d no desire for an equivalent
amelioration of condition. The first pleasurable emotions of gratitude
over, they soon recurred to the old customs in every thing, and
gradually fell hack into all the observances of their former state, the
only difference being, that less exertion on their parts was now called
for than before.

Had the landlord been a resident on his property--acquainting himself
daily and hourly with the condition of his tenants--holding up examples
for their imitation--rewarding the deserving--discountenancing the
unworthy--extending the benefits of education among the young--and
fostering habits of order and good conduct among all, Owen would have
striven among the first for a place of credit and honour, and speedily
have distinguished himself above his equals. But alas! no; Mr. Leslie,
when not abroad, lived in England. Of his Irish estates he knew nothing,
save through the half-yearly accounts of his agent. He was conscious of
excellent intentions; he was a kind, even a benevolent man; and in the
society of his set, remarkable for more than ordinary sympathies with
the poor. To have ventured on any reflection on a landlord before him,
would have been deemed a downright absurdity.

He was a living refutation of all such calumnies; yet how was it,
that, in the district he owned, the misery of the people was a thing to
shudder at? that there were hovels excavated in the bogs, within which
human beings lingered on between life and death, their existence like
some terrible passage in a dream? that beneath these frail roofs famine
and fever dwelt, until suffering, and starvation itself, had ceased to
prey upon minds on which no ray of hope ever shone? Simply he did not
know of these things; he saw them not; he never heard of them. He was
aware that seasons of unusual distress occurred, and that a more than
ordinary degree of want was experienced by a failure of the potato-crop;
but on these occasions, he read his name, with a subscription of a
hundred pounds annexed, and was not that a receipt in full for all the
claims of conscience? He ran his eyes over a list in which Royal and
Princely titles figured, and he expressed himself grateful for so much
sympathy with Ireland! But did he ask himself the question, whether, if
he had resided among his people, such necessities for alms-giving
had ever arisen? Did he inquire how far his own desertion of his
tenantry--his ignorance of their state--his indifference