4 . 
Man well intends, God foison sendes, 
else want he shall. 
His Beleeff which seems to me the most genuinely poetic 
and dignified of his writings is an adequate expression of 
what must have been Tusser’s very real religious faith. I 
should like to quote the first three stanzas; 
This is my stedfast creed, my faith, and all my trust, 
that in the heavens there is a God, most mighty, mild, 
and just; 
A God above all Gods, a King above all Kings, 
the Lord of Lords, chief Governor, of heaven and 
earthly things. 
That power hath of life and death, of heaven and hell. 
That all things made, as pleaseth him, so wonderful 
to tell; 
That made the hanging skies, so deckt with divers lights, 
of darkness made the cheerful days, and all our rest- 
full nights. 
That clad this earth with herb, with trees, and sundry 
fruits, 
with beast, with bird, with wild and tame, of strange 
and sundiy suits j 
That intermixt the same with mines, like veins of ore, 
of silver, gold, of precious stones, and treasures 
many more. 
In spite of this reverent attitude toward his Lord, Tusser 
realized that His earthly representatives were not always what 
they should be; but he is happily able to solve the problem 
for his readers by the following advice in July’s Husbandly ; 
Pay justly thy tithes, whatever thou be, 
that God may in blessing, send foison to thee; 
Though curate be bad, or the parson as evil, 
go not for thy tithing, thyself to the devil. 
Since Tusser had loved Cambridge as a young man, it is 
pleasant to think of his living there, during his later years. 
His will was written there April 25, 1580, and he died in that 
same year. The efficient husbandman wrote even an epitaph for 
himself, and with it we shall close. 
Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie, 
who sometime made the Points of Husbandly; 
By him then learn thou may’st, - here learn we must, 
when all is done, we sleep, and turn to dust; 
And yet, through Christ, to heaven we hope to go, 
who reads his books, shall find his faith was so. 
Janice Stewart Brown. Nov. 28, 1933 
