68 RURAL ECONOMY IN YORKSHIRE IN 1641. 



and piitte up before it waxe colde and canded ; otherwise if 

 yow defen-e it, it will proove very difficult and troublesome. 

 Then for the meade, yow are to lette the water in the tubbe 

 stande all night unmedled with, and the nexte mominge to 

 wash over the spelles, hives, and all thinges in the tubbe, and 

 then to streine all the water through the same cloath wheare 

 yow streined your honey, and then to gette the same well 

 boyled as yow doe your houshold beere ; many will putte to a 

 pecke or frundell of malte, and some few honey, to make it 

 both stronge and likewise to keepe well. Whosoever desireth 

 to bee fully insti-uckted concerninge the well orderinge and 

 maintaininge of bees, togeather with theire honey and waxe, 

 they mvist have recourse to Mr. John Levetts treatise" of this 

 subjeckt, which is intituled, The orderinge of Bees ; whose 

 experience in this kinde is sayd to bee unparallelld ; for in a dia- 

 logue hee setts forth both theire nature and breed, and allsoe what 

 trees, plants, and hearbes are good for them and what not, re- 

 solvinge all doubts whatsoever : hee is the best that ever writte 



■ Levetts' Book appeared in 1634, and contains 71 quarto pages of dialogiie. 

 Butler's Feminine Monarchy eame out first in 1609, and was reprinted in 1623, and 

 1634. Hill, in his Treatise of 1563, has 92 small quarto pajjes on Bee-keeping ; 

 and a brief notice of it occurs in Fitzherbert's " Boke of Husbandrie," which 

 appeared in 1532, and was reprinted 'in 1543. The subjects which are common to 

 it, and our author, are sheep, harvest works, and the manner of taking tithe. The 

 legal chapters, at whi(;h we shall presently aiTivc, may have been suggested by 

 Fitzbcrbcrts' "Surveying of Lands," which was printed in 1539, and contains 120 

 small octavo pages. Both works have been constantly attributed to Sir Anthony 

 Fitzherbert of Norbury, Justice of the Coumion Bleas, who died in 1538. Internal 

 evidence seems to prove that the former work, at least, cannot have been written by 

 him ; and on this point I have been favoured by my friend Mr. Hunter with some 

 remarks (already contributed to Boucher's Dictionarj-), which will be conclusive. 

 The first work in the English language that treats expressly on practical agriculture, 

 deserves to have its authenticity critically discussed. [" The Boke of Ilnsbandrye : 

 verj'O profytable and neeessarye for all maner of persons : newly corrected and 

 amended by the auctor Fitzharbarde ; with divers additions put thereunto, 12nio. 

 The Colophon Imprinted at London by Richard Jugge dwelling in I'aules Church 

 Yard at the sign of the Byble." This is the title in the only coi.y <>f th.' book I ever 

 saw. There is nothing to shew to which member of the large family of Fitzlierbert 

 we owe this curious and interesting treatise, but it has been generally attril)uted to 

 Sir Anthony Fitzherbert the Judge. But this opinion will hardly be maintained by 

 anj' one who peruses the work caref\illv ; there being nothing in it which indicates 

 the Judge or the legal mind of the autlior, and several things which appear to be nt 

 variance with this appropriation of it. The writer was evidently a pei-son who dealt 

 in horses for profit — " I have myself sixty mares and more " /28. " it might fortune 

 I could shew as many defautes of horses as here be good properties ; but then I 

 should break my promise that I made at Grumbaldea brige, the first time that I went 

 to Uypon to buy colts." /3 1. "And bycauso I am a horsc-niastcr myself 1 have 

 sliewcd you the 8oran(;e and diseases of horses to the inti-nt that you should bewai-e 

 and take good heed what horses they buy of me or oj' any other." ,/' 35. He wrote it 

 when advanced in lif(>. Towards the conclueion he says tliat ho had been a house- 

 li(il(lir forty years He does not speak of Staffordshire, as niiglit be e.\i)ecled from 

 the Judge : but of the I'eak of Derbyshire, Scarrdalo, Ilallomtiliire, " and so north- 

 wai-ds towards York and Rypon." J. H.] 



