such a work, nor will you persuade them to write in it; you will purchase disappointment by the loss of your money, and I advise you by all means to give up the plan.’ Somebody was introduced, and I took my leave. Dr. Kenrick,[14] the translator of Rousseau, was a writer of a very different stamp; he readily engaged to write for me; so did Collier[15] and his wife, who between them translated the ‘Death of Abel.’[16] I printed five numbers of this work, and being convinced that Dr. Johnson’s advice was wise and that I should lose money by the business, I determined to give it up. With that view I procured a meeting of ten or a dozen booksellers, and had the luck and address to persuade them to take the whole scheme upon themselves. I fairly slipped my neck out of the yoke—a most fortunate occurrence, for, though they continued it under far more favourable circumstances, I believe no success ever attended it.

In September of the following year I broke a blood-vessel and was attended by a Lynn physician, who ordered me to Bristol Hotwells, as I was in a very consumptive state. I accordingly went, boarding and lodging in a house where I met very intelligent and agreeable society; amongst the number was one gentleman with whom I had many arguments concerning Rousseau and his writings, I, like a fool, much admiring both, my new acquaintance abusing them with equal heat. But the principal acquaintance I made at the Hotwells was Sir Charles Howard, K.B., then an old man. Being informed that I was a chess-player, he introduced himself to me in the pump-room and invited me to coffee and a game of chess. After some time and various conversations he made enquiries relating to my family and destination. I took it into my head that he seemed more affable when he was informed (for his enquiries were numerous) that Mr. Speaker Onslow and the Bishop of Rochester were my godfathers. On understanding that I was not bred to any profession and was without hope of any settlement in life, he asked me if I should like to enter the Army. I answered in the affirmative, but added that it could only be matter of theory, as I had not lived with any officers. He often recurred to the idea, and at last told me that he would give me a pair of colours in his own cavalry regiment, and bade me write to my mother for her approval.

This I did, and was not at all surprised by her reply. She begged and beseeched me not to think of any such employment, as my health and strength were quite inadequate to the life. I loved my dear mother too much to accept an offer against her consent. I also became acquainted with an officer in the Army, Captain Lambert, who visited the Countess of B. at B. Castle. She was esteemed a demirep, handsome and fascinating. A little before I left Bristol I was introduced to her, and had my stay been longer should have made one in the number of her many slaves. On returning from Bristol to my mother at Bradfield, I found myself in a situation as truly helpless and forlorn as could well be imagined, without profession, business, or pursuit, I may add without one well-grounded hope of any advantageous establishment in life. My whole fortune during the life of my mother was a copyhold farm of twenty acres, producing as many pounds, and what possibility there was of turning my time to any advantage did not and could not occur to me; in truth, it was a situation without resource, and nothing but the inconsiderateness of youth could have kept me from sinking into melancholy and despair. My mother, desirous of fixing me with her, proposed that I should take a farm, and especially as the home one of eighty acres was under a lease expiring at Michaelmas. I had no more idea of farming than of physic or divinity, but as it promised, at least, to find me some employment, I agreed to the proposition, and accordingly commenced my rural operations, which entirely decided the complexion of all my remaining years. My connections at Lynn carried me often to that place, and my love of reading proved my chief resource. I farmed during the years 1763-4-5-6, having taken also a second farm that was in the hands of a tenant. I gained knowledge, but not much, and the principal effect was to convince me that in order to understand the business in any perfection it was necessary for me to continue my exertions for many years. And the circumstance which perhaps of all others in my life I most deeply regretted and considered as a sin of the blackest dye, was the publishing the result of my experience during these four years, which, speaking as a farmer, was nothing but ignorance, folly, presumption, and rascality. The only real use which resulted from those four years was to enable me to view the farms of other men with an eye of more discrimination than I could possibly have done without that practice. It was the occasion of my going on the southern tour in 1767, the northern tour in 1768, and the eastern in 1770, extending through much the greater part of the kingdom, and the exertion in these tours was admitted by all who read them (and they were very generally read) to be of most singular utility to the general agriculture of the kingdom. In these works I particularly attended to the course of the farmer’s crops, the point perhaps of all others the most important, and the more so at that period, because all preceding writers had neglected it in the most unaccountable manner. They relate good and bad rotations with the same apathy as if it was of little consequence in what order the crops of a farm were put in provided the operations of tillage and manuring were properly performed.

It has been very justly said that I first excited the agricultural spirit which has since rendered Britain so famous; and I should observe that this is not so great a compliment as at first sight it may seem, since it was nothing more than publishing to the world the exertions of many capital cultivators and in various parts of the kingdom, and especially the local practice of common farmers who, with all their merit, were unknown beyond the limits of their immediate district, and whose operation wanted only to be known to be admired.

