[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. 16b (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."