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122 keep without detriment to his purse and garner, of cautioning against too many helps, and so forth. Tusser is a little in advance of the Bœotian farmer-poet as to the full complement of hinds and dairy-maids; but the spirit of the following stanza is in exact keeping with the tone of the elder bard:—

It might be shown by other quotations that Tusser, like Hesiod, attaches due importance to the performance of religious ceremonies, and inculcates in fitting language seasonable offerings of thankfulness to a bounteous Providence; that he upholds well-timed hospitality, and commends a principle of liberality towards man or beast, if they deserve it. Of course, too, even in his shrewd homeliness, he does not so entirely as Hesiod calculate his hospitalities and liberalities with a sole eye to getting a quid pro quo. But it is perhaps more to the purpose to cite a few additional stanzas of Tusser's "Advice to Husbandmen," according to the season or month, with a stray verse or two which, mutatis mutandis, may serve to show that the spirit of Tusser was in effect the same which animated Hesiod so many centuries before him. This quatrain from "December's Husbandry" is an obvious parallel, to begin with:—