for Dermot--till the land is broken into sections, upon one of which
an English cow could not stand. Twenty mansions of misery are thus
reared instead of one. A louder cry of oppression is lifted up to
heaven, and fresh enemies to the English name and power are
multiplied on the earth. The Irish gentleman, too, extremely
desirous of political influence, multiplying freeholds, and
splitting votes; and this propensity tends of course to increase the
miserable redundance of living beings, under which Ireland is
groaning. Among the manifold wretchedness to which the poor Irish
tenant is liable, we must not pass over the practice of driving for
rent. A lets land to B, who lets it to C, who lets it again to D.
D pays C his rent, and C pays B. But if B fails to pay A, the
cattle of B, C, D are all driven to the pound, and after the
interval of a few days sold by auction. A general driving of this
kind very frequently leads to a bloody insurrection. It may be
ranked among the classical grievances of Ireland.

Potatoes enter for a great deal into the present condition of
Ireland. They are much cheaper than wheat; and it is so easy to
rear a family upon them, that there is no cheek to population from
the difficulty of procuring food. The population therefore goes on
with a rapidity approaching almost to that of new countries, and in
a much greater ratio than the improving agriculture and
manufacturers of the country can find employment for it. All
degrees of all nations begin with living in pig-styes. The king or
the priest first gets out of them; then the noble, then the pauper;
in proportion as each class becomes more and more opulent. Better
tastes arise from better circumstances; and the luxury of one period
is the wretchedness and poverty of another. English peasants, in
the time of Henry VII., were lodged as badly as Irish peasants now