Her flood of tears
Seem like the lofty barn of some rich swain,
Which from the thatch drips fast a shower of rain.
SWIFT.

In ancient times, the sacred plough employ'd
The kings, and awful fathers of mankind;
And some, with whom compared your insect
tribes

Are but the beings of a summer's day,

Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war, then, with unwearied hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plough, and greatly independent lived.
THOMSON.

To the harness'd yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil.
THOMSON.

With superior boon may your rich soil
Exuberant nature's better blessings pour
O'er every land, the naked nations clothe,
And be th' exhaustless granary of a world.
THOMSON.

They rose as vigorous as the sun;
Then to the culture of the willing glebe.

In May get a weed-hook, a crotch, and a glove, And weed out such weeds as the corn doth not love.

TUSSER.

Plough-Monday next after that the twelftide is

past,

Bids out with the plough, the worst husband is last.

TUSSER.

At Midsummer down with the brambles and brakes,

And after abroad with thy forks and thy rakes.

TUSSER. Such land as ye break up for barley to sow, Two earths, at the least, ere ye sow it, bestow.

TUSSER.

Sowe peason and beans in the wane of the moon:
Who soweth them sooner he soweth too soone.

TUSSER.

Friend, harrow in time, by some manner of

means,

Not only thy peason, but also thy beans.

TUSSER.

Plant ye with alders or willowes a plot,
Where yeerely, as needeth, mo poles may be got.
TUSSER.

The north is a noiance to grass of all suits,
The east a destroyer to herbs and all fruits.
TUSSER.

The west as a father all goodness doth bring,
The east a forbearer no manner of thing.

TUSSER.

Let servant be ready with mattock in hand
To stub out the bushes that noieth the land.
TUSSER.

In lopping and felling save elder and stake,
Thine hedges, as needeth, to mend or to make.
TUSSER.

One seed for another to make an exchange
With fellowly neighbourhood seemeth not
strange.

TUSSER.

Land arable, driven, or worn to the proof,
With oats you may sow it, the sooner to grass,
More soon to be pasture, to bring it to pass.

TUSSER.

And he that can rear up a pig in his house,
Hath cheaper his bacon, and sweeter his souse.
TUSSER.

333

Of barley the finest and greenest ye find,
Leave standing in dallops till time ye do bind.

TUSSER.

From wheat go and rake out the titters or tine,
If care be not forth, it will rise again fine.

TUSSER.

ALCHEMY.

By fire
Of sooty coal th' empiric alchemist
Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold.
Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,

MILTON.

The starving chymist in his golden views

Through cunning, with dibble, rake, mattock, Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.

and spade,

By line and by level trim garden is made.

TUSSER.

Now down with the grass upon headlands about,
That groweth in shadow so rank and so stout.

TUSSER.

Some commons are barren, the nature is such,
And some overlayeth the commons too much.
TUSSER.
Grant harvest-lord more by a penny or two,
To call on his fellows the better to do.

TUSSER.

Things thus set in order, in quiet and rest,
Shall further thy harvest, and pleasure thee best.

TUSSER.

AMBITION.

In high ambition.
Love is not to be reason'd down, or lost

POFE.

ADDISON.

Where ambition of place goes before fitness
Of birth, contempt and disgrace follow.
GEORGE CHAPMAN.
Blinded greatness, ever in turmoil,
Still seeking happy life, makes life a toil.
DANIEL.

Be not with honour's gilded baits beguiled,
Nor think ambition wise, because 'tis brave;
For though we like it, as a forward child,
'Tis so unsound her cradle is her grave.
SIR W. DAVENANT: Gondibert.

Reap well, scatter not, gather clean that is shorn, Ambition, the disease of virtue, bred

Like surfeits from an undigested fulness,
Meets death in that which is the means of life.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Nature and duty bind him to obedience:
But these being placed in a lower sphere,
His fierce ambition, like the highest mover,
Has hurried with a strong impulsive motion
Against their proper course.

SIR J. DENHAM.
Some through ambition, or through thirst of gold,
Have slain their brothers, and their country sold.
DRYDEN.

Those who to empire by dark paths aspire,
Still plead a call to what they most desire.
DRYDEN.

One world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
Coop'd up he seem'd, in earth and seas confined.
DRYDEN.

Too truly Tamerlane's successors they;
Each thinks a world too little for his sway.
DRYDEN,

O diadem, thou centre of ambition,
Where all its different lines are reconciled;
As if thou wert the burning glass of glory.

DRYDEN.

Pride had not sour'd, nor wrath debased, my And made him wither in a green old age.