Burke had delivered a strong invective against the French Treaty.

Wilberforce said, "We can make allowance for the honourable gentleman, because we remember him in better days." The retort greatly nettled Burke, but the feeling soon passed away, and they both found a special satisfaction in the dinner to which Wilberforce invited Burke every session.

"He was a great man," says Wilberforce.

"I could never understand how at one time he grew to be so entirely neglected." Outside of both political and literary circles, among Burke's correspondents was that wise and honest traveller whose name is as inseparably bound up with the preparation of the French Revolution, as Burke's is bound up with its sanguinary climax and fulfilment.

Arthur Young, by his Farmer's Letters, and Farmer's Calendar, and his account of his travels in the southern counties of England and elsewhere--the story of the more famous travels in France was not published until 1792--had won a reputation as the best informed agriculturist of his day.