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]]