I come next to Master Tusser,—­poet, farmer, chorister, vagabond, happily dead at last, and with a tomb whereon some wag wrote this:—­

    “Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
    Thou teaching thrift, thyself could never thrive;
    So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
    To sharpen others when themselves are blunt.”

I cannot help considering poor Tusser’s example one of warning to all poetically inclined farmers.

He was born at a little village in the County of Essex.  Having a good voice, he came early in life to be installed as singer at Wallingford College; and showing here a great proficiency, he was shortly after impressed for the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Afterward he was for some time at Eton, where he had the ill-luck to receive some fifty-four stripes for his shortcomings in Latin; thence he goes to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lives “in clover.”  It appears that he had some connections at Court, through whose influence he was induced to go up to London, where he remained some ten years,—­possibly as singer,—­but finally left in great disgust at the vices of the town, and commenced as farmer in Suffolk,—­

“To moil and to toil
With loss and pain, to little gain,
To cram Sir Knave";—­

from which I fancy that he had a hard landlord, and but little sturdy resolution.  Thence he goes to Ipswich, or its neighborhood, with no better experience.  Afterward we hear of him with a second wife at Dereham Abbey; but his wife is young and sharp-tempered, and his landlord a screw:  so he does not thrive here, but goes to Norwich and commences chorister again; but presently takes another farm in Fairstead, Essex, where it would seem he eked out a support by collecting tithes for the parson.  But he says,—­

“I spyed, if parson died,
(All hope in vain,) to hope for gain
I might go dance.”

Possibly he did go dance:  he certainly left the tithe-business, and after settling in one more home, from which he ran to escape the plague, we find him returned to London, to die,—­where he was buried in the Poultry.

There are good points in his poem, showing close observation, good sense, and excellent judgment.  His rules of farm-practice are entirely safe and judicious, and make one wonder how the man who could give such capital advice could make so capital a failure.  In the secret lies all the philosophy of the difference between knowledge and practice.  The instance is not without its modern support:  I have the honor of acquaintance with several gentlemen who lay down charming rules for successful husbandry, every time they pay the country a visit; and yet even their poultry-account is always largely against the constipated hens.

What is specially remarkable about Tusser is his air of entire resignation amid all manner of vicissitudes:  he does not seem to count his hardships either wonderful or intolerable or unmerited.  He tells us of the thrashing he had at Eton, (fifty-four licks,) without greatly impugning the head-master; and his shiftlessness in life makes us strongly suspect that he deserved it all.