Poor claggocks' clad in raploch2 white, Then when they step forth through the street, They waste more cloth, within few years, Another fault, Sir, may be seen, They hide their face all but the een; 1 'Claggocks:' draggle-tails.-Raploch:' homespun.-Cleckit:' born.'Cleid:' clothe. Duddron:' slut.-Nor:' than. When gentlemen bid them good-day, Quoth Lyndsay, in contempt of the side tails, That duddrons and duntibours through the dubbës trails. THOMAS TUSSER. OF Tusser we know only that he was born in the year 1523, was well educated, commenced life as a courtier under the patronage of Lord Paget, but became a farmer, pursuing agriculture at Ratwood in Sussex, Ipswich, Fairsted in Essex, Norwich, and other places; that he was not successful, and had to betake himself to other occupations, such as those of a chorister, fiddler, &c.; and that, finally, he died a poor man in London in the year 1580. Tusser has left only one work, published in 1557, entitled 'A Hundred Good Points of Husbandrie,' written in simple but sometimes strong verse. It is our first, and not our worst didactic poem. 46 'Flyting:' scolding.- 'Bourds:' jest.- Middings:' dunghills.- ' Duddrons:' sluts-5 Duntibours:' harlots. DIRECTIONS FOR CULTIVATING A HOP-GARDEN. Whom fancy persuadeth, among other crops, Ground gravelly, sandy, and mixed with clay, Choose soil for the hop of the rottenest mould, The sun in the south, or else southly and west, Meet plot for a hop-yard once found as is told, The hop for his profit I thus do exalt, HOUSEWIFELY PHYSIC. Good housewife provides, ere a sickness do come, And others the like, or else lie like a fool. MORAL REFLECTIONS ON THE WIND. Though winds do rage, as winds were wood,1 1 'Wood:' mad. Yet, true it is, as cow chews cud, And trees, at spring, doth yield forth bud, VAUX, EDWARDS, &c. IN Tottell's Miscellany,' the first of the sort in the English language, published in 1557, although the names of many of the authors are not given, the following writers are understood to have contributed :-Sir Francis Bryan, a friend of Wyatt's, one of the principal ornaments of the Court of Henry VIII., and who died, in 1548, Chief Justiciary of Ireland; George Boleyn, Earl of Rochford, the amiable brother of the famous Anne Boleyn, and who fell a victim to the insane jealousy of Henry, being beheaded in 1536; and Lord Thomas Vaux, son of Nicholas Vaux, who died in the latter end of Queen Mary's reign. In the same Miscellany is found 'Phillide and Harpalus,' the first true pastoral,' says Warton, 'in the English language,' (see 'Specimens.') To it are annexed, too, a collection of 'Songes, written by N. G.,' which means Nicholas Grimoald, an Oxford man, renowned for his rhetorical lectures in Christ Church, and for being, after Surrey, our first writer of blank verse, in the modulation of which he excelled even Surrey. Henry himself, who was an expert musician, is said also to have composed a book of sonnets and one madrigal in praise of Anne Boleyn. In the same reign occur the names of Borde, Bale, Bryan, Annesley, John Rastell, Wilfred Holme, and Charles Bansley, all writers of minor and forgotten poems. John Heywood, called the Epigrammatist, was of a somewhat higher order. He was the favourite of Sir Thomas More and the pensioner of Henry VIII. He gained favour partly through his conversational humour, and partly through his writings. He is the author of various comedies; of six hundred epigrams, most of them very poor; of a dialogue, in verse, containing all the roverbs then afloat in the language; of an apologue, entitled |