Thomas Tusser—Agriculture in Rhyme [pp. 723-731]

724 THOMAS TUSSER-AGRICULTURE IN RHYME.
culture, (Fitzherbert's Boke of Husbandrye,) appeared (in 1557)
the One hundred Points of Good Husbandry, by Thomas Tusser.
This celebrated work must be regarded more as a series of
poetical good farming and domestic directions and axioms
than as a regular treatise upon agriculture. All that is known
of the author of this curious production has been collected by
Dr. Mayor, in his able edition of Tusser's book, and by my
brother, Mr. George W. Johnson, in his History of English
Gardening; and both these authors have been obliged to content themselves chiefly with Tusser's own account of himself;
for Tusser did what few men ever attempt-he wrote his own
life, and in a manner still more rare, in verse. His life was
full of adventure; for he evidently had all the restlessness of
genius, with the unsettled habits too commonly confirmed by
continued chamge of occupation.
He was born about the year 1515, at Rivenhall, a village
on the high-road between the towns of Witham and Keldevon,
in Essex, of a family allied by marriage to the higher ranks
of society.
He was buried in the church of St. Mildred in the Poultry,
according to Stowe, with this epitaph:
"Here, Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie,
That sometime made the Points of Husbandry:
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."
In whatever capacity he at various times lived he acted
with ability, yet never so as to benefit his fortune. That he
excelled as a chorister, to which he was originally educated,
though strongly against his inclination, is certain; for none but
those of more than ordinary powers are admitted into the royal
choir. As a courtier he was unfcrowned upon till the disgrace
of his patron. As a farmer it is evident that he possessed a
correct knowledge, from his work upon the subject. The
same book testifies that, as an author and a poet, he was far
above mediocrity. Fuller, in his Worthies of Essex, describes
him in his usual quaint manner as "a musician, schoolmaster,
serving-man, husbandman, grazier, poet; more skillful in all
than thriving in any vocation. He spread," he adds "his
bread with all sorts of butter, yet none would stick thereon."
The testimony of Fuller to the excellent private character of
Tusser, is valuable as coming from one who must have been
the cotemporary of many persons who well remembered our
author. "I hear," says Fuller, " no man to charge him with
any vicioIus extravagancy or visible carelessness." The true