By him then learn thou may'st. Here learn we must,
When all is done, we sleep and turn to dust.

And yet, through Christ, to heaven we hope to go:

Who reads his books, shall find his faith was so.

His book exhibits an authentic picture of the state of horticulture during the time of Mary, and Elizabeth; and, as Mr. Warton observes, his work "is valuable as a genuine picture of the agriculture, the rural arts, and the domestic œconomy and customs of our industrious ancestors."

Walter Blith says of him:-" As for Master Tusser, who rimeth out of his experience, if thou delightest therein, thou mayst find things worthy thy observation."

Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music, thus writes:"The life of this poor man was a series of misfortunes; and is a proof of the truth of that saying in Holy Scripture, that 'the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift.' As to the Points of Husbandry, it is written in familiar verse, and abounds with many curious particulars, that bespeak the manners, the customs, and the modes of living in the country, from the year 1520 to about half a century after; besides which, it discovers such a degree of œconomical wisdom in the author, such a sedulous attention to the honest arts of thriving, such a general love of mankind, such a regard to justice, and a reverence for religion, that we do not only lament his misfortunes, but wonder at them; and are at a loss to account for his dying poor, who understood so well the method to become rich."

From the "Literary Life and Select Works of Benjamin Stillingfleet," I select a small part of what that worthy man says of Tusser:-"He seems to have been a good-natured cheerful man, and though a lover of œconomy, far from meanness, as appears in many of his precepts, wherein he

shews his disapprobation of that pitiful spirit, which makes farmers starve their cattle, their land, and every thing belonging to them; chusing rather to lose a pound than spend a shilling. Upon the whole, his book displays all the qualities of a well-disposed man, as well as of an able farmer. He wrote in the infancy of farming, and therefore I shall give a full account of his practice, especially as his precepts will be comprised in a narrow compass, and as a sort of justice done to him as an original writer."

Mr. Mavor observes, "The precepts of Tusser indeed are so excellent, that few can read them without profit and improvement; he appears to have possessed such a degree of pious resignation to the will of the Supreme, of christian charity, and of good humour, under all his miscarriages, that his character rises high in our esteem, independent of his merits as a writer. The cultivated and liberal mind of Tusser seems to have been ill-suited to his fortune, and to his vocation. A love of hospitality probably kept him from independence; yet if he was imprudent, we cannot help loving the man and admiring the justness of his sentiments on every subject connected with life and morals."

Fuller, in his Worthies of Essex, says, "he spread his bread with all sorts of butter, yet none would stick thereon. Yet I hear no man to charge him with any vicious extravagancy, or visible carelessness, imputing his ill success to some occult cause in God's counsel."

I am indebted, in some degree, for these several testimonies, to Mr. Mavor's spirited edition of this book, which he has enriched with a biographical sketch of Tusser, and with many interesting illustrations of his poem. He exhibits another instance of the private character of Tusser, in his concluding remarks on the last page of his work:-" The moral

C

feeling and the pious resignation which breathe in the concluding stanzas of this poem, leave a powerful impression on the mind; and whatever vicissitudes in life the Editor or his Readers may experience, he wishes for Himself and for Them, the same philosophic and christian composure, on a retrospect of the past, and the anticipated view of futurity."

Of Mr. Warton's remarks on Tusser, Mr. Mavor thus partly speaks:-"For the personal kindness of Warton to me, at an early period of life, I shall ever retain an affectionate remembrance of him, and for his genius and high attainments in literature, I feel all that deference and respect which can belong to his most enthusiastic admirers; but no man was less a judge of the merits of a book on Husbandry and Huswifry.”

Mr. Warton observes, that "Tusser's general precepts have often an expressive brevity, and are sometimes pointed with an epigrammatic turn, and smartness of allusion."

In Tusser's poetical account of his own unsuccessful life,

How through the briers my youthful years

Have run their race,—

how he was forced from his father's house when a little boy, and driven like a POSTING HORSE, being impressed to sing as a chorister, at Wallingford College; his miseries there, and the stale bread they gave him; the fifty-three stripes the poor lad received at Eton, when learning Latin; his happy transfer to Trinity College, which to him seemed a removal from hell to heaven; the generosity of Lord Paget,

Whose soul I trust is with the just;

then his

good parents dy'd

One after one, till both were gone,

Whose souls in bliss, be long ere this.

His remaining ten years at court, where

Cards and dice, with Venus' vice,

And peevish pride, from virtue wide,
With some so wraught,

That Tyburn play, made them away,
Or beggars state.

His residing in Suffolk, as a farmer,

To moil and toil,

With loss and pain, to little gain,

To cram Sir Knave;

his removal to near Dereham Abbey, which he left, (though stored with flesh and fish) from the squabbles and brawls of lord with lord; the death of the worthy Sir Richard Southwell,

that jewel great,

Which op'd his door to rich and poor,

So bounteously,—

on whose decease he was left to sink or swim; his removal to Salisbury, as a singing man; thence

With sickness worn, as one forlorn,

he removed to a parsonage house in Essex, to collect tithes, in its miry ways; his foreboding the parson's death, and foreseeing new charges about to be made for tithes,

I spy'd, if parson died,

(All hope in vain) to hope for gain,

I might go dance;

Once rid my hand, of pars'nage land,
Hence, by-and-by, away went I
To London straight, to hope and wait
For better chance.

From which place the plague drove him to Cambridge, to

The college, best of all the rest,

With thanks to thee, O Trinity!

Through thee and thine, for me and mine,
Some stay I got.

He concludes with pious resignation to God.*

DIDYMUS MOUNTAIN, who, in 1571, wrote "The Gardener's Labyrinth," in 4to. "wherein are set forth, divers knottes and mazes, cunningly handled for the beautifying of gardens." And in 1577 appeared a second part, "with the wittie ordering of other daintie hearbes, delectable flowres, pleasaunt fruites, and fine rootes, as the like hath not heretofore been vttered of any." Other editions in 4to. 1608, and in folio 1652.

BARNABY GOOCHE published The whole art and trade of Husbandry, contained in foure books, enlarged by Barnaby Googe, Esq. 4to. black letter, 1578. The two later editions, in 1614 and 1631, both in black letter, and in 4to. are said by Weston to have been re-printed by Gervaise Markham. The 2nd book treats "Of Gardens, Orchards, and Woods."

In the 2nd vol. of the Censura Litt. is some information respecting B. Gooche, and his epistle to the reader shews his own liberal mind: "I haue thought it meet (good Reader) for thy further profit and pleasure, to put into English,

*To have completed the various contrasting vicissitudes of this poor Suffolk farmer's life, he should have added to his other employments, those of another Suffolk man, the late W. Lomax, who had been grave-digger at the pleasant town of Bury St. Edmund's, for thirty-six years, and who, also, for a longer period than thirty-six years, had been a morrice-dancer at all the elections for that borough.