OF NORFOLK. 125 



arguments made life of is, that it makes the te- 

 nant infolent and independent. There may be 

 fome few inflances of this fort, but they ought 

 not to be allowed to operate to the general injury 

 of a country, however indifferent a gentleman 

 may be to the advantage of his own purfe. A man 

 of large landed property owes, in my opinion, 

 fomething to fociety, and ought to get rid of his 

 prejudices, where they affe£t the community (c). 

 Providence, who put bin in poffeilion of his pro- 

 perty, undoubtedly meant that he fhould in lome 

 fort acl as a public fteward, and it cannot be right 

 that he fhould wrap up the talent entrusted to his 

 care in a napkin. It grieves me to go into a 

 country, which I often do, and find it almoft in a 

 flate of nature, becaufe, the foil being wet and 

 expenfive to cultivate, the tenant cannot afford to 

 do it without encouragement, and the owner's in- 

 furmountable objection to leafes, keeps him from 

 granting the fort of encouragement which is effen- 

 tially neceffary. The yeomanry, in fuch parts, 

 are upon a wretched miferable footing; the pub- 

 lic fuilains a vafl lofs ; and the owner has, in lieu 

 of the comfort he might beftow, and the good he 

 might do, no other confolation than that he has 

 the county more at command. But even this is a 

 midake; for I have, except in few inflances, al- 

 ways found a tenant as obliging and well behaved 

 to his landlord, when he had a leafe as when he 

 had not. 



The 



