Fiue hundred pointes of good husbandrie
As Janeuer fryse pot, bidth corne kepe hym lowe:
And feuerell fill dyke, doth good with his snowe:
A bushel of Marche dust, worth raunsomes of gold
And Aprill his stormes, be to good to be solde:
As May with his flowers, geue ladies their lust:
And June after blooming, set carnels so iust:
As July bid all thing, in order to ripe:
And August bid reapers, to take full their gripe.
September his fruit, biddeth gather as fast:
October bid hogges, to come eate vp his mast:
As dirtie Nouember, bid threshe at thine ease:
December bid Christmas, to spende what he please:
So wisdom bid kepe, and prouide while we may:
For age crepeth on as the time passeth away.
Finis.
Thinges thriftie, that teacheth the thriuing to thriue;
teache timely to trauas, the thing that thou triue.
Transferring thy toyle, to the times truely tought:
that teacheth the temperaunce, to temper thy thought.
To temper thy trauaile, to tarrye the tide:
this teacheth the thriftines, twenty times tride.
Thinke truely to trauaile, that thinkest to thee:
the trade that thy teacher taught truely to the.
Take thankfully thinges, thanking tenderly those:
that teacheth thee thriftly, thy time to transpose.
The trouth teached two times, teache thou two times ten
this trade thou that takest, take thrift to the then.
¶ Imprinted at London in flete strete within Temple barre, at the sygne
of the hand and starre, by Richard Tottel, the third day of February,
An. 1557. _Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum._
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
(Notes signed M. are from Dr. Mavor's edition of 1812, and those signed
T.R. are from Hilman's _Tusser Redivivus_, 1710.)
[E1] "Er in aught be begun;" that is, before a beginning be made in
anything, the verb being used impersonally.
[E2] The directions which are stated briefly in the Abstract will be
found in the Month's Husbandry in the stanza bearing the same number.
[E3] "Pilcrowe," the mark of a new paragraph in printing (¶). A
corruption of _paragraph_, through _parcraft, pilcraft_, to _pilcrow_.
"Paragrapha, _pylcraft_ in wrytynge."--Medulla Gramm. "_Paragraphus,
Anglice_ a pargrafte in wrytynge."--Ortus. "Paragraphe or _Pillcrow_,
a full sentence, head or title."--Cotgrave. "A _Pilkcrow_, vide
Paragraph."--Gouldman.
[E4] "Crosserowe." "Shee that knowes where Christes crosse stands, will
neuer forget where great A dwells."--Tom Tell-Trothe's New Year's Gift
(New Shakspere Soc. ed. Furnivall), p. 33. "The Christs-crosse-row or
Horne-booke, wherein a child learnes it."--Cotgrave. The alphabet was
called the _Christ-cross-row_, some say because a cross was prefixed to
the alphabet in the old primers; but as probably from a superstitious
custom of writing the alphabet in the form of a cross as a charm. This
was even solemnly practised by the Bishop in the consecration of a
church. See Picart's Relig. Ceremonies, vol. i. p. 131.--Nares.
[E5] "A medicine for the cowlaske." In Sloane MS. 1585, f. 152, will be
found a recipe for the cure of diarrhœa, the components of which appear
to be the yolk of a new-laid egg, honey, and fine salt.
[E6] In the edition of 1557, the first stanza of the Epistle reads
somewhat differently; see p. 220.
[E7] "Time trieth the troth," in Latin "Veritas temporis filia," occurs
in Tottel's Miscellany, 1557, repr. 1867, p. 221.--Hazlitt's English
Proverbs.
[E8] "Vnlesse mischance mischanceth me" = unless fortune is unkind to
me.
[E9] "Remaine abrode for euermore," _i.e._ be given to the writings of
others.
[E10] It is noticeable that though in the Author's Epistle he spells
his name, most probably for convenience sake, as Tuss_a_r, he on all
other occasions spells it Tuss_e_r, which is no doubt correct. In the
edition of 1557 the name is spelt correctly, although the corresponding
line of the stanza commences with the letter _a_. See p. 220.
[E11] "Like Iugurth, Prince of Numid." Jugurtha, an illegitimate son of
Mastanabal, after the death of Micipsa murdered his two sons and seized
on the sovereignty of Numidia. War was declared against him by the
Romans, and after some time Metellus drove him to such extremes that
he was obliged to take refuge with his father-in-law, Bocchus, by whom
he was given up to Marius, was carried in triumph to Rome, and finally
starved to death. The history of the war against him is related in
Sallust's _Bellum Jugurthinum_.
[E12] "With losses so perfumid;" _i.e._ pervaded, thoroughly imbued; we
use _imbued_ nearly in the same way.
[E13] Harrison, in his Description of England (E.E.T. Soc. ed.
Furnivall, part i. p. 241), gives a very bad character to the landlords
of his day: "What stocke of monie soeuer he [the farmer] gathereth and
laieth vp in all his yeares, it is often seene, that the landlord will
take such order with him for the same, when he renueth his lease, which
is commonlie eight or six yeares before the old be expired (sith it
is now growen almost to a custome, that if he come not to his lord so
long before, another shall step in for a reuersion, and so defeat him
out right) that it shall neuer trouble him more than the haire of his
beard, when the barber hath washed and shaued it from his skin. And
as they commend these, so (beside the decaie of house-keeping whereby
the poore haue beene relieued) they speake also of three things that
are growen to be verie grieuous vnto them, to wit, the inhansing of
rents, latelie mentioned; the dailie oppression of copiholders, whose
lords seeke to bring their poore tenants almost into plaine seruitude
and miserie, dailie deuising new meanes, and seeking vp all the old,
how to cut them shorter and shorter, _doubling, trebling, and now and
then seuen times increasing their fines_; driuing them also for euerie
trifle to loose and forfeit their tenures, (by whom the greatest part
of the realme dooth stand and is mainteined,) to the end they may
fleece them yet more." See also Norden's Surveyor's Dialogue, ed. 1607,
p. 51.
