_November 23._—The 17th, 18th, and 19th at Euston, and I had much conversation with the duke, in which I earnestly endeavoured to impress on his mind the fact, that by his tenets he placed himself entirely under the covenant of works, and that he must be tried for them, and that I would not be in such a situation for ten thousand worlds. He was mild and more patient than I expected. He lent me, and I read it there, Priestley’s Life, by himself. He asked me what I thought of it? My reply was that through the whole it was the recital of a man perfectly well satisfied with himself, not the confessions of a sinner lamenting what has been wrong in him. He seems to have had no feeling of the sort; as if, when tried by the test of his own merit, it would be a great injustice in God not to be satisfied with him, and that I had no conception of any man having it in his power to review or detail his life with any religious aspect without much self-condemnation, and beseeching God to try him in any way rather than by an appeal to his life or his own merit, but (if he be really a Christian) by the merits only of the blood of his Redeemer. He said it was my view of things, and not that of the doctor, whom he believed was undoubtedly a very good man. The conversation continued, but we were as far as the poles asunder. The duke has drawn up memoirs of his life, and he and Lady Augusta read to me that part which concerned his own administration, which is very satisfactory, as it consists much of original letters. He appears to much more advantage in it than I conceived he would have done, and it was certainly a wise step to leave such a memorial in justification of himself. Lord Templeton there one day. They seem to me to grow more and more economical, and to descend to minute attentions which are below their rank and fortune. I do not feel comfortable, though he always receives me well, and desires me to come again. It is long since I was there before, and will be long before I go again; such visits, however, have very little of dissipation in them, and so much the better. The less we like them the safer they are. [Note, probably by Mary, Arthur Young’s only surviving daughter]: ‘1807. It was upon this journey [into Oxfordshire] that Mr. Y. first perceived the approach of that dimness of sight which afterwards terminated in its total eclipse. His first suspicion arose from looking at the planet Jupiter, and perceiving what appeared to him to be two very small stars near him, at which he was much surprised, as he knew that the satellites were invisible to the naked eye, and nobody saw these stars but himself. This multiplication of bright objects increased the following year, till at last one lamp appeared to him to be five. Objects became by degrees more and more confused, and at last totally disappeared.’ (Total blindness appears to have resulted from the failure of an operation for cataract, as will be seen later on.) ----- Footnote 223: