SUPPOSED EQUAL TO BEAR."--"Grattan's Speeches," vol. i., p. 292.


We are not, of course, in such a discussion to be governed by names.
A middleman might be tied up by the strongest legal restriction, as
to the price he was to exact from the under-tenants, and then he
would be no more pernicious to the estate than a steward. A steward
might be protected in exactions as severe as the most rapacious
middleman; and then, of course, it would be the same thing under
another name. The practice to which we object is the too common
method in Ireland of extorting the last farthing which the tenant is
willing to give for land rather than quit it: and the machinery by
which such practice is carried into effect is that of the middleman.
It is not only that it ruins the land; it ruins the people also.
They are made so poor--brought so near the ground--that they can
sink no lower; and burst out at last into all the acts of
desperation and revenge for which Ireland is so notorious. Men who
have money in their pockets, and find that they are improving in
their circumstances, don't do these things. Opulence, or the hope
of opulence or comfort, is the parent of decency, order, and
submission to the laws. A landlord in Ireland understands the
luxury of carriages and horses, but has no relish for the greater
luxury of surrounding himself with a moral and grateful tenantry.
The absent proprietor looks only to revenue, and cares nothing for
the disorder and degradation of a country which he never means to
visit. There are very honourable exceptions to this charge: but
there are too many living instances that it is just. The rapacity
of the Irish landlord induces him to allow of the extreme division
of his lands. When the daughter marries, a little portion of the
little farm is broken off--another corner for Patrick, and another