Virg. Georg. iii. v. 43.

The echoing hills and chiding hounds invite.


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,
has 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 has 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