The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaced Hawthorn had lost his motley livery, The naked twigs were shivering all for cold, Myself within, for I was gotten out [As a work of the period this has attained considerable celebrity and some popularity; its verse is homely, but original and vigorous, displaying practical knowledge of the subject. Warton has termed Tusser the British Varro; his style, in spite of his quaintness, is unaffected and easy; he wrote several pieces of miscellaneous character, but none of the reputation of this, so that only a specimen of his chief work is preferable for insertion. The author was born at Rivenhalt, in Essex. After having been a chorister at St. Paul's, he was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, spent ten years at court, under the patronage of Lord Paget, and then became a farmer in Suffolk, where he composed the poem. It was first published in 1557, but was subsequently considerably extended.] THE COMMODITIES OF HUSBANDRY. ET house have to fill her, LET Let land have to till her. No dwellers,-what profiteth house for to stand? No host, we be dead. No husbandry used, how soon shall we sterve? No knowledge, no thrift, The father an unthrift, what hope for the son? OF THE DESCRIPTION OF HUSBANDRY. F husband, doth husbandry challenge that name, The name of a husband, what is it to say? The husband is he, that to labour doth fall, So houshold and housholdry I do define, Be house or the furniture never so rude, I. THE LADDER TO THRIFT. то O take thy calling thankfully, 3. To count no travel slavery, That brings in penny saverly. 4. To follow profit, earnestly, But meddle not with pilfery. 5. To get by honest practisy, And keep thy gettings covertly. 6. To lash not out, too lashingly, For fear of pinching penury. 7. To get good plot, to occupy, And store and use it, husbandly. 8. To shew to landlord courtesy, And keep thy covenants orderly. 9. To hold that thine is lawfully, For stoutness, or for flattery. 10. To wed good wife for company, And live in wedlock honestly. II. To furnish house with housholdry, And make provision skilfully. 12. To join to wife good family, And none to keep for bravery. 13. To suffer none live idely, For fear of idle knavery. 14. To courage wife in huswifery, And use well doers gentily. 15. To keep no more but needfully, And count excess unsavoury. 16. To raise betimes the lubberly, Both snorting Hob and Margery. 17. To walk thy pastures usually, To spy ill neighbour's subtilty. 18. To hate revengement hastily, For losing love and amity. 19. To love thy neighbour, neighbourly, And shew him no discourtesy. 20. To answer stranger civilly, But shew him not thy secresy. 21. To use no man deceitfully, To offer no man villainy. 22. To learn how foe to pacify, But trust him not too hastily. 23. To keep thy touch substantially, And in thy word use constancy. 24. To make thy bands advisedly, And come not bound through surety. 25. To meddle not with usury, Nor lend thy money foolishly. 26. To hate to live in infamy, Through craft, and living shiftingly. 27. To shun all kinds of treachery, For treason endeth, horribly. 28. To learn to shun ill company, And such as live dishonestly. 29. To banish house of blasphemy, Lest crosses cross, unluckily. 30. To stop mischance through policy, For chancing too unhappily. 31. To bear thy crosses, patiently, For worldly things are slippery. 32. To lay to keep from misery, Age coming on, so creepingly. 33. To pray to God, continually, For aid against thine enemy. 34. To spend thy Sabbath holily, And help the needy poverty. 35. To live in conscience quietly, And keep thyself from malady. These be the steps, unfeignedly, These steps both reach, and teach thee shall, To come by thrift, to shift withall. |