Post; smoaking his Pipe, which he seldom cares for; and staring about him in Company with whom he has had nothing to do, as if he wondered how he came there.

That I may state my Case to you the more fully, I shall transcribe some short Minutes I have taken of him in my Almanack since last Spring; for you must know there are certain Seasons of the Year, according to which, I will not say our Friendship, but the Enjoyment of it rises or falls.  In March and April he was as various as the Weather; In May and part of June I found him the sprightliest best-humoured Fellow in the World; In the Dog-Days he was much upon the Indolent; In September very agreeable but very busy; and since the Glass fell last to changeable, he has made three Appointments with me, and broke them every one.  However I have good Hopes of him this Winter, especially if you will lend me your Assistance to reform him, which will be a great Ease and Pleasure to,

  SIR,
  Your most humble Servant.
  October 9, 1711.

T.

* * * * *

No. 195.  Saturday, October 13, 1711.  Addison.

[Greek:  Naepioi oud’ isasin hos_o pleon haemisu pantos, Oud’ hoson en malachaete de asphodel_o meg honeiar.].—­Hes.

There is a Story in the ‘Arabian Nights Tales’ [1] of a King who had long languished under an ill Habit of Body, and had taken abundance of Remedies to no purpose.  At length, says the Fable, a Physician cured him by the following Method:  He took an hollow Ball of Wood, and filled it with several Drugs; after which he clos’d it up so artificially that nothing appeared.  He likewise took a Mall, and after having hollowed the Handle, and that part which strikes the Ball, he enclosed in them several Drugs after the same Manner as in the Ball it self.  He then ordered the Sultan, who was his Patient, to exercise himself early in the Morning with these rightly prepared Instruments, till such time as he should Sweat:  When, as the Story goes, the Vertue of the Medicaments perspiring through the Wood, had so good an Influence on the Sultan’s Constitution, that they cured him of an Indisposition which all the Compositions he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove.  This Eastern Allegory is finely contrived to shew us how beneficial bodily Labour is to Health, and that Exercise is the most effectual Physick.  I have described in my Hundred and Fifteenth Paper, from the general Structure and Mechanism of an Human Body, how absolutely necessary Exercise is for its Preservation.  I shall in this Place recommend another great Preservative of Health, which in many Cases produces the same Effects as Exercise, and may, in some measure, supply its Place, where Opportunities of Exercise are wanting.  The Preservative I am speaking of is Temperance, which has those particular