incredible things that make the hearers stare : we willingly wrap up ourselves in the strangeness of a fact, and the person who interferes to simplify the wonder and strip it of its mysticism, is apt to be looked on as an impertinent fellow, a matter-of-fact sort of intermeddler, with no more wit in him than is in a mallet. Yet because the operation of this difference of measurement and of currency between the two countries indispensably requires to be generally and fully understood, I will try to explain it clearly and briefly, even at the risk of incurring the imputation above said; premising that this important distinction not only enters into all calculations made previously to January 1826, but still exists in almost all bargains made between landlord and tenant, and also universally pervades the common parlance of society in Ireland. Irish lineal measure, then, was to English lineal measure in the ratio of fourteen to eleven, that is to say, eleven Irish miles, or eleven Irish perches, equal fourteen English miles or fourteen English perches in length, but land or acres being measured both in length and in breadth, this ratio and difference enters both the one way and the other into the computation, and Irish acres are to English as the product of fourteen multiplied by fourteen is to the product of eleven multiplied by eleven, that

D

is as 196 to 121, or 121 acres of plantation measure as used in Ireland, equal 196 acres of statute measure as used in England. Again, any given sum in Irish currency, was to the same nominal sum in English currency in the ratio of twelve to thirteen; that is to say, 137. Irish equal only 127. English-hence if a farmer in England pay 28s. rent and 12s. poor rates, making together 27. a year for an acre of land, and a farmer in Ireland, who pays no poor rates, be charged 27. a year rent for an acre of land, then, in order to find the annual sum paid for a given space of land in Ireland, as compared with that paid for the same space of land in England, we must diminish the rent of the Irish farmer in a ratio compounded of the ratios of 196 to 121, and of 13 to 12, which expressed in its lowest terms is as 637 to 363; therefore the Irishman's payment, instead of being equal to the Englishman's, as it seemed at first, turns out to be in reality only three hundred and sixty three six hundred and thirty sevenths, or little more than one half. So much for figures, and I defy the honourable member for Aberdeen himself to detect an error in the "sum tottle" of my conclusion; but all this relates merely to what is paid in the respective countries for a given extent of surface; other and important considerations enter into a comparison of the productive

powers and consequent value of these equal superficies. The soil of Ireland, taken acre for acre, is greatly more fertile than that of England. The best information I could collect concerning the two countries has convinced me that when I state a given quantity of our average land to be capable of producing, with an equal expenditure of labour and capital, onetenth more than an equal quantity of average land in England, I am not going beyond the truth, but the contrary. Our climate also is greatly the more favourable to the farmer of the two. In England, not only is it necessary to devote a considerable portion of his farm to green crops for winter feeding, but he must likewise provide houses for his cattle and his corn, and, in the northern counties, even for his hay, to secure against the frost and snow. These are great diminutions of the value of his land, and with us the necessity for such precautions does not exist; we very rarely have snow that lies many hours on the ground, and our frosts are neither lasting nor intense. In consequence, we have no occasion for either green crops or storehouses for our cattle, at least except as a speculation to fatten them the faster for market. There is scarcely a day in the year on which our pastures cannot afford grazing, and the addition of a little hay brings us

well through the severest of our ordinary winters. Hence the unreasonableness of the clamour we so often hear about the high rents and other oppressive hardships of the farmer in Ireland. There is a prodigious deal of sheer ignorance prevails on these subjects, united with much strong prejudice, and when these two things united break out into overt acts of speech, they occasion the most erroneous and exaggerated statements to come before the public.

LETTER VII.

Ni refugis, tenuesque piget cognoscere curas.

TRAVELLING is certainly far less delightful in Ireland than in England. The difference is not so much with regard to the accommodation either whilst in motion or at the inns, as in the appearance of the country through which you pass. If you can be content with a public coach, you are quite as well off in that respect here as in England; the posting is not by any means so good. Near the capital indeed, and on all the lines of road which Quin furnishes with post horses,

nothing can surpass the excellence of the travelling, but it is not so generally over the island, though everywhere rapidly improving. Driving for the first time through almost any part of England is quite a treat; but here, instead of the rich verdure, plantation on plantation, and hedge row upon hedge row, you had been accustomed everywhere to meet with, the general surface of the soil looks arid and sad coloured, plantations are but thinly scattered, generally young, and not unfrequently have a stunted appearance, as if half neglected; the lands seem divided into a prodigious number of compartments, and that too in most cases not by hedges, but ditches or bleak-looking stone walls. In the country towns the beggars are numerous, noisy, and squalid. And instead of the neat comfortable-looking villages of England, you meet with thatched cabins, scattered at intervals along the road, often decaying, and always dirty in their external appearance. This is the aspect of the country generally, yet wherever improvements have been made, the vivid green of the pasture, and the visible combination of utility and ornament in the minor details of the landscape abundantly demonstrate that we possess all the same capabilities of comfort and neatness as our brethren, were they but called into operation by the same