rds, 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 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
night, that he might the better signalise himself in their destruction
the next day. His hunting horses were the finest and best managed[104] in
all these parts: his tenants are still full of the praises of a grey
stone-horse[105] that unhappily staked[106] himself several years since,
and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard.

Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox-hunting, to keep himself in
action, has disposed of his beagles and got a pack of stop-hounds[107].
What these want in speed, he endeavours to make amends for by the
deepness of their mouths[108] and the variety of their notes, which are
suited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry[109] makes up a
complete concert. He is so nice[110] 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 expressions of
civility; but desired him to tell his master, that the dog he had sent
was indeed a most excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted a
counter-tenor[111]. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare,
I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus in the
_Midsummer Night's Dream_.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flu'd, so s