Fiue hundred pointes of good husbandrie
may be from all hindrances, and when the seeds begin to come, keepe
cattle from bruising them, and after some two or three yeares, cut the
yong spring by the earth, and so will they branch and grow thick, and
if occasion serve, cut them so again alwayes, preserving the oake and
ashe to become trees." The best time to lay the berries in this manner
is "in _September_ or _October_, if the berries be fully ripe."
[E113] A "porkling" was worth 28_d._ at the time. See note E370.
[E114] With reference to the "daintiness" of the Flemings, many of whom
were settled on the East coast, compare the following:
"Now bere and _bacon_ bene fro Pruse ibrought
Into Flaundres, as loved and fere isoughte;
Osmonde [a kind of iron], coppre, bowstaffes, stile [steel], and wex,
Peltre-ware [hides], and grey, pych, terre, borde, and flex,
And Coleyne threde, fustiane, and canvase,
Corde, bokeram; of olde tyme thus it wase.
But the _Flemmyngis_, amonge these thinges dere,
In comen lowen [love] beste _bacon_ and bere.
Thus arre they hogges; and drynkyn wele ataunt [so much];
Farewel, Flemynge! hay, harys, hay, avaunt!"
--Wright's Political Songs, ii. 171.
[E115] _Light fire_, as it is termed, is still used in Norfolk.--M.
[E116] "Bowd eaten malt." "The more it be dried (yet must it be doone
with soft fire) the sweeter and better the malt is, and the longer it
will continue, whereas if it be not dried downe (as they call it), but
slackelie handled, it will breed a kind of worme, called a _wiuell_,
which groweth in the floure of the corne, and in processe of time will
so eat out it selfe, that nothing shall remaine of the graine but euen
the verie rind or huske."--Harrison, Description of England, part i.
pp. 156-7. R. Holme says that "the Wievell eateth and devoureth corn
in the garners; they are of some people called _bowds_."--Acad. of
Arm. Bk. ii. p. 467. "Bruk is a maner of flye, short and brodissh,
and in a sad husc, blak hed, in shap mykel toward a golde _bowde_,
and mykhede [size] of twyis and þryis atte moste of a gold _bowde_, a
chouere, oþer vulgal can y non þerfore."--Arundel MS. 42, f. 64. The
name _gold bowde_ probably denotes a species of _Chrysomela_, Linn.
Way, in Prompt. Parv.
[E117] See note E5 on "A Medicine for the Cowlaske." Sloes gently
baked in an oven are best preserved. They are an excellent and cheap
remedy for laxity of the bowels, in men or cattle, if judiciously
used.--M.
[E118] Dr. Mavor suggests that as Tusser is pretty correct in his
rhymes, he probably wrote _beasty_ originally. In Pegge's Forme of
Cury, 1780, p. 111, are given two recipes for the prevention of
_Restyng_ in Venisoun.
[E119] "Stouer." _Stover_ is the term now applied to the coarser hay
made of clover and artificial grasses, which is kept for the winter
feed of cattle. But in Shakespeare's time the artificial grasses were
not known in England, and were not introduced till about the middle of
the seventeenth century. In Cambridgeshire I am informed that hay made
in this manner is not called "stover" till the seeds have been threshed
out. In the sixteenth century the word was apparently used to denote
any kind of winter fodder except grass hay. Compare
"Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd with _stover_, them to keep."
--Shakspere, Tempest, Act iv. sc. I;
and Drayton, Polyolbion, xxv. 145,
"And others from their Carres, are busily about,
To draw out Sedge and Reed, for Thatch and _Stover_ fit."
"Stover" is enumerated by Ray among the South-and East-Country words as
used in Essex, and is to be found in Moor's Suffolk Words and Forby's
Vocabulary of East Anglia.
[E120] See note E61.
[E121] In cleaning corn for _seed, casting_ or throwing it with a
_casting shovel_ (see 17. 1) from one heap to another, in order to
select the heaviest grains, which will always go farthest, is an
excellent practice: but in _malting_, this is not necessary, as the
light grains and seeds of weeds may be skimmed off in the cistern.--M.
[E122] Wheat is well known to work better in grinding and baking after
it has undergone a natural heat in the rick or mow. Wheat that is
threshed early keeps with difficulty.--M.
[E123] "Rauening curres" seem to have been as great a nuisance in
Tusser's time as at present, in spite of what Dr. Mavor terms one of
the "few patriotic taxes which we have to boast of."
[E124] St. Edmund's Day (20th November) may probably be the proper time
for planting garlic and beans; but why the moon should be "in the wane"
we are not informed, though, according to Tusser, "thereon hangeth a
thing." The moon was formerly supposed to extend her power over all
nature, and not over the tides and weather only.
[E125] The farmer who "looks to thrive" must "have an eye," not only
to his barn, but also to the cruel habits or tricks of his servants;
otherwise he may find his cattle maimed or otherwise injured, and his
poultry made "to plaie tapple vp taile," a cant expression, meaning
to tumble head over heels. Cf. the Scotch phrase, "coup your creels."
Cotgrave, _s.v. Laisser_ and _Houseau_, has an exactly parallel
expression: "_Il a laissé ses houseaux_, he hath tipped up the heeles,
or is ready to doe it; he hath got him to his last bed; he is even as
good as gone; he is no better then a dead man." The Catholicon Anglicum
also gives "Top ouer tayle, _precipitanter_: to cast tope ouer tayle,
_precipitari_."
[E126] The leathern bottle, from its size, must have been a most
convenient vehicle for the removal of corn and other stolen property.
