be patent to the most cursory reader: the arrangement by months and by seasons, the counsels as to thrift and good economy, the eye to a well-ordered house, ever and anon provoke comparison. Warton, indeed, by a slip of the pen, denies the English Hesiod the versatility which indulges in digressions and invocations, and avers that "Ceres and Pan are not once named" by Tusser. But in an introduction to his book may be found at once a refutation of this not very serious charge, and, what is perhaps more to the point, a profession of the author's purpose in the volume, which has entitled him to a place of honour among early English poets. He writes as follows:—
And tilth well done in season due;
Yet needing salve, in time t' anoint,
Is all in all, and needful true:
As for the rest,
Thus think I best,
As friend doth guest,
With hand in hand to lead thee forth
To Ceres' camp, there to behold
A thousand things as richly worth
As any pearl is worthy gold."
—Mavor's Tusser, xiii.
In the body of the work, expressions, sentiments, and sage counsels again and again remind us of Hesiod's lectures to Perses. The lesson that "'tis ill sparing the liquor at the bottom of the cask" reappears in such stanzas as—
But keep it for profit to serve thine own turn:
