As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger
before his house, a country fellow brought him a huge (85: 5)
fish, which, he told him, Mr. William Wimble had caught
that very morning; and that he presented it with his service
to him, and intended to come and dine with him.
At the same time he delivered a letter, which my friend
read to me as soon as the messenger left him. (10)
"Sir Roger,
"I desire you to accept of a jack,[47] which is the best I
have caught this season. I intend to come and stay with
you a week, and see how the perch bite in the Black
River. I observed with some concern, the last time I (15)
saw you upon the bowling green, that your whip wanted
a lash to it; I will bring half a dozen with me that I
twisted last week, which I hope will serve you all the time
you are in the country. I have not been out of the saddle
for six days last past, having been at Eton with Sir John's
eldest son. He takes to his learning hugely.
"I am, sir, your humble servant,
"WILL WIMBLE."
[47] A pickerel, or small pike.
This extraordinary letter, and message that accompanied (86: 5)
it, made me very curious to know the character
and quality[48] of the gentleman who sent them, which I
found to be as follows. Will Wimble is younger brother
to a baronet, and descended of the ancient family of the
Wimbles. He is now between forty and fifty, but, being (10)
bred to no business and born to no estate, he generally
lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his game.
He hunts[49] a pack of dogs better than any man in the
country, and is very famous for finding out a hare. He
is extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an (15)
idle man; he makes a may-fly[50] to a miracle, and furnishes
the whole country with angle-rods. As he is a good-natured,
officious fellow, and very much esteemed upon
account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every
house, and keeps up a good correspondence among all (20)
the gentlemen about him. He carries a tulip-root in his
pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between
a couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite
sides of the county. Will is a particular favourite of all the
young heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a net that (25)
he has weaved, or a setting-dog that he has made[51] himself.
He now and then presents a pair of garters of his own
knitting to their mothers or sisters, and raises a great
deal of mirth among them by inquiring, as often as he
meets them, how they wear. These gentleman-like manufactures
and obliging little humours make Will the darling (87: 5)
of the country.
[48] Rank.
[49] _I.e_. hunts with.
[50] An artificial fly for fishing.
[51] _I.e_. trained.
Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him,
when he saw him make up to us with two or three hazel
twigs in his hand that he had cut in Sir Roger's woods, as
he came through them, in his way to the house. I was (10)
very much pleased to observe on one side the hearty and
sincere welcome with which Sir Roger received him, and
on the other, the secret joy which his guest discovered at
sight of the good old knight. After the first salutes were
over, Will desired Sir Roger to lend him one of his servants (15)
to carry a set of shuttlecocks he had with him in
a little box to a lady that lived about a mile off, to whom
it seems he had promised such a present for above this
half year. Sir Roger's back was no sooner turned but
honest Will began to tell me of a large cock-pheasant (20)
that he had sprung in one of the neighbouring woods, with
two or three other adventures of the same nature. Odd
and uncommon characters are the game that I look for
and most delight in; for which reason I was as much
pleased with the novelty of the person that talked to me as (25)
he could be for his life with the springing of a pheasant,
and therefore listened to him with more than ordinary
attention.
In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner,
where the gentleman I have been speaking of had the
pleasure of seeing the huge jack he had caught, served
up for the first dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon
our sitting down to it, he gave us a long account how he
had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length (88: 5)
drew it out upon the bank, with several other particulars
that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild fowl that
came afterwards furnished conversation for the rest of the
dinner, which concluded with a late invention of Will's
for improving the quail-pipe.[52] (10)
[52] A pipe to imitate the call of a quail.
Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was
secretly touched with compassion towards the honest
gentleman that had dined with us, and could not but consider,
with a great deal of concern, how so good an heart
and such busy hands were wholly employed in trifles; (15)
that so much humanity should be so little beneficial to
others, and so much industry so little advantageous to himself.
The same temper of mind and application to affairs
might have recommended him to the public esteem, and
have raised his fortune in another station of life. What (20)
good to his country or himself might not a trader or
merchant have done with such useful though ordinary
qualifications?
Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother
of a great family, who had rather see their children starve (25)
like gentlemen than thrive in a trade or profession that is
beneath their quality. This humour fills several parts of
Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a
trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, though
uncapable of any liberal art or profession, may be placed
in such a way of life as may perhaps enable them to vie
with the best of their family. Accordingly, we find several
citizens that were launched into the world with narrow (89: 5)
fortunes, rising by an honest industry to greater estates
than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable
but Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physic;
and that finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents
gave him up at length to his own inventions. But (10)
certainly, however improper[53] he might have been for
studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned
for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think
this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I
shall desire my reader to compare what I have here written, (15)
with what I have said in my twenty-first speculation. L.
[53] Unfit.