nants to furnish their landlords with labourers and horses for several
days in the year. Much petty tyranny and oppression have resulted from
this feudal custom. Whenever a poor man disobliged his landlord, the
agent sent to him for his duty work; and Thady does not exaggerate when
he says, that the tenants were often called from their own work to do
that of their landlord. Thus the very means of earning their rent were
taken from them: whilst they were getting home their landlord's harvest,
their own was often ruined, and yet their rents were expected to be paid
as punctually as if their time had been at their own disposal. This
appears the height of absurd injustice.

In Esthonia, amongst the poor Sclavonian race of peasant slaves, they
pay tributes to their lords, not under the name of duty work, duty
geese, duty turkeys, etc., but under the name of RIGHTEOUSNESSES. The
following ballad is a curious specimen of Esthonian poetry:--

This is the cause that the country is ruined,
And the straw of the thatch is eaten away,
The gentry are come to live in the land--
Chimneys between the village,
And the proprietor upon the white floor!
The sheep brings forth a lamb with a white forehead,
This is paid to the lord for a RIGHTEOUSNESS SHEEP.
The sow farrows pigs,
They go to the spit of the lord.
The hen lays eggs,
They go into the lord's frying-pan.
The cow drops a male calf,
That goes into the lord's herd as a bull.
The mare foals a horse foal,
That must be for my lord's nag.
The boor's wife has sons,
They must go to look after my lord's poultry.

GLOSSARY 10. OUT OF FORTY-NINE SUITS WHICH HE HAD, HE NEVER LOST ONE
BUT SEVENTEEN.

--Thady's language in this instance is a specimen of a mode of rhetoric
common in Ireland. An astonishing assertion is made in the beginning of
a sentence, which ceases to be in the least surprising, when you hear
the qualifying explanation that follows. Thus a man who is in the last
stage of staggering drunkenness will, if he can articulate, swear to
you--'Upon his conscience now, and may he never stir from the spot alive
if he is telling a lie, upon his conscience he has not tasted a drop of
anything, good or bad, since morning at-all-at-all, but half a pint of
whisky, please your honour.'

GLOSSARY 11. FAIRY MOUNTS

--Barrows. It is said that these high mounts were of great service to
the na