onsible for this London
reprint, which had for frontispiece the picture of an ass wearing a
coronet. [T. S.]

[17] The original edition prints "ministers" instead of "chief
governors." [T. S.]

[18] In 1720 Bishop Nicholson of Derry, writing to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, describes the wretched condition of the towns and the
country districts, and the misery of their population:

"Our trade of all kind is at a stand, insomuch as that our most eminent
merchants, who used to pay bills of _1,000l._ at sight, are hardly able
to raise _100l._ in so many days. Spindles of yarn (our daily bread) are
fallen from _2s. 6d._ to _15d._, and everything also in proportion.
Our best beef (as good as I ever ate in England) is sold under _3/4d._ a
pound, and all this not from any extraordinary plenty of commodities,
but from a perfect dearth of money. Never did I behold even in Picardy,
Westphalia, or Scotland, such dismal marks of hunger and want as
appeared in the countenances of most of the poor creatures I met with on
the road." (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 6116, quoted by Lecky.) [T. S.]

[19] The "absentee" landlord was an evil to Ireland on which much has
been written. It was difficult to keep the country in order when the
landed proprietors took so little interest in their possessions as to do
nothing but exact rents from their tenants and spend the money so
obtained in England. Two, and even three, hundred years before Swift's
day "absenteeism" had been the cause of much of the rebellion in Ireland
which harassed the English monarchs, who endeavoured to put a stop to
the evil by confiscating the estates of such landlords. Acts were passed
by Richard II. and Henry VIII. to this effect; but in later times, the
statutes were ignored and not enforced, and the Irish landlord, in
endeavours to obtain for himself social recognition and standing in
England which, because of his Irish origin, were denied him, remained in
England indulging himself in lavish expenditure and display. The
consequences of this were the impoverishment of his estates and their
eventual management by rack-renters. These rack-renters, whose only
interest lay in squeezing money out of the impoverished tenants, became
the bane of the agricultural holder.

Unfortunately, the spirit of "absenteeism" extended itself to the
holders of offices in Ireland, and even the lord-lieutenant rarely took
up his residence in Dublin for any time longer than necessitated by the
i