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, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which (10) 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 has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges (15) 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[80] destroyed more of those vermin in one year than it was thought the (20) 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[81] out of other counties, which he used to turn loose about the country (25) by night, that he might the better signalize 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[82] that unhappily staked himself[83] several years since, and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard. [80] Correct the English. [81] Friends or foxes? Correct the sentence. [82] Stallion. [83] Killed by impaling himself on a fence which he was trying to leap. Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox-hunting, to (123: 5) keep himself in action has disposed of his beagles and got a pack of stop-hounds.[84] 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 (10) 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 with a great many expressions of civility, but desired him to tell his master that the dog he had sent was indeed a (15) most excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted a counter tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare, I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus, in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_: (20) [84] Hounds trained to stop at a word--as they are said to have done in the following paragraph.