[E127] Our author does not appear to have had any idea of the use of
soot as a top-dressing to land, but its value is now well understood,
as one of the greatest improvers of cold, mossy grasslands.
[E128] It is leanness and ill-dressing that occasion nits and lice, not
the state of the weather when they are taken to house.
[E129] The rack ought to be accessible on all sides, and perhaps high
enough for small cattle to escape under it from their more powerful
adversaries.--M.
[E130] "_Barth_." Wedgwood includes this under _berth_, the seaman's
term for snug anchorage for themselves or their vessels. See Glossary.
[E131] "A _fires-bird_, for that she sat continually by the fire
side."--Tom Tell-Trothe's New Yeare's Gift, New Shakspere Soc. ed.
Furnivall, p. 12.
[E132] "Beath." Bathing at the Fire, as it is commonly called, when the
wood is yet unseasoned, sets it to what purpose you think fit.--T.R.
[E133] "Camping." "Goals were pitched 150 or 200 yards apart, formed
of the thrown-off clothes of the competitors." Each party had two
goals 10 or 15 yards apart. The parties, 10 to 15 aside, stand in line
facing their own goals and each other, at 10 yards distance, midway
between the goals and nearest that of their adversaries. An indifferent
spectator throws up the ball--the size of a cricket ball--midway
between the confronted players, whose object is to seize and convey
it between their own goals. The shock of the first onset to catch the
falling ball is very great, and the player who seizes it speeds home
pursued by his opponents, through whom he has to make his way, aided by
the jostlings of his own sidesmen. If caught and held, or in imminent
danger of it, he _throws_ the ball, but must in no case _give_ it, to
a comrade, who, if it be not arrested in its course, or he be jostled
away by his eager foes, catches it, and hurries home, winning the
game or _snotch_ if he contrive to _carry, not throw_, it between the
goals. A holder of the ball caught with it in his possession loses
a _snotch_. At the loss of each of these the game recommences after
a breathing time. Seven or nine _snotches_ are the game, and these
it will sometimes take two or three hours to win. Sometimes a large
football was used, and the game was then called "_kicking camp_," and
if played with the shoes on, "_savage camp_."--Abridged from Major
Moor's Description.
Ray says it prevailed, in his time, most in Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Essex. It was new to Sir T. Browne on his settling in Norfolk, and is
not mentioned by Strutt amongst the "Sports and Pastimes of the English
People."
Mr. Spurdens, in his Supplement to Forby's Vocabulary, remarks: "The
contests were not unfrequently fatal to many of the combatants. I have
heard old persons speak of a celebrated _Camping_, Norfolk against
Suffolk, on Diss Common, with 300 on each side. Before the ball was
thrown up, the Norfolk men inquired tauntingly of the Suffolk men if
they had brought their coffins. The Suffolk men after fourteen hours
were the victors. Nine deaths were the result of the contest within
a fortnight. These were called _fighting camps_, for much boxing was
practised in them." Cf.
"This faire floure of womanheed
Hath two pappys also smalle,
Bolsteryd out of lenghth and breed,
Lyche a large _Campyng ball_."
--Lydgate.
_Camping Land_ was a piece of ground set apart for the game. A field
abutting on the churchyard at Swaffham was willed for the purpose
by the Rector in 1472. At East Bilney and Stowmarket are pieces of
ground still called _Camping land_. Sir John Cullum, in his "History
of Hawstead, Suffolk," describes the _Camping-pightle_ as mentioned
A.D. 1466. "_Campar_ or _pleyar_ at foott balle, _campyon_ or
_champyon_."--Prompt. Parv. "Camping is Foot Ball playing, at which
they are very dextrous in Norfolk; and so many People running up and
down a piece of ground, without doubt evens and saddens it, so that the
Root of the Grass lies firm.... The trampling of so many People drives
also the Mole away."--T.R.
[E134] "All quickly forgot as a play on a stage." Comp. Shakspere,
As you Like it, Act ii. sc. 7: "All the world's a stage," etc., and
Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1, where Antonio calls the world
"A stage where every man must play a part." "Totus mundus agit
histrionem," from a fragment of Petronius, is said to have been the
motto on the Globe Theatre. Calderon wrote a play called El Teatro del
Mundo (The Theatre of the World). It is remarkable for containing the
lines:
"En el teatro del mundo
Todos son representantes,"
_i.e._ in the stage of the world all men are players.--W. W. S. In the
old play of Damon and Pythias (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iv.
31) the following occurs:
"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage,
Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the sage
Philosophers are, said he, whose part is to learn
The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."
The same comparison occurs also in Don Quixote, part ii. cap. 12. See
note E378.
[E135] Psalm cxliv. 4.
[E136] "Atrop." "The fatall sisters," Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos,
daughters of Erebus and the Night, were supposed to spin out the life
of man as it were a long thread, which they drew out in length, till
his fatal hour had arrived; but if by any other casualty his days were
shortened, then _Atropos_ was said to have cut the thread in two. Hence
the old verse: "Clotho colum bajulat, Lachesis trahit, Atropos occat."
[E137] "Euer among," an expression of frequent occurrence in Early
English, meaning "constantly, continually." Compare the Mod. Eng. "all
the while." In a Carol of the fifteenth century, we read:
"Thys endus nyȝth
I saw a syȝth,
A stare as bryȝt as day;
And _ever among_
A mayden song
Lullay, by by, lullay."
And in another:
"Our der Lady she stod hym by,
And wepe water ful bytterly,
And terys of blod _ever among_."
[E138] "As onely of whom our comfort is had." The expression is
obscure, but the meaning is clear: as the only one from whom our
comfort (or strength) is derived.
[E139] "Good husbands," that is, good husbandmen or farmers.