our, by the
condition[100] in which they are born, they are more miserable than the
rest of mankind, unless they indulge themselves in that voluntary labour
which goes by the name of exercise.

My friend Sir Roger has been an indefatigable man in business of this
kind, and has hung several parts of his house with the trophies of his
former labours. The walls of his great hall are covered with the horns of
several kinds of deer that he has killed in the chase, which he thinks
the most valuable furniture of his house, as they afford him frequent
topics of discourse, and show that he has not been idle. At the lower end
of the hall is a large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which his mother
ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knight looks upon it with
great satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years old when his
dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal
filled with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the Knight
has made great havoc in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of
pheasants, partridges and woodcocks. His stable doors are patched[101]
with noses that belonged to foxes of the Knight's own hunting down. Sir
Roger showed me one of them, that for distinction sake has a brass nail
struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, carried
him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and
lost above half his dogs. This the Knight looks upon as one of the
greatest exploits of his life. The perverse widow, whom I have given some
account of, was the death of several foxes; for Sir Roger has told me
that in the course of his amours[102] he patched the western door of his
stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it.
In proportion as his passion for the widow abated and old age came on, he
left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe that sits within ten
miles of his house.

There is no kind of exercise which I would so recommend to my readers of
both sexes 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 see the mechanical effects of it
described at length, he may find them in a book published not many years
since, under the title of _Medicina Gymnastica_. For my own part, when I
am in town, for want of thes