widow was cruel, the foxes were fure to pay for it. In proportion as his paffion for the widow abated and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe that fits within ten miles of his houfe. There is no kind of exercise which I would fo recommend to my readers of both fexes as this of riding, as there is none which so much conduces to health, and is every way accommodated to the body, according to the Idea which I have given of it. Doctor Sydenham is very lavish in its praises; and if the English reader will fee the mechanical effects of it described at length, he may find them in a book published not many years fince, under the title of Medicina Gymnastica. For my own part, when I am in town, for want of thefe opportunities, I exercise myself an hour every morning upon a dumb bell that is placed in a corner of my room, and pleases me the more because it does every thing I require of it in the most profound filence. My landlady and her daughters are fo well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to disturb me whilft I am ringing. When I was fome years younger than I am at present, I used to employ myself in a more laborious diverfion, which I learned from a Latin treatise of exercises that is written with great erudition : It is there called the σκιομαχία, or the fighting with a man's own shadow, and confifts in the brandishing of two short sticks grafped in each hand, and loaden with plugs of lead at either end. 'This opens the cheft, exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the pleafure of boxing, without the blows. I could wish that several learned men would lay out that time which they employ in controverfies and difputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with their own fhadows. It might conduce very much to evaporate the fpleen, which makes them uneafy to the public as well as to themfelves. VOL. II. + N ٢٢٦ 10 To conclude, as I am a compound of foul and body, I confider myself as obliged to a double scheme of duties; and think I have not fulfilled the business of the day when I do not thus employ the one in labour and exercise, as well as the other in study and contemplation. L N° 116. FRIDAY, JULY 13. Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron, * Taygetique canes VIRG. Georg. iii. v. 43. The echoing hills and chiding hounds invite. THOSE who have fearched into human nature Ho observe that nothing so much shews the nobleness of the foul as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has fuch an active principle in him, that he will find out fomething to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement in the Bastile seven years; during which time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often told his friends afterwards, that unless he had found out this piece of exercise, he verily believed he should have loft his fenfes. After what has been faid, I need not inform my readers that Sir ROGER, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in; and which feem to be extremely well fuited to that laborious industry a man may obferve here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at fome of my friends exploits: He has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a feafon; and tired many a falmon with a line confifting but of a fingle hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighbourhood always attended him, on account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes; having destroyed more of those vermine in one year, than it was thought the whole country could have produced. Indeed the knight does not scruple to own among his most intimate friends, that in order to establish his reputation this way, he has fecretly fent for great numbers of them out of other counties, which he used to turn loofe about the country by night, that he might the better fignalize himself in their destruction the next day. His hunting-horses were the finest and best managed in all these parts: His tenants are still full of the praises of a grey stone-horse that unhappily staked himself several years fince, and was buried with great folemnity in the orchard. Sir ROGER, being at present too old for foxhunting, to keep himself in action, has difpofed of his beagles and got a pack of Stop-hounds. What these want in fpeed, he endeavours to make amends for by the deepness of their mouths and the varie*ty of their notes, which are fuited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry makes up a complete concert. He is so nice in this particular, that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the knight returned it by the servant with a great many expreffions of civility; but defired him to tell his master, that the dog he had fent was indeed a most excellent Bass, but that at present he only wanted a Counter-Tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespear, I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Thefeus in the Midsummer Night's Dream. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, N. 2 With ears that sweep away the morning dew. Sir ROGER is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every day fince I came down; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neighbourhood towards my friend. The fariner's fons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old Knight as he passed, by; which he generally requited with a nod or a fmile, and a kind of inquiry after their fathers. and uncles. After we had rid about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. They had done fo for fome time, when, as I was at a little distance from the rest of the company, I faw a hare pop out from a fmall furzebrake almost under my horfe's feet. I marked the way the took, which I endeavoured to make the company fenfible of by extending my arm; but to no purpose, until Sir ROGER, who knows that none of my extraordinary motions are infignificant, rode up to me, and asked me if puss was gone that way? Upon my answering Yes, he immediately called inthe dogs, and put them upon the scent. As they were going off, I heard one of the country-fellows muttering to his companion, That it was a wonder they had not lost all their sport, for want of the filent gentleman's crying Stole away. This, with my averfion to leaping hedges, made me withdraw to a rifing ground, from whence I could have the pleasure of the whole chace, without the fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. The hare hare immediately threw them above a mile behind her; but I was pleased to find, that instead of running strait forwards, or, in hunter's language, Flying the country, as I was afraid she might have done, the wheeled about, and defcribed a fort of circle round the hill where I had taken my station, in such manner as gave me a very diftinét view of the sport. I could fee her first pass by, and the dogs some time afterwards unravelling the whole track she had made, and following her through all her doubles. I was at the fame time delighted in observing that deference which the rest of the pack paid to each particular hound, according to the character he had acquired amongst them: If they were at a fault, and an old hound of reputation opened but once, he was immediately followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who was a noted Liar, might have yelped his heart out. without being taken notice of. The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and been put up again as often, came ftill nearer to the place where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly Knight, who rode upon a white gelding, encompasled by his tenants and fervants, and cheering his hounds with all the gaiety of five and twenty.. One of the sportsinen rode up to me, and told me that he was fure the chace was almost at an end, because the old dogs, which had hitherto lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare took a large field just under us, followed by the full cry in view. I must confefs the brightness. of the weather, the chearfulness of every thing around me, the chiding of the hounds, which was returned upon us in a double echo from two neighbouring hills, with the hollowing of the sportsmen and the founding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively pleasure, which I freely indulged because: Iknew it was innocent. If I was under any concern, |