In December 1762 I was again in London, and, as usual, constantly at the theatre. The parts in which Mr. Garrick acted to my great entertainment were, Macbeth, Benedict, Lear, Posthumus, Oakely,[17] Abel Drugger,[18] Sir J. Brute,[19] Sir J. Dominant,[20] Bayes,[21] Carlos,[22] Felix,[23] Ranger,[24] Scrub,[25] Hastings.[26] I must once for all remark that this astonishing actor so much exceeded every idea of representing character that the delusion was complete, Nature, not acting, seemed to be before the spectator, and this to a degree a thousand times beyond anything that has been seen since. The tones of his voice, the clear discrimination of feeling and passion in the vast variety of characters he represented, surpassed anything one could imagine, and raised him beyond competition. I have often reflected on the principal personages who figured in England during this age, and I am disposed to think that Garrick was by far the greatest, that is to say, he excelled all his contemporaries in the art he professed. Few men have been able to laugh at their own foibles with as much wit as Garrick. A striking instance was his little publication called ‘An Ode to Garrick on the Talk of the Town,’ in which we find this stanza:

Two parts they readily allow
Are yours, but not one more they vow,
And they close their spite.
You will be Sir John Brute[27] all day,
And Fribble[28] all the night.

In 1765 the colour of my life was decided. I married. My wife[29] was a daughter of Alderman Allen, of Lynn, and great-granddaughter of John Allen, Esq., of Lyng House, Norfolk, who, according to the Comte de Boulainvilliers,[30] first introduced the custom of marling in the above-named county. We boarded with my mother at Lynn.

This year (1765) I was in correspondence with the Rev. Walter Harte,[31] Canon of Windsor, and author of the ‘Essays on Husbandry’ and the ‘Life of Gustavus Adolphus.’ He advised me to collect my scattered papers in the ‘Museum Rusticum,’ and, with additions, to publish them in a volume. This I did under the title of ‘A Farmer’s Letters.’ I visited Mr. Harte at Bath; his conversation was extremely interesting and instructive. I have rarely received more pleasure than in my intercourse with this amiable and deeply learned man. It is well known that he was tutor to Mr. Stanhope, natural son of Lord Chesterfield, to whom so many of that nobleman’s letters were addressed.[32]

_To Mr. Harte_

‘Blackheath: August 16, 1764.

‘Sir,—I give you a thousand thanks for your book, of which I’ve read
every word with great pleasure and full as great astonishment. When in
the name of God could you have found time to read the ten or twenty
thousand authors whom you quote, of all countries and all times, from
Hesiod to du Hamel?[33] Where have you ploughed, sowed, harrowed,
drilled, and dug the earth for at least these forty years? for less
time could not have made you such a complete master of the practical
part of husbandry. I can only account for it from the Pythagorean
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and the supposition that
Hartlib’s soul has animated your body with a small alteration of name;
seriously, your book entertains me exceedingly, and has made me quite
a _dilettante_, though too late to make me a _virtuoso_, in the useful
and agreeable art of agriculture. I own myself ignorant of them all,
but am nevertheless sensible of their utility, and the pleasure it
must afford to those who pursue them. Moreover, you’ve scattered so
many graces over them that one wishes to be better acquainted with
them, and that one reads your book with pleasure most exquisite. It is
the only prose Georgic that I know, as agreeable, and I dare say much
more useful, in this climate than Virgil. Why have you not put your
name to it? for though some passages in it point you out to be the
author here, they will not do it so in other countries, and as I am
persuaded that your book will be translated into most modern languages
and be a polyglott of husbandry, I could have wished your name had
been to it. How goes the Havabilious complaint: has not the Bath
waters washed it away yet? I heartily wish it was, as I sincerely wish
you whatever can give you ease or pleasure.

‘For I am with great truth your
‘Faithful friend and servant,
‘CHESTERFIELD.

‘P.S.—Though I can be as partial as another to my friends, I cannot be
quite blind to their omissions; for though you have enumerated so many
sorts of grass, with a particular panegyrick on your dear Lucern, you
have not described, nor so much as mentioned, that particular sort of
grass _which while it grows the steed starves_.

‘Your Elève is very well at Dresden. I will send him his book when I
can find a good opportunity.’

The following letters Mr. Harte was so good as to address to me:—

‘Bath: February 3, 1765.

