ST
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 s
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