Author: [YOUNG (Arthur):
Title: Letters Concerning the Present State of the French Nation. Containing a Comprehensive View of the Political State, Agriculture, Trade and Commerce, Revenues, Military Power, Government, Ranks of the People, Manners, Laws, Fine Arts and Artists, Theatre, Literature and Writers: With a complete Comparison between France and Great Britain....
Description: London: Printed for W. Nicoll, No 51, St. Paul's Church-Yard. MDCCLXIX. [1769]. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 200 x 124 mms., pp. iv [v - xviii, xiv blank], 498, contemporary sheepskin; top and base of spine slightly chipped, corners worn, both joints slightly cracked (but firm), a fair to middling copy. The ESTC does not offer an attribution for Letters Concerning the Present State of the French Nation, but William Cushing, in Anonyms: A Dictionary of Revealed Authorship (1889), says it was written by Arthur Young (1741-1820), agriculturalist and travel writer (p. 372). Letters Concerning the Present State of the French Nation was certainly listed as one of the earliest published works by Arthur Young in the "Bibliography of Arthur Young", prepared by "John P. Anderson, of the British Museum", in Arthur Wollaston Hutton's edition of Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland (1892) (pp. 349, 361). In 1900, Henry Higgs in the DNB duly followed suit in attributing the Letters to Young. Young's book was controversial to say the least, and alarmed The Critical Review, which claimed that "this author's partiality to France is, we think, too glaring to impose upon the most ignorant reader. If he is not a mere tool of that government, and employed by them in this publication, we must be of the opinion that he is a very injudicious writer, because, as we have hinted in the beginning of this article, his labours must have a very disagreeable effect upon the public credit of England" (pp. 434-440). John Gerow Gazley, in his 1973 biography of Young, calls the Letters a "much more pretentious volume" (Life of Arthur Young, p. 47). The Letters are notable also for their zealous defence of Rousseau.

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