3. We must note the language in which he describes himself. He does not say that he had “exercised husbandry” for forty years, but that he had “been a householder” during that period. The two things are widely different. His knowledge of agriculture was, so to speak, accidental; his real employment had been to manage a household, or, as we should rather now say, to “keep house.” This, again, naturally assigns to him the status of a country gentleman, who chose to superintend everything for himself, and to gain a practical acquaintance with everything upon his estate, viz. his lands, his cattle, his horses, his bees, his trees, his felled timber, and the rest; not forgetting his duties as a man of rank in setting a good example, discouraging waste, giving attention to prayer and almsgiving, and to his necessary studies. “He that can rede and vnderstande _latyne_, let hym take his booke in his hande, and looke stedfastely vppon the same thynge that he readeth and seeth, _that is no trouble to hym_,” etc. (p. 115). Are we to suppose that it could be said generally, of farmers in the time of Henry VIII., that Latin was “no trouble to them”? If so, things must have greatly changed. I have spoken of the above matter at some length, because I much suspect that the words used by Berthelet are the very words which have biassed, entirely in the wrong direction, the minds of such critics as have found a difficulty where little exists. It ought to be particularly borne in mind that Berthelet’s expression, though likely to mislead _now_, was not calculated to do so at the time, when the authorship of the book was doubtless well known. And we shall see presently that Berthelet himself entirely believed Sir Anthony to have been the author of this Book on Husbandry. Another objection that has been raised is founded upon the apparent strangeness of the title “Mayster Fitz-herbarde” as applied to a judge. The answer is most direct and explicit, viz. that the printer who uses this title did so wittingly, for he is _the very man_ who helps us to identify our author with the great lawyer. It is therefore simply impossible that he could have seen any incongruity in it, and any objection founded upon it must be wholly futile. The title of _master_ was used in those days very differently to what it is now. Foxe, in his Actes and Monuments, ed. 1583, p. 1770, tells us how “maister Latymer” encouraged “maister Ridley,” when both were at the stake; and, chancing to open Holinshed’s History (ed. 1808, iii. 754), I find a discourse between Wolsey and Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, in which the latter is called “master Kingston” throughout.