fellows do submit, till their hearts
are broken--till the hot iron has entered their souls and seared their
consciences. When the _slave_ is thus finished, the agent and his
journeymen are satisfied with their handiwork; their 'honours' can
then count on any sort of services they may choose to exact--may bid
defiance to the priest and the agitator, and boast of an orderly and
deserving tenantry devoted to the best of landlords, who is their
natural protector. It would be wicked to interfere with these amicable
persons. Why talk about leases? The tenants will not have them; they
don't want security or independence by contract. So most of the agents
report--but not all. There are noble exceptions which relieve the
gloomy picture.

There is certainly one disadvantage connected with a settlement of the
land question which would abolish the arbitrary power of proprietors
and their agents--it would put an end to the romance of Irish
landlordism. The Edgeworths, the Morgans, the Banims, the Carletons,
and the Levers would then be deprived of the best materials for their
fictions. The fine old family, over-reached and ruined by a dishonest
agent; the cruelly evicted farmer, with his wife and children
fever-stricken, and his bedridden mother cast out on the roadside on
Christmas Eve, exposed to the pelting of the hailstorm, while their
home was unroofed and its walls levelled by the crowbar brigade; the
once comfortable but now homeless father making his way to London, and
trying day after day to present a petition in person to his landlord,
repulsed from the gate of the great house, and laughed at for his
frieze and brogue by pampered flunkeys. Then he travels on foot to his
lordship's country-seat, scores or hundreds of miles--is taken up, and
brought before the magistrates as 'an Irish rogue and vagabond.' At
length he meets his lordship accidentally, and reveals to him the
system of iniquity that prevails on his Irish estate at Castle
Squander: Next we have the sudden and unexpected appearance of the god
of the soil at his agent's office, sternly demanding an account of his
stewardship. He gives ready audience to his tenants, and fires with
indignation at bitter complaints from the parents of ruined daughters.
Investigation is followed by the ignominious eviction of the
tyrannical and roguish agent and his accomplices, a disgorging of
their ill-gotten wealth, compensation to plundered and outraged
tenants, the liberal distr