grandfather" or "I have been on your Honour's estate so
many years" he disregarded. Farms, originally sufficient for the
comfortable maintenance of a man, his wife, and family, had in many
cases been subdivided from generation to generation, the father
giving a bit of the land to each son to settle him. It was an
absolute impossibility that the land should ever be improved if let
in these miserable lots. Nor was it necessary that each son should
hold land, or advantageous that each should live on his "little
potato garden" without further exertion of mind or body.

'There was a continual struggle between landlord and tenant upon the
question of long and short leases. . . . The offer of immediate high
rent, or of fines to be paid down directly, tempted the landlord's
extravagance, or supplied his present necessities, at the expense of
his future interests. . . . Many have let for ninety-nine years;
and others, according to a form common in 'Ireland, for three lives,
renewable for ever, paying a small fine on the insertion of a new
life at the failure of each. These leases, in course of years, have
been found extremely disadvantageous to the landlord, the property
having risen so much in value that the original rent was absurdly
disproportioned.

'The longest term my father ever gave,' says his daughter Maria,
'was thirty-one years, with one or sometimes two lives. He usually
gave one life, reserving to himself the option of adding another
--the son, perhaps, of the tenant--if he saw that the tenant
deserved it by his conduct. This sort of power to encourage and
reward in the hands of a landlord is advantageous in Ireland. It
acts as a motive for exertion; it keeps up the connection and
dependence which there ought to be between the different ranks,
without creating any servile habits, or leaving the improving tenant
insecure as to the fair reward of his industry.

'Edgeworth's plan was to take not that which, abstractedly viewed,
is the best possible course, but that which is the best the
circumstances will altogether allow.

'When the oppressive duty-work in Ireland was no longer claimed, and
no longer inserted in Irish leases, there arose a difficulty to
gentlemen in getting labourers at certain times of the year, when
all are anxious to work for themselves; for instance, at the
seasons for cutting turf, setting potatoes, and getting home the
harvest.

'To provide against this difficulty, landlords adopted