liberally-educated scholar withal for his day, this Tusser possessed several qualifications for the rank of our "English Hesiod." But unlike, so far as we know, the father of didactic poetry, neither his farming nor his poetry brought him success or profit; and his own generation regarded him as one who, with "the gift of sharpening others by his advice of wit," combined an inaptitude to thrive in his own person. He was born in 1523, and died in 1580. His 'Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry' was printed in 1557; and no one will gainsay, after perusal of them, the opinion that, in the words of Dr Thomas Warton,[1] "this old English Georgic has much more of the simplicity of Hesiod than of the elegance of Virgil." Homely, quaint, and full of observation, his matter is curiously akin to that of the old Bœotian, after a due allowance for the world's advance in age; while the manner and measures are Tusser's own, and notable, not indeed as bearing any resemblance to the Hesiodic hexameters, but for a facility and variety consistent with the author's musical attainments, which are demonstrated in his use—indeed it may be his invention—of more than one popular English metre.
Although Tusser was indebted to Eton and King's College for his education, we have no reason to suppose that he had such acquaintance with Hesiod as could have suggested the shape and scope of his poem. It is better to attribute the coincidence of form to the practical turn and homely bent of the muse of each. That there is such coincidence will
- ↑ History of English Poetry, iii. 298-310.
