Page:Studies of a Biographer 1.djvu/204

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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

rivalled the charm of some of his amiable contemporaries—Gilbert White of Selborne, for example,—and would have been a model clergyman of the good old patriarchal type; but he would hardly have made a mark upon theological speculation. Yet his actual career, however appropriate to his talent, was such as to draw a certain shade over his personal qualities; and as unfortunately he was not commemorated at his death in an adequate biography, they have, perhaps, not been sufficiently recognised. That a fuller recognition is possible is due in great part to Miss Betham-Edwards, who prefixed a short memoir to the last edition of his Travels in France (1892). Miss Betham-Edwards did her duty excellently; she not only appreciates his qualities but had access to unpublished sources, including diaries and letters of great interest. The necessary limits of a preface prevented her from doing more than drawing a sketch, life-like as far as it goes, which tantalises the reader by brief glimpses of possible filling up of details. These details are partly supplied by her more recent publication of Young's autobiography (1898). Young was not a Gibbon, and did not correct and rewrite four times over. Miss