Xii Liographical Sketch of the Author. 
of the family, that ‘‘ William Tusser, the father, had five sons, 
Clement, Andrew, John, THomas, and William, and four daughters ; 
the marriages of the daughters are set down, but no wives as- 
signed to the sons, except to Clement, who married Ursula Petts, 
and had issue John (who entered the pedigree), Edward, and 
Jane, all three unmarried in 1570. The mother of THomaAs was 
[Isabella], a daughter of Thomas Smith, of Rivenhall, in Essex, 
Esq., whose elder brother, Hugh, was ancestor of Smith, Lord 
Carrington (not the present lord), sister of Sir Clement Smith, 
who married a sister of the Protector Somerset, and first cousin 
of Sir John Smith, one of the Barons of the Exchequer in the 
reign of Edward the Sixth. This match with Smith I take 
to have been the chief foundation of gentility in the Tussers, 
for I can find no traces of them or their arms before this con- 
nexion.” ? 
At a very early age, and notwithstanding his mother’s tears and 
entreaties, he was placed by his father as a singing-boy in the 
Collegiate Chapel of the Castle of Wallingford, in Berkshire, 
which, according to Warton,? consisted of a dean, six prebendaries, 
six clerks, and four choristers, and was dissolved in 1549. He 
has himself recorded* in his homely and quaint style the hard- 
ships which he had to endure at this school, the bare robes, the 
college fare, the stale bread, and the penny ale. The excellence 
of his voice appears to have attracted the notice of some of those 
persons to whom at that time ‘“ placards” or commissions were 
1 Letter from J. Townsend, Esq., Windsor Herald, to Dr. Mavor, quoted in 
his edition of Tusser, p. 7. 
* History of English Poetry, 1840, vol. iii. p. 248. 
3 See chapter 113, stanza 5. 
