Days with Sir Roger de Coverley | Page 9

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 their notes, which are suited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry makes up a complete concert. He is so nice 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