her Orders.  Had that incomparable Person, whom I last quoted, been a little more indulgent to himself in this Point, the World might probably have enjoyed him much longer; whereas thro’ too great an Application to his Studies in his Youth, he contracted that ill Habit of Body, which, after a tedious Sickness, carried him oft in the fortieth Year of his Age; [3] and the whole History we have of his Life till that Time, is but one continued Account of the behaviour of a noble Soul struggling under innumerable Pains and Distempers.

For my own part I intend to Hunt twice a Week during my Stay with Sir ROGER; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this Exercise to all my Country Friends, as the best kind of Physick for mending a bad Constitution, and preserving a good one.

I cannot do this better, than in the following Lines out of Mr. Dryden [4].

The first Physicians by Debauch were made; Excess began, and Sloth sustains the Trade.  By Chace our long-liv’d Fathers earn’d their Food; Toil strung the Nerves, and purify’d the Blood; But we their Sons, a pamper’d Race of Men, Are dwindled down to threescore Years and ten.  Better to hunt 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.]