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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

Anglian ancestry, derived the mercurial temperament which we do not generally associate with either country. Both father and mother, however, were handsome and intelligent, and we do not know enough of the laws of heredity to account for the appearance of this brilliant contrast to the ponderous squires of Suffolk and the three-breeched merchants of Holland. Anyhow, Arthur Young showed his qualities early. He learned little at his school, Lavenham—partly, he thinks, because he became so much a favourite with his teacher as to be spared the usual discipline. When he was about ten, however, he was already 'writing a history of England,' and at thirteen learning to dance and falling in love with the beautiful daughter of a village grocer. He was taken from school at the age of sixteen and apprenticed to a mercantile firm at King's Lynn. There he again fell in love, his first idol being the black-eyed daughter of a partner in the firm, who was taking music-lessons from Burney, then organist of Lynn, and best known to most of us as Mme. d'Arblay's father. He was already writing pamphlets and getting them published, receiving payment in 'books,' but apparently learned nothing of his proper business. At any rate, on his father's death