‘Dear Sir,—That I am obliged to trouble you with a letter, purely on
my own account, I balance not a moment within myself, between
interrupting a friend and being thought ungrateful. The kind mention
you have been pleased to make of my Essays on Husbandry in the last
number of the Museum Rusticum deserves my warmest thanks and
acknowledgements: and though your good opinion of me as _bonus
agricola, bonus civis_ may be a little partial, yet sure I am that
your favourable report is the overflowing of a generous mind, and
under that medicament I must with modesty and diffidence arrange it,
feeling at the same time that inward pleasure which Tacitus describes
_Dulce est laudari a laudato Viro_. For my own part, my ill health, as
I greatly fear, will make me unable to continue much longer on the
theatre of agriculture; but if it pleases God that this nation is ever
touched with a true vital sense of the uses of husbandry in _their
full extent_ (and runs not mad with the visionary notions of
Colonies), there will soon be a succession of younger and abler
genius’s to perfect _that_, which I have had the honor and
satisfaction of suggesting to my beloved but mistaken country. I may
say as old Dryden did to Congreve. (You will put aside the vanity of
naming Dryden in the same paragraph with myself.)

‘So, when the States one Edward did depose,
A greater Edward in his room arose,
But now not I but husbandry the curst,
And Tom the Second writes like Tom the First.

‘And now, Sir, give me leave to assure you that I am extremely pleased
with your last published performance, and the rather as the idea is
useful and new. In order to send abroad a truly qualified person, as
you have most judiciously characterised him, you do well to address
yourself to noble-spirited individuals. Kings and ministers look upon
agriculture as only _physical_ means of supplying mankind with food;
nor does one glimpse of an idea ever enter their heads or hearts
concerning the circulation of profit from the highest to the lowest
resulting from thence; nor of the national strength, health,
population, and, I may say, the sobriety of getting money which
results from that art when it is exercised and maintained in full
activity. France might till this time have languished for her
enclosure of waste land and exportation of superfluous corn if a
shrewd and artful foreigner had not flattered a fair lady into a
passion for agriculture; the man I mean is M. Patulle.[34] And indeed,
since the times of Augustus and Mæcenas (which latter loved
agriculture, before he loved poetry, but lavishly united both in
Virgil) and since the time of Constantine IV. to the present hour I
can recollect no Princes and Prime Ministers who understood the
national advantages of husbandry in their full extent but Henry IV.
and Sully.’ [_Letter breaks off here._]

‘Windsor: May 1, 1765.

‘Dear Sir,—Your last kind pacquet was conveyed to me here by our much
esteemed friend Mrs. Allen, whom I hope to see at Bath in about twelve
days. I am now to thank you for entertaining me with so much and so
good matter relating to Harrows, and look upon your improvement to be
a most sensible and most ingenious one at the same time. This is the
happy perfection in writing which Horace mentions:

‘Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.

‘In the same manner I have also read with delight and improvement your
remarks upon broad-wheeled waggons, in the Museum for last March: but
why, my good friend, do you bury such dissertations as yours in
blue-paper Periodical Essays? Or why rather do you not throw them
together in one book, or large pamphlet? I return you my best thanks
for your Technical Terms of Art in the Suffolk Husbandry, and the
provincial words, which latter, one time or other, shall be considered
by me in a more extensive and critical view respecting the English
language in general. Many of these provincial words[35] are the truly
classical words of our nation. Some of them are elegant and musical,
and most of them in general express the sense in their sound. In one
word, from a thorough knowledge of the provincial words of our
language, one might venture to explain Shakespear, B. Jonson, Beaumont
and Fletcher, &c., better and safer than all his editors and
conjectural critics. If you have a friend tolerably skilled in
husbandry, who lives in any part of England except the southern and
western, be so obliging to me as to solicit his assistance, and convey
the list of words to me; for by what I have before suggested, you see
I have views that extend beyond husbandry.

‘When you go to London, will you not be tempted to make a flying
excursion to Bath? ’Tis a digression, but it can hardly be called an
episode. If I have any skill, or knowledge of the world, Mrs. Allen’s
conversation alone will indemnify you for your trouble, and that most
amply. He also who subscribes his name to this letter has a private
ambition to be better known to you than upon paper.

‘I am, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

‘W. HARTE.‘

‘Kintbury, Berks: May 7, 1765.

‘Dear Sir,—If gratitude did not operate strongly upon me (and that
towards a friend whom I never saw but hope to see, know, and cultivate
his friendship) I should not trouble you with another letter so quick
upon the heels of my last from Windsor; but finding by chance here, in
a lone village, the Museum Rusticum, I see you have done justice to
the Essays on Husbandry. I wish they had half the merit which your
partiality to the author fancies they have.

