The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaced
In woful wise bewailed the summer past.

Hawthorn had lost his motley livery,

The naked twigs were shivering all for cold,
And dropping down the tears abundantly;
Each thing (me thought) with weeping eye me told
The cruel season, bidding me withhold

Myself within, for I was gotten out
Into the fields whereas I walked about.

[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?
What goodness, unoccupied, bringeth the land?
No labour, no bread,

No host, we be dead.

No husbandry used, how soon shall we sterve?
House-keeping neglected, what comfort to serve.
Ill father, no gift,

No knowledge, no thrift,

The father an unthrift, what hope for the son?
The ruler unskilful, how quickly undone?

OF

THE DESCRIPTION OF HUSBANDRY.

F husband, doth husbandry challenge that name,
Of husbandry, husband doth likewise the same:
Where huswife and huswifery joineth with these,
There, wealth in abundance is gotten with ease.

The name of a husband, what is it to say?
Of wife and the household, the band and the stay:
Some husbandly thriveth that never had wife,
Yet scarce a good husband in goodness of life.

The husband is he, that to labour doth fall,
The labour of him I do husbandry call:
If thrift, by that labour, be any way caught,
Then is it good husbandry, else it is naught.

So houshold and housholdry I do define,
For folk and the goods, that in house be of thine:
House-keeping to them, as a refuge is set,
Which like as it is, so report it doth get.

Be house or the furniture never so rude,
Of husband and husbandry,-thus I conclude,
That huswife and huswifery, if it be good,
Must pleasure together, as cousins in blood.

I.

THE LADDER TO THRIFT.

то

O take thy calling thankfully,
And shun the path to beggary.
2. To grudge in youth no drudgery,
To come by knowledge perfectly.

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.
36. To ease thy sickness speedily,
Ere help be past recovery.
37. To seek to God for remedy,
For witches prove unluckily.

These be the steps, unfeignedly,
To climb to thrift by husbandry.

These steps both reach, and teach thee shall, To come by thrift, to shift withall.