does not limit the growth of London.

This, we may guess, is one of the petulant utterances of early years
which he would have disavowed or qualified upon maturer reflection. But
Young is essentially an apostle of the 'glorious spirit of
improvement,'[56] which has converted Norfolk sheep-walks into arable
fields, and was spreading throughout the country and even into Ireland.
His hero is the energetic landowner, who makes two blades of grass grow
where one grew before; who introduces new breeds of cattle and new
courses of husbandry. He is so far in sympathy with the _Wealth of
Nations_, although he says of that book that, while he knows of 'no
abler work,' he knows of none 'fuller of poisonous errors.'[57] Young,
that is, sympathised with the doctrine of the physiocrats that
agriculture was the one source of real wealth, and took Smith to be too
much on the side of commerce. Young, however, was as enthusiastic a
free-trader as Smith. He naturally denounces the selfishness of the
manufacturers who, in 1788, objected to the free export of English
wool,[58] but he also assails monopoly in general. The whole system, he
says (on occasion of Pitt's French treaty), is rotten to the core. The
'vital spring and animating soul of commerce is LIBERTY.'[59] Though he
talks of the balance of trade, he argues in the spirit of Smith or
Cobden that we are benefited by the wealth of our customers. If we have
to import more silk, we shall export more cloth. Young, indeed, was
everything but a believer in any dogmatic or consistent system of
Political Economy, or, as he still calls it, Political Arithmetic. His
opinions were not of the kind which can be bound to any rigid formulae.
After investigating the restrictions of rent and wages in different
districts, he quietly accepts the conclusion that the difference is due
to accident.[60] He has as yet no fear of Malthus before his eyes. He
is roused to indignation by the pessimist theory then common, that
population was decaying.[61] Everywhere he sees signs of progress;
buildings, plantations, woods, and canals. Employment, he says, creates
population, stimulates industry, and attracts labour from backward
districts. The increase of numbers is an unqualified benefit. He has no
dread of excess. In Ireland, he observes, no one is fool enough to deny
that population is increasing, though people deny it in England, 'even
in the most productive period of her industry and wealth.'[62] One cause