SWIFT. Surely if repeated Sufferings make us patient, we might expect that our frequent Misfortunes, might make us Wise; and yet Famines are not able to oblige us to Plow, nor our Legislature to force us to it, by salutary Laws. One wou'd believe there were neither Thinkers or Reasoners, (unpoison'd by French Wine) left in _Ireland_. Are we to be a Nation of Beasts, and a few Savages to watch them, and only some Landlords and Butchers to divide the Spoil, and share the Plunder of a Nation, wasted of its Villages and People, as _William Rufus_, serv'd part of _Kent_, to feed his Deer? Good God! what a Scandal are we growing, to all the Kingdoms of the Earth, that set up for a regulated Government, or a sensible equal Polity? Surely, _Tom_, Men with common Sense, and common Industry, might make something else of this fertile Country, than a wild solitary Extent of Pastures; and that Men and civilized Creatures, might thrive here as well as Beasts and Barbarians; and that we need not let this poor Region, look like the one ey'd _Polyphemus_'s Island, spoil'd of its Inhabitants, and occupied only by his Sheep and his Cattle? We all know, Grazing makes Countries wild and horrid, their People slothful and uncultivated as the Soil; but one might bear any Fault but starving; and yet every three or four Years, Men here are near famishing for want of Bread, and ready to eat up each other, like Lord _Al----ms'_ Dogs in the Kennel. It is hard to say, what sort of People we are, for it is strange that the universal Instinct, that governs all the lower Ranks of Animals, or that the great Law of Self-preservation, does not influence our Countrymen so far, as to provide their own Bread. Not to Insult us with wiser Nations, I wou'd at least expect, that we shou'd shew ourselves, as provident as the Republick of Ants, and keep something to preserve Life and Soul together, when Want and Winter come. We seem to be quite uninfluenced by Hopes or Fears, the two great ruling Passions of the Soul; and as merry and improvident, as so many Grass-hoppers. In other Countries if Sheep eat up Men, the Men have their Revenge and eat up Sheep; but in _Ireland_, wretched, thoughtless _Ireland_, Sheep eat up more Men than all the Wolves on the Earth, without our poor Natives, being able to devour one of them, but now and then, when we Steal them, just to keep Life and Soul together.