Those who have searched into human nature, observe that nothing
so much shews the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity
consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in
him, that he will find out something 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
lost his senses.

After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir
Roger, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty
well acquainted, had in his youth gone through the whole course
of those rural diversions which the country abounds in; and which
seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man
may observe here in a far greater degree than in towns and
cities. I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits:
he had in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a
season; and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but of a
single 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 vermin 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 secretly sent for great numbers of them out of
other counties, which he used to turn loose about the country by