66 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [xvi. 



XVI. 



EFFECT OF STRICT SETTLEMENTS OF LAND 

 MR. THOROLD ROGERS. 



IN a valuable work on agriculture and prices in 

 the middle ages, the following impassioned and 

 eloquent passage occurs : " No English labourer in 

 his most sanguine dreams has the vista of occupying, 

 still less of possessing, land. He cannot rise in his 

 calling. He cannot cherish any ambition, and he is, 

 in consequence, dull and brutish, reckless and stupid. 



" We owe the fact that the great English nation 

 is tenant at will to a few thousand landowners to 

 that device of evil times, a strict settlement. We 

 are informed that the machinery which has gradually 

 changed the whole character of the rural population 

 of England, was invented by the subtlety of two 

 lawyers of the Restoration, Palmer and Bridgman. 

 As there have been men whose genius has bestowed 

 lasting benefits on mankind, so there have been, 

 from time to time, exhibitions of perverse intellectual 



