t in Fields for Health unbought,
Than fee the Doctor for a nauseous Draught.
The Wise for Cure on Exercise depend:
God never made his Work for Man to mend._

[Footnote 1: As to dogs, the difference is great between a hunt now and
a hunt in the 'Spectator's' time. Since the early years of the last
century the modern foxhound has come into existence, while the beagle
and the deep-flewed southern hare-hound, nearly resembling the
bloodhound, with its sonorous note, has become almost extinct.
Absolutely extinct also is the old care to attune the voices of a pack.
Henry II, in his breeding of hounds, is said to have been careful not
only that they should be fleet, but also 'well-tongued and consonous;'
the same care in Elizabeth's time is, in the passage quoted by the
'Spectator', attributed by Shakespeare to Duke Theseus; and the paper
itself shows that care was taken to match the voices of a pack in the
reign also of Queen Anne. This has now been for some time absolutely
disregarded. In many important respects the pattern harrier of the
present day differs even from the harriers used at the beginning of the
present century.]

[Footnote 2: Act IV. sc. 1.]

[Footnote 3: Pascal, who wrote a treatise on Conic sections at the age
of 16, and had composed most of his mathematical works and made his
chief experiments in science by the age of 26, was in constant
suffering, by disease, from his 18th year until his death, in 1662, at
the age stated in the text. Expectation of an early death caused him to
pass from his scientific studies into the direct service of religion,
and gave, as the fruit of his later years, the Provincial Letters and
the 'Pensees'.]

[Footnote 4: Epistle to his kinsman, J. Driden, Esq., of Chesterton.]

* * * * *

No. 117. Saturday, July 14, 1711. Addison.

'... Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt.'

Virg.

There are some Opinions in which a Man should stand Neuter, without
engaging his Assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering Faith as
this, which refuses to settle upon any Determination, is absolutely
necessary to a Mind that is careful to avoid Errors and Prepossessions.
When the Arguments press equally on both sides in Matters that are
indifferent to us, the safest Method is to give up our selves to
neither.

It is with this Temper of Mind that I consider the Subject of
Witchcraft. When