Now look up to God-ward, let tongue never cease In thanking of him, for his mighty increase, Accept my good will--for a proof go and try; The better thou thrivest, the gladder am I. Tusser died about the year 1583, aged about sixty-five, and is buried in St. Mildred's church, in the Poultry. His epitaph is preserved in Stowe's Survey of London; and (as Mr. Mavor observes) it is perfectly in character with the man and his writings; and if conjecture may be allowed, was penned by himself:-- Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie, Who sometime made the Points of Husbandry. 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. His book exhibits an authentic picture of the state of horticulture during the time of Mary, and Elizabeth; and, as Mr. Warton observes, his work "is valuable as a genuine picture of the agriculture, the rural arts, and the domestic oeconomy and customs of our industrious ancestors." Walter Blith says of him:--"As for Master Tusser, who rimeth out of his experience, if thou delightest therein, thou mayst find things worthy thy observation." Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music, thus writes:--"The life of this poor man was a series of misfortunes; and is a proof of the truth of that saying in Holy Scripture, that 'the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift.' As to the Points of Husbandry, it is written in familiar verse, and abounds with many curious particulars, that bespeak the manners, the customs, and the modes of living in the country, from the year 1520 to about half a century after; besides which, it discovers such a degree of oeconomical wisdom in the author, such a sedulous attention to the honest arts of thriving, such a general love of mankind, such a regard to justice, and a reverence for religion, that we do not only lament his misfortunes, but wonder at them; and are at a loss to account for his dying poor, who understood so well the method to become rich." From the "Literary Life and Select Works of Benjamin Stillingfleet," I select a small part of what that worthy man says of Tusser:--"He seems to have been a good-natured cheerful man, and though a lover of oeconomy, far from meanness, as appears in many of his precepts, wherein he shews his disapprobation of that pitiful spirit, which makes farmers starve their cattle, their land, and every thing belonging to them; chusing rather to lose a pound than spend a shilling. Upon the whole, his book displays all the qualities of a well-disposed man, as well as of an able farmer. He wrote in the infancy of farming, and therefore I shall give a full account of his practice, especially as his precepts will be comprised in a narrow compass, and as a sort of justice done to him as an original writer."