The Portable Edmund Burke (Portable Library) Read Online Free

at such a Rent as both hurts them and the Landlord. Gentlemen perceiving that in England Farmers pay heavy Rent, and yet live comfortably, without considering the Disproportion of Markets and every Thing else, raise their Rent high, and extort it heavily. Thus none will hold from them but those desperate Creatures who ruin the Land (in vain) to make their Rent; they fly; the Landlord seizes, and to avoid the like Mischance, takes all into his own hands; which being unable to manage, he turns to grazing; thus one part of the Nation is starved, and the other deserted. The rich Farmers or Graziers, the third Sort, hold vast Quantities of Land, and as they live like estated Men, equally contribute to the Poverty of the rest.
    The Evil is easier seen than remedied; but perhaps the Example of a Gentleman of Fortune, whom I knew, may be useful. He came early to the Possession of an Estate valued 20001. per Ann. but set to a vast Number of Tenants at a very high rent: As usual in such cases, nothing could be in a worse Condition than his Estate: his Rents ill paid, the Land out of Heart, and not a Bush, not a tolerable Enclosure, much less Habitation, to be seen. He found his Leases out, but he did not study, with the Greediness of a young Heir, how to raise the price nor Value of his Lands, nor turn out all his poor Tenants to make room for two or three rich. He retained all those to whose honest Industry he had been Witness, and lowered his Rents very considerably: he bound them to plant certain Quantities of Trees, and make other Improvements. Thus in a few years Things had another Face, his Rent was well paid, his Tenants grew rich, and his Estate increased daily in Beauty and Value: There was a Village on it, which was equally ruinous with the rest; when he designed the Improvement of this, he did not take the ordinary Method of establishing Horse-races and Assemblies, which do but encourage Drinking and Idleness but at a much smaller Expence he introduced a Manufacture which, though not very considerable, employed the whole Town, and in Time made it opulent. Notwithstanding all this, no Person lives more hospitably in the Country, in the Town more genteel. I have often heard him discourse on this Subject. “I have lowered my Rents (says he) but how much am I the poorer? What Gratification do I want? ‘Tis true, I have not every Month some new invented Carriage coming from En gland to make the Town amazed at my Folly: I keep no French Cook, I wear my own Country manufactures; by which means I save, I believe, more than I lose by the lowness of my Rent: At the same time I am satisfied I am making Numbers happy, without Expence to myself, doing my Country Service without Ostentation, and leaving my son a better Estate without oppressing any one.”
    Had many of our Gentlemen the same just Way of thinking, we should no doubt see this Nation in a short time in the most flourishing Condition, notwithstanding all the Disadvantages we labour under. But while they proceed on a quite Opposite Plan, it can never emerge, though we were possess’d of many more Advantages than we are able to boast of.

NO. II
    Our Papers are sometimes employed on Subjects which we think useful, tho’ no present Occasion should suggest them, at other Times, the posture of Affairs affords us Matter of Speculation, and now the Season presents one, which it were equally blameable in us and all good Men to neglect.
    Pythagoras recommends to his Disciples, to pass the Close of each Day in Retirement, to revolve their past Actions, to contemplate useful Matters, and lay in proper Resolutions for their future Conduct; nor is it less wisely ordained in the Christian Polity, that certain Times recurring annually, should be devoted to Religion, lest the Mind too much softened by Pleasures, or overgrown with the Rust of worldly Cares, should forget its high Destination. I have read of Persons whom some Misfortune threw among barbarous People, where being habituated