The following curious prayer is in Edward the Sixth's Liturgies:--"The
earth is Thine, O Lord, and all that is contained therein,
notwithstanding Thou hast given possession of it to the children of
men, to pass over the time of their short pilgrimage in this vale of
misery. We heartily pray Thee to send Thy Holy Spirit into the hearts
of those that possess the grounds, pastures, and dwelling-places of the
earth, that they, remembering themselves to be Thy tenants, may not
rack nor stretch out the rents of their houses and lands, nor yet take
unreasonable fines and incomes after the manner of covetous worldlings,
but so let them out to others, that the inhabitants thereof may both
be able to pay the rents, and also honestly to live and nourish their
families, and relieve the poor. Give them grace also to consider that
they are but strangers and pilgrims in this world, having here no
dwelling-place, but seeking one to come; that they, remembering the
short continuance of their life, may be contented with that which
is sufficient, and not join house to house and land to land, to the
impoverishment of others; but so behave themselves in letting out
their lands, tenements, and pastures, that after this life they may be
received into everlasting dwelling-places, through, etc."
[E14] "Fleeces" = fleecings, frauds, impositions. It _may_, perhaps, be
used literally, of selling wool at a loss.
[E15] "Ictus sapit." This corresponds to our proverb, "The burnt child
dreads the fire," or perhaps more nearly to "Once bit, twice shy."
In the "Proverbs of Hendyng" we find it as: "The burnt child fire
dreadeth, quoth Hendyng." Ray, in his "Collection of Proverbs," edit.
1737, says: "Piscator ictus sapit; struck by the scorpion fish, or
pastinaca, whose prickles are esteemed venomous."
[E16] If Tusser is here writing literally, the price of his book, in
"the golden days of good Queen Bess," was only a groat or two at the
utmost.--M.
[E17] "Shere" = shire; the construction is--don't think that _every_
bit of land (or county) can profit by following my directions, for
soils differ. Compare chapter 19, stanza 8, p. 48.
[E18] "Must keepe such coile;" must bustle about, exert themselves. Cf.
Scott's "Lord of the Isles," canto v. stanza 1: "For wake where'er he
may, man wakes to care and _coil_." And Shakspere: "I pray you watch
about Signor Leonata's door; for the wedding being there to-morrow,
there is a great _coil_ to-night."
[E19] In the edition of 1570 the first stanza of the "Preface to the
Buier" reads as follows:
"What lookest thou herein to haue?
Trim verses thy fansie to please?
Of Surry so famous that craue,
Looke nothing but rudenes in these."
The reference in the third line being to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
author of the Translation of the second and fourth Books of the Æneid
of Virgil, and of numerous other poems, who was executed in 1547.
[E20] In the footnote to this Preface it is stated that the metre is
peculiar to Shenstone, but this is incorrect, as it is also used by
Prior: "Despairing beside a clear stream."
[E21] "The sea for my fish," _i.e._ for my fishpond.
[E22] With "The Ladder to Thrift" we may compare the following "Maxims
in _-ly_," from the Lansdowne MS. 762, f. 16_b_ (see Babees Book, ed.
Furnivall, p. 247):
"Aryse erly,
Serue God devowtely,
And the worlde besely,
Doo thy werk wisely,
Yeue thyne almes secretly,
Goo by the waye sadly,
Answer the people demuerly,
Goo to thy mete appetitely,
Sit therat discretely,
Of thy tunge be not to liberally,
Arise therfrom temperally,
Go to thy supper soberly,
And to thy bed merely,
Be in thyn Inne jocundely,
Please thy loue duely,
And slepe suerly."
[E23] "Familie," here used in the sense of the Latin original _familia_
= household, servants. Compare chap. 73, st. 13.
[E24] Compare Shakspere, Richard II. Act ii. sc. 4, 24: "And crossly to
the good all fortune goes."
[E25] "To bridle wild otes fantasie," _i.e._ to restrain the excesses
of youth.
[E26] "Well to account of which honest is not;" never think highly of
that which is not honourable, or honestly come by.
[E27] Cf. Hebrews xiii. 4: "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed
undefiled." Tusser evidently does not appreciate "love in a cottage."
[E28] "Giue ouer to sudgerne, that thinkest to thee;" _i.e._ make up
your mind to settle down in one place and to give up roaming about, if
you hope to prosper, lest the grumbling of your hosts and the wants of
the nurses prove too expensive for you. Compare "The Dialogue of Wiving
and Thriving," ch. 67 stanza 3, p. 152.
[E29] Dr. Mavor suggests that the third line of this stanza should
read: "Of tone _or_ them both," "meaning, if we smell the savour of
saving or winning or them both."
[E30] A fool and his money are soon parted.
[E31] "Good bargaine a dooing," etc. When you have a chance of making
a good bargain, don't let every one know; but when you want to sell
anything, then let it be published abroad as widely as possible. In the
first case don't hesitate or haggle about it, but "take the ball on the
hop;" in the second, don't be in a hurry to take the first offer, if
you are not ashamed of what you wish to sell.
[E32] "Of the complaint of such poore tenants as paie _rent corne_
vnto their landlords, I speake not, who are often dealt withall very
hardlie. For beside that in the measuring of ten quarters, for the most
part they lose one through the iniquitie of the bushell (such is the
greedinesse of the appointed receiuers thereof), fault is found also
with the goodnesse and cleannesse of the graine. Wherby some peece of
monie must needs passe vnto their purses to stop their mouths withall,
or else my lord will not like of the corne: 'Thou are worthie to loose