He tells us
of the thrashing he had at Eton, (fifty-four licks,) without greatly
impugning the head-master; and his shiftlessness in life makes us
strongly suspect that he deserved it all.
Fuller, in his "Worthies," says Tusser "spread his bread with all sorts
of butter, yet none would stick thereon." In short, though the poet
wrote well on farm-practice, he certainly was not a good exemplar of
farm-successes. With all his excellent notions about sowing and reaping,
and rising with the lark, I should look for a little more of stirring
mettle and of dogged resolution in a man to be recommended as a tenant.
I cannot help thinking less of him as a farmer than as a kind-hearted
poet; too soft of the edge to cut very deeply into hard-pan, and too
porous and flimsy of character for any compacted resolve: yet taking
life tenderly, withal; good to those poorer than himself; making a
rattling appeal for Christmas charities; hospitable, cheerful, and
looking always to the end with an honest clearness of vision:--
"To death we must stoop, be we high, be we low,
But how, and how suddenly, few be that know,
What carry we, then, but a sheet to the grave,
(To cover this carcass,) of all that we have?"
* * * * *
I now come to Sir Hugh Platt, called by Mr.
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