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 Duke de Liancourt—the Anglomaniac French nobleman who announced to Louis XVI. that the fall of the Bastile was not a revolt but a revolution. On Liancourt's invitation Young made his famous French tours from 1787 to 1790.

The travels are most deservedly famous, but they have hardly been popular in the same proportion. In French, indeed, they have had a very large circulation; but in England they brought more fame than profit. They owe such popularity as they achieved to the advice of a very sensible friend. The tour in Ireland, said this adviser, had no great success, because it was chiefly a 'farming diary.' It was filled with elaborate statistics and tables of prices which presupposed a strong appetite for information in the reader. The right plan to gain readers was to put down the notes made at the moment as they occurred to him. The book might lose in solidity, but would gain in vivacity. Young fortunately took this advice, which deserves to be recorded as one of the few known instances of advice by which an author has actually profited. It was, in fact, singularly appropriate, for Young was essentially a man whose first impressions were the most valuable, as well as the most amusing. It is often better to