‘In the main particular you have spoken exactly my private sentiments.
When I write for the instruction and amusement of _Cuddy_ and _Lobbin_
and _Clout_ in matters of husbandry I will also publish a supplemental
essay on the art of push-pin,[36] stylo puerili. Who would write for
farmers, who perhaps cannot read, or who, I am sure, will never try to
read? Were I condemned to this punishment I would desire my footman to
hold the pen—and even _then_ what would such critics say? They would
find fault with inelegance and want of propriety in the work. They
bring to my mind an anecdote which de Voltaire once told me of his
father (by the way, Voltaire put the incident into a farce, and was
disinherited for it). The peevish old gentleman said one morning when
his son rose from bed at about 11 o’clock: “Young man, you were drunk
last night; you will sleep away your senses, neglect your studies, and
die a beggar.” Piqued at this reproach, Voltaire got up at 4 next
morning, and by the by it was in winter. “Son,” said his father at
breakfast, “you will ruin us in the expenses of fire and candle. All
your draggle-tailed Muses will never indemnify us with the
wood-merchant and chandler.” This is a just picture of a reviewing
Critic or a Mago.

‘Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea noto?

‘As to the Museum Rusticum (your writings in it excepted) I know
nothing of the authors, but look upon it (as I am now speaking to you
_sub sigillo silentii_) as a blue-paper job. Books in this age are a
manufacture as much as hats or pins. The bookseller chooses a subject
and the author writes at 10_s._ a sheet. It is probable that one man
in a garret, who does not know a blade of wheat from a blade of
barley, writes half the letters from the ‘Kentish man,’ ‘Yorkshire
man,’ ‘Glocester man,’ &c. And perhaps the same hand, in the notes,
signs with all the letters in the alphabet. Perhaps this very man
Rocque (I speak only from conjecture), for I observe the whole work
has a tendency to favour this avanturier in agriculture. I declare to
you seriously that I know nothing of its authors, you excepted. Might
it not be better if you kept your admirable tracts by you, and to
those you have already published, so much to your honour, you may add
such occasional pieces as you shall afterwards write, and let them all
appear together in a volume which might be entitled SYLVAE,[37] or
occasional tracts on husbandry and rural economics. I would have all
books on husbandry, if possible, pocket volumes, that one may read in
the fields, &c. In short, I would print it in a beautiful duodecimo as
du Hamel does; you have written enough already to make one such
volume, or nearly. However, there must be some new things in this
work; doubtless you have the plan of more tracts by you. If you read
French I would recommend a charming idea to you in this enclosing age,
namely a little 12mo. called "L’amélioration des Terres," by Patulle.
In that work are plans, and also the manner of throwing a square tract
of ground of three or four hundred acres, &c., into an ornamented
farm, or, as the French call it, _ferme ornée_: the house and
buildings in the centre; the fields are square, the hedges quick set,
and the owner may command with his eye, and almost with his voice,
everybody and thing he is concerned with. If you cannot get the book
(though you certainly may at Vaillant’s) I will send you mine.

‘Adieu, dear Sir,
‘Your most affectionate and obliged friend,
‘WALTER HARTE.’

‘Barton Street, Bath: Oct. 16, 1766.

‘Dear Sir,—My wretched state of health must be my just excuse for
being so bad a correspondent. I owe you an answer to a letter of yours
which was equally kind and long, and that answer is now of near a
quarter of a year’s standing; not but that I think of you and my
honoured friend at Lynn almost every day of my life. Pray inform me in
your next how your husbandry lucubrations go on in point of progress
and advancement? I will be responsible for their good taste and
accuracy. You are like the Matinian bee mentioned by Horace, which
gathers more fragrance from a few sprigs of thyme than others can do
from the stately lilac and larch trees. You gave me some hopes that my
ever honoured friend at Worcester should convey to me, from you, some
manuscript dissertations on agriculture, but I have been so unhappy as
to know no more of them than of the lost books of Livy. In the course
of the winter you will see an octavo volume of religious poems
intituled the “Amaranth,” adorned with very fine sculptures from the
designs of the greatest masters, and executed by an artist of my own
forming, who never appeared before in a public capacity, except on my
Essays on Husbandry. The poetry I hope will prove that I have been
bred up in the school of Pope, and I hope the disciple will retain
something at least of the manner of the master. When you see Mrs.
Allen you will impart this little anecdote to her, because I am not
yet quite clear whether I shall prefix my name or not.

‘I am, dear Sir, &c., &c.,
‘WALTER HARTE.

‘P.S.—I have just had a visit from my old friend the Marquis of
Rockingham, who (to say truth) loves husbandry as much as you or I do,
and is, besides, an excellent judge of it speculatively and
practically.’

