Biographical Sketch of the Author. XVii 
The statement in this inscription that he wrote the ‘ Five 
Hundred Points” at Braham Hall is incorrect; what he did write 
there was the “One Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie,” after- 
wards enlarged to “‘ Five Hundred Points.” 
It has been a very generally received opinion that Tusser died 
in great poverty. Fuller, in his ‘‘ Worthies of Essex,” p. 334, 
says, ‘‘ Whether he bought or sold, he lost, and when a renter im- 
poverished himself, and never enriched his landlord; he spread 
his bread with all sorts of butter; yet none could stick thereon.” 
Warton also says:? “‘ Without a tincture of careless imprudence, 
or vicious extravagance, this desultory character seems to have 
thrived in no vocation.” 
” 
Again, in Peacham’s “ Minerva,’ a book of emblems printed 
in 1612, there is a device of a whetstone and a scythe, with 
these lines :— 
‘They tell me, Tusser, when thou. wert alive, 
And hadst for profit turned every stone, 
Where’er thou camest, thou could’st never thrive, 
Though hereto best thou could’st counsel every one, 
As it may in thy Husbandry appear ; 
Wherein afresh thou liv’st among us here. 
So like thy self, a number more are wont, 
To sharpen others with advice of wit, 
When they themselves are like the whetstone blunt.” ? 
These statements, however, appear to be scarcely borne out 
by Tusser’s will. By it we find that, at the time of his death, 
1 Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 249. 
» Thus altered in ‘‘ Recreations for ingenious Head Pieces; or a pleasant 
Grove for their Wits to walk in, etc.,” 8vo. 1644 :— 
** Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive 
Thou, teaching thrift, thyself could’st never thrive : 
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont, 
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt. 
