_How many villages they razed, How many parishes laid waste, To fatten bullocks, sheep, and cows_, When scarce one parish has two plows. Their flocks do range on every plain, That once produced all kinds of grain. Depopulating every village, Where we had husbandry and tillage; Fat bacon, poultry, and good bread, By which the poor were daily fed. *...*...*...* Instead of living well and thriving, There's nothing now but leading--_driving_; The lands are all monopolized, The tenants racked and sacrificed; _Whole colonies, to shun the fate Of being oppressed at such a rate, By tyrants who still raise their rent, Sail to the Western Continent. Rather than live at home like slaves, They trust themselves to winds and waves._" If a poet at the present hour were describing the acts and deeds of the Gerrards, the Waterfords, and like exterminators, could he have done it more literally? Thus, independent of the other miseries and wrongs of Ireland, this system of turning out human creatures to make way for bullocks has been going on exactly for a hundred years; and the Irish aristocracy, having made themselves the scandal of the whole civilized world, still sleep in warm beds and dream that they are Christians! and England, the most powerful and humane nation on the earth, has overlooked the dreadful scene, having her eyes fixed, full of tears, on the far-off negro, the Esquimaux, and the South Sea Islander. Till this crying iniquity and disgrace be removed out of our borders, every Bible Society, and Missionary Society, and Society for Humanity to _Animals_, should stop its ordinary operations, and combine each and all into a great and omnipotent association to convert the Irish aristocracy to Christianity, and to teach to the oppressed and trodden-on people that there is really such a thing as "loving our neighbors as ourselves." How unvarying are the features of the Irish gentry: "Our squires of late through Europe roam; Are too well bred to live at home: Are not content with Dublin College, But range abroad for greater knowledge; To strut in velvets and brocades At balls, and plays, and masquerades. To have their rent their chiefest care is, In bills to London and to Paris. Their education is so nice, They know all chances on the dice; *...*...*...* Those absentees we here describe _Are chiefly of our Irish tribe_, Who live in luxury and pleasure, And throw away their time and treasure; Cause poverty and devastation, And sink the credit of the nation," Who has not seen their deserted homes, so picturesquely sketched here?