‘Bath: Nov. 24, 1766.

‘Dear Sir,—I received safely by coach your manuscript, which shall be
perused with all the accuracy of friendship, after having turned
partiality out of doors. My impatience about whatever concerns you has
already made me read a part of your work, and enables me to prophesy
well concerning it. Pray be not fearful about the execution of your
plan, which seems to me a good one; authors must be careful but not
fearful; we have a proverb in husbandry (as old, I think, as Henry
VII.’s time), which deserves to be written in letters of gold: "He
that’s afraid of a blade of grass must not sleep in a meadow."

‘I like one part of your manuscript exceedingly; it is in truth the
only thing wanted, and yet the only thing too often omitted, I mean
the idea and calculation of the outgoing expenses. M. Patulle felt
this as folly as you do, and as good wit will jump, hit upon a part of
your plan. You therefore must see that book, as the French say, _coûte
que coûte_; I have, I believe, almost the only copy in England, which
shall be conveyed to you in a week’s time.

‘I am, dearest Sir,
‘Your affectionate friend,
‘WALTER HARTE.’

Mr. Harte published a volume of religious poems called ‘Amaranth,’ which he sent me. He took great pains about the decoration of this book by a young artist of his own forming, but it had no success.

In 1766 my daughter Mary was born, and I remained at Bradfield, with the exception of several journeys to Lynn.

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Footnote 13:

The following notes are taken from a small memorandum-book appended to
memorials:—

‘1761. July 23.—Leak in full (meaning debts), 5_l._ 5_s._
Sept. 22.—Coronation.
” 28.—To Court.
Oct. 9.—Blackheath; cards.
Dec. —To London with Ed. Allen.
” 31.—Debts 62_l._
(My) History of the War published.’

Footnote 14:

Dr. Kenrick, critic of the _Monthly Review_, attacked Dr. Johnson, who
said, ‘I do not think myself bound by Kenrick’s rules.’

Footnote 15:

Joseph and Mary Collier; the first, author of a _History of England_.

Footnote 16:

Gesner Solomon, born at Zurich, 1730.

Footnote 17:

_The Jealous Wife._

Footnote 18:

_The Alchemist._

Footnote 19:

_The Provoked Wife._

Footnote 20:

_The Man of Mode._

Footnote 21:

_The Rehearsal._

Footnote 22:

_Love Makes a Man._

Footnote 23:

_The Wonder._

Footnote 24:

_The Suspicious Husband._

Footnote 25:

_The Beaux’ Stratagem._

Footnote 26:

_She Stoops to Conquer._

This last play seems to have been first acted in 1773. See Brewer’s
_Reader’s Handbook_.

Footnote 27:

‘The coarse pot-house valour of Sir John Brute, Garrick’s famous part,
is finely contrasted with the fine lady airs and affectation of his
wife.’—_Chambers’s English Literature._

Footnote 28:

‘All the domestic business will be taken from my wife’s hands, I shall
shall make the tea, comb the dogs, and dress the children
myself.’—Fribble, in _Miss in her Teens_ (Garrick).

Footnote 29:

Mrs. Young was sister to Fanny Burney’s stepmother. The marriage
proved unhappy from the beginning.

Footnote 30:

See his work, _Les Intérêts de la France mal entendus_, Henri, Comte
de Boulainvilliers, voluminous author on French history, 1658-1722.

Footnote 31:

Rev. W. Harte, poet, writer on rural affairs, historian, 1700-1774.
Dr. Johnson much commended Harte as a scholar and a man of the most
companionable talents he had ever known. He said the defects in his
history (Gustavus Adolphus) arose not from imbecility, but from
foppery. His _Essays on Husbandry_ is an elegant, erudite, and
valuable work (Lowndes).

Footnote 32:

The accompanying letter is included in Arthur Young’s correspondence
of this year, and is given, although not addressed to himself.

Footnote 33:

Duhamel du Monceau, botanist and _agronome_, contributor to the
_Encyclopédie_, 1700-1781.

Footnote 34:

Patulle. A French writer on agriculture.

Footnote 35:

Here is an illustration. The Suffolk husbandman’s afternoon collation
is invariably called ‘beaver.’ In Nares’ _Glossary_ we find, ‘Bever,
from the Sp. and It.: an intermediate refreshment between breakfast
and dinner.’ ‘Without any prejudice to their bevers, drinkings, and
suppers.’—_B. and Fletcher, ‘The Woman Hater.’_

Footnote 36:

‘A child’s game, in which pins are pushed alternately.’—_Webster._

Footnote 37:

Included in _A Farmer’s Letters_.

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