"Whom Envy scarce could hate; whom all admir'd,
Who liv'd beloved, and a Saint expir'd."[655:B]
34. Turberville, George, a younger son of Nicholas Turberville, of Whitechurch, in Dorsetshire, a gentleman of respectable family, was born about the year 1540. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and in 1562 became a member of one of the Inns of Court. Here the reputation which he had acquired for talents and the dispatch of business, obtained for him the appointment of secretary to Thomas Randolph, Esq., ambassador to the Court of Russia, and, whilst in this country, he employed his leisure in writing poems descriptive of its manners and customs, addressed to Spenser, Dancie, and Park, and afterwards published in Hakluyt's Voyages, 1598, vol. i. pp. 384, 385.
On his return from this tour, he added greatly to his celebrity, as a scholar and a gentleman, by the publication of his "Epitaphes, epigrams, songs, and sonets, with a discourse of the friendly affections of Tymetes to Pyndara his ladie," 8vo. 1567. This year, indeed, appears to have been fully occupied by him in preparing his works for the press; for, during its course, independent of the collection just mentioned, he printed "The Heroycall Epistles of the learned Poet Publius Ovidius Naso: with Aulus Sabinus aunsweres to certaine of the same," 8vo., and "The Eclogs of the poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan, turned into English verse, and set forth with
the argument to every eglogue." 12mo. These productions, with his "Tragical Tales, translated in time of his troubles, out of Sundrie Italians, with the argument and L'Envoye to ech tale," printed in 1576, and again in 1587, with annexed "Epitaphs and Sonets, and some other broken pamphlettes and Epistles," together with some pieces of poetry in his "Art of Venerie," and in his "Booke of Faulconrie or Hauking," 1575, and a few commendatory stanzas addressed to his friends, form the whole of his poetical works.
Turberville enjoyed, as a writer of songs, sonnets, and minor poems, a high degree of popularity in his day; it was not, however, calculated for durability, and he appears to have been forgotten, as a poet, before the close of the seventeenth century. His muse has experienced a temporary revival, through the medium of Mr. Chalmers's English Poets, and to the antiquary, and lover of old English literature, this reprint will be acceptable; but, for the general reader, he will be found deficient in many essential points. Fancy, it is true, may be discovered in his pieces, although forced and quaint; but of nature, simplicity, and feeling, the portion is unfortunately small. Occasional felicity of diction, a display of classical allusion, and imagery taken from the amusements and customs of the age, are not wanting; but the warmth, the energy, and the enthusiasm of poetry are sought for in vain.
Our author survived the year 1594, though the date of his death is not known.
35. Tusser, Thomas, one of the most popular, and, assuredly, one of the most useful of our elder poets, was born, according to Dr. Mavor, about 1515, and died about 1583.[656:A] The work which ushers him to notice here, and has given him the appellation of the English Varro, was published in 1557, and entitled "A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie," a small quarto of thirteen leaves. It was shortly followed by "One Hundreth Good Poyntes of Huswiffry;" and in 1573, the whole was enlarged with the title of "Five
Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry, united to as many of Good Huswifery." The most complete edition, however, and the last in the author's life-time, was printed in 1580. So acceptable did this production prove to the lovers of poetry and agriculture, that it underwent nineteen editions during its first century, and Dr. Mavor's edition, published in 1812, forms the last, and twenty-fourth. The mutilated state of the old copies, indeed, exemplifies, more than any thing else, the practical use to which they were subjected; "some books," remarks Mr. Haslewood, "became heir-looms from value, and Tusser's work, for useful information in every department of agriculture, together with its quaint and amusing observations, perhaps passed the copies from father to son, till they crumbled away in the bare shifting of the pages, and the mouldering relic only lost its value, by the casual mutilation of time."[657:A] That the estimation in which the poems of Tusser were held by his contemporaries, might lead to such a result, it may be allowable to conclude from the assertion of Googe, who, speaking of our author's works, says, that "in his fancie, they may, without any presumption, compare with any of the Varros, Columellas, or Palladios of Rome."[657:B]
The great merit of Tusser's book, independent of the utility of its agricultural precepts, consists in the faithful picture which it delineates of the manners, customs, and domestic life of the English farmer, and in the morality, piety, and benevolent simplicity, which pervade the whole. In a poetical light its pretensions are not great. The part relative to Husbandry is divided into months, and written in quatrains, of eleven syllables in each line, which are frequently constructed with much terseness, and with a happy epigrammatic brevity. The abstracts prefixed to each month, are given in short verses of four and five syllables each; and numerous illustrative pieces, and nearly the whole of the Huswifery, present us with a vast variety of