Having attained to some perfection in the Latine Tongue, he was sent to Trinity-Hall in Cambridge, where he had not continued long, but he was vexed with extream sickness, whereupon he left the University, and betook himself to Court, and lived for a while under the Lord Paget, in King Edward the Sixth's days; when, the Lords falling at dissention, he left the Court, and went to Suffolk, where he married his first Wife, and took a Farm at Ratwade in that County, where he first devised his Book of Husbandry, but his Wife not having her health there, he removed from thence to Ipswich and soon after buried her.
Not long after he married again to one Mrs. Amy Moon, upon whose Name he thus versified:
I chanced soon to find a Moon,
Of chearful hue;
Which well and fine me thought did shine,
And never change, a thing most strange,
Yet keep in sight her course aright,
And compass true.
Being thus married he betook himself again to Husbandry, and hired a Farm, called Diram Cell, and there he had not lived long, but his Landlord died, and his Executors falling at variance, and now one troubled him, and then another, whereupon he left Diram, and went to Norwich, turning a Singing-man under Mr. Salisbury, the Dean thereof; There he was troubled with a Dissury, so that in a 138 Hours he never made a drop of Water. Next he hired a Parsonage at Fairstead in Essex, but growing weary of that he returned again to London, where he had not lived long, but the Pestilence raging there, he retired to Cambridge: Thus did he roul about from place to place, but, like Sisiphus stone, could gather no Moss whithersoever he went: He was successive a Musician, Schoolmaster, Servingman, Husbandman, Grasier, Poet, more skilful in all, than thriving in any Vocation. He traded at large in Oxen, Sheep, Dairies, Grain of all kinds, to no profit. He spread his Bread with all sorts of Butter, yet none would stick thereon. So that he might say with the Poet,
—Monitis sum minor ipse meis.