199 
“¢ perhaps of the value of two or three shillings only,—is not 
“ punished infinitely beyond a just proportion, when it is punished 
“ with death.”* 
The Irish laws of Tanistry and Gavelkind are represented by Sir 
John Davis as sources of the greatest evils to the nation. “ Ta- 
mstry,’ he says, ‘ is the cause of such desolation and barbarism in 
“ this land, as the like was never seen in any country, that professed 
“* the name of Christ.” He adds, “ Yet I dare boldly say that never 
“ any particular person, eyther before or since (the raigne of Henrie 
“ the Second) did build anie stone or bricke house for his private 
“* habitation, but such as have latelie obtained estates according to 
“ the course of the law of England. Neither did any of them in all 
“ this time plant any gardens or orchards, inclose or improve their 
“ lands, live together in settled villages or towns, nor made any 
“ provision for posterity ; which, being against all common sense 
“ and reason, must needes bee imputed to those unreasonable cus- 
*© tomes, which made their estates so uncertaine and transitory in 
“ their possessions.”—To the custom of Gavelkinde, Sir John ats 
tributes the poverty of the country. “ For,” he says, “* Gavelkinde 
“ must needs in the end make a poore gentility. 
In these short quotations we have a melancholy proof of how 
hard a matter it is for men, even of liberal education, to divest 
themselves of prejudice, or to do justice to the character of those 
whom it may be their interest to vilify and traduce. The learned 
Attorney General must have well known, that the Irish did dwell 
in towns and villages long before his countrymen ever obtained 
a footing in Ireland; and also that they did build houses of stone 
VOL. XIV, EE 
* History of Ireland, Dublin edition, octavo, vol. I. p. 258, 259; and History of Utopia, 
Note, p. 42, 43. 
+ Discovery of the True Cause, &c. p- pe 170. 1. 2. 
