XVili Liographical Sketch of the Author. 
his brother William owed him £330, a large sum in those days, 
and, further, that he was the owner of two small copyhold and 
leasehold farms. Had he been so unfortunate in all his under- 
takings, and been, as Fuller terms him, ‘a stone which gathers 
no moss,” Tusser would hardly have been able to lend his 
brother such a sum of money. If, however, it be true that he 
lived and died poor, we may, in all probability, attribute it to 
his love of hospitality, a prominent feature in his character, as 
well as to a roving and unsteady disposition. 
Dr. Mavor states in the introduction to his edition of 1810, 
p. 11, that ‘it may be inferred from his [Tusser’s] own words, 
that his happiness was not permanently promoted by this 
match [his second marriage]. He seems to complain of the 
charges incident ‘to a wife in youth,’ and had she transmitted 
her thoughts to posterity, we should probably have heard some 
insinuations against an old husband.” I fail, however, to see 
sufficient grounds for this assertion: on the contrary, Tusser’s 
words on the only occasion on which he speaks of his second 
wife seem to bear an opposite construction :— 
“I chanced soon to find a Moon 
of cheerful hue; 
Which well a fine me thought did shine 
And never change—(a thing most strange) 
Yet kept in sight her course aright, 
And compass true.”—Chapt. 113, stanza 19. 
It is true that in several passages he speaks of the increased 
expenses and responsibilities incident to a married life, but only, 
as it appears to me, with the view of deterring others from 
entering into that state without carefully considering before- 
hand the cost and probable consequences of such a step. 
