Joseph Addison addresses the need for exercise in this little piece and quotes a great poem by Dryden –

“For my own part I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir Rodger; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitution, and preserving a good one. I cannot do this better, than in the following lines out of Mr. Dryden: --

The first physicians by debauch were made;

Excess began, and sloth sustained the trade.

By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food;

Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood;

But we their sons, a pamper’d race of men

Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought

Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.

The wise for cure on exercise depend:

God never made His work for man to mend.

Picture by Teuku Jody Zulkarnaen