His will, which is exceedingly characteristic, is given in full at the end of this introduction, from a copy in the British Museum,[21] privately printed in 1846 by Mr. Charles Clark, of Great Totham, Essex, from a transcript furnished to him by Mr. E. Ventris, of Cambridge, by whom the original was discovered in the Registry at Ely.[22] At the end of the will were printed Tusser's metrical Autobiography, and a few notices from nearly contemporary authors. Mr. Clark also printed in 1834 a few copies of the original edition of 1557 of the "Hundredth good Poyntes of Husbandrie."
Tusser was, as may be seen from his writings, a man of high religious principles, good-natured and cheerful, of a kindly and generous disposition, and hospitable to a fault. Although he constantly inculcates economy, he was entirely free from the meanness and pitiful spirit, which, according to Stillingfleet, made farmers of his time starve their cattle, their land and everything belonging to them; choosing rather to lose a pound than spend a shilling. "Mirth and good cheer," seems to have been his motto, and although he may have been imprudent in allowing his love of hospitality to be carried to such an excess as to keep him from independence, yet we cannot help loving the man, and admiring the justness of his sentiments on every subject connected with life and morals. Strict as he appears to have been in all matters connected with religion, he was far from being what he terms "fantastically scrupulous," or, as we should now say, of a puritanical disposition. He prefers a merry fellow to a grave designing villain:—
"Play thou the good fellow! seeke none to misdeeme;
Disdaine not the honest, though merie they seeme;
For oftentimes seene, no more verie a knave,
Than he that doth counterfeit most to be grave."[23]
How strongly, too, does he support the keeping up of the old "feasting-daies," "Olde customes that good be let no man dispise," the festivities of Christmas,[24] the Harvest Home, etc. His maxims on the treatment of servants and dependents are conceived in a truly Christian spirit, as when he says:—
"Once ended thy harvest, let none be beguil'd,
Please such as did help thee—man, woman, and child;
Thus doing with alway such help as they can,
Thou winnest the praise of the labouring man."
"Good servants hope justly some friendship to feel,
And look to have favour, what time they do well."
And again, such as these—
"Be lowly, not sullen, if aught go amiss,
What wresting may lose thee, that win with a kiss."
"Remember the poor that for God's sake do call,
For God both rewardeth and blesseth withall.
Take this in good part, whatsoever thou be,
And wish me no worse than I wish unto thee."
The versification of Tusser does not call for any lengthened remarks. The greater portion of his work is written in the same anapæstic metre, which, though rough, is well adapted for retention in the memory. There are, however, two exceptions worthy of special notice: firstly, the "Preface to the Buier" (ch. [5]) and the "Comparison between Champion Countrie and Severall" (ch. [63]), which are the first examples of a metre afterwards adopted by Prior and Shenstone, and generally believed to have originated with the latter: secondly, the "Author's linked verses" (ch. [113]), a species of what Dr. Guest calls Inverse Rhime in the following passage from his "History of English Rhythms":[25] "Inverse Rhime is that which exists between the last accented syllable of the first section, and the first accented syllable of the second. It appears to have flourished most in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I do not remember any instance of it in Anglo-Saxon, but it is probably of native growth.[26] A kindred dialect, the Icelandic, had, at an early period, a species of rhime closely resembling the present—the second verse always beginning with the last accented syllable of the first. It is singular that the French had in the sixteenth century a rhime like the Icelandic, called by them la rime entrelassée. The present rhime differed from it, as it was contained in one verse.... Thus:—