Days with Sir Roger de Coverley | Page 9

fixed on some one or other; and yet I have been credibly
inform'd; but who can believe half that is said? After she had done
speaking to me, she put her hand to her bosom and adjusted her tucker.
Then she cast her eyes a little down, upon my beholding her too
earnestly. They say she sings excellently; her voice in her ordinary
speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined
with her at a publick table the day after I first saw her, and she helped
me to some tansy in the eye of all the gentlemen in the country. She has
certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. I can assure you,
Sir, were you to behold her, you would be in the same condition; for as
her speech is musick, her form is angelick. But I find I grow irregular
while I am talking of her; but indeed it would be stupidity to be
unconcerned at such perfection. Oh the excellent creature! she is as

inimitable to all women, as she is inaccessible to all men.
I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the
house, that we might be joined by some other company; and am
convinced that the widow is the secret cause of all that inconsistency
which appears in some parts of my friend's discourse; tho' he has so
much command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according
to that of Martial, which one knows not how to render into English,
DUM TACET HANC LOQUITUR. I shall end this paper with that
whole epigram, which represents with much humour my honest friend's
condition.
QUICQUID AGIT RUFUS, NIHIL EST, NISI NAEVIA RUFO, SI
GAUDET, SI FLET, SI TACET, HANC LOQUITUR: CAENAT,
PROPINAT, POSCET, NEGAT, ANNUIT, UNA EST NAEVIA; SI
NON SIT NAEVIA, MUTUS ERIT. SCRIBERET HESTERNA
PATRI CUM LUCE SALUTEM, NAEVIA LUX, INQUIT, NAEVIA
NUMEN AVE. Epig. 69, 1. I.
Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit or walk, Still he can nothing but of
NAEVIA talk; Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute, Still he
must speak of NAEVIA, or be mute. He writ to his father, ending with
this line, "I am, my lovely NAEVIA, ever thine."

THE CHASE.
Those who have searched into human nature, observe that nothing so
much shews the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity consists in
action. Every man has such an active principle in him, that he will find
out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of
life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close
confinement in the Bastile seven years; during which time he amused
himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering
them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a
great chair. He often told his friends afterwards, 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,
had 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 had 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 in all these parts: his tenants
are still full of the praises of a gray stone-horse that unhappily staked
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.
What these want in speed, he endeavours to make amends for by the
deepness of their mouths and the variety of