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.

Fuller, in his "Worthies," says Tusser "spread his bread with all sorts
of butter, yet none would stick thereon." In short, though the poet
wrote well on farm-practice, he certainly was not a good exemplar of
farm-successes. With all his excellent notions about sowing and reaping,
and rising with the lark, I should look for a little more of stirring
mettle and of dogged resolution in a man to be recommended as a tenant.
I cannot help thinking less of him as