I desire you to accept of a jack[53], 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 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.
This extraordinary letter, and message that accompanied it, made me very
curious to know the character and quality 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 bred to no business and born to no
estate, he generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of
his game. He hunts 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 idle man: he makes a May-fly to a miracle;
and furnishes the whole country[54] with angle-rods. As he is a
good-natured officious[55] fellow, and very much esteemed upon account of
his family, he is a welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a good
correspondence[56] among all 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 he has weaved, or a setting dog
that he has made[57] 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 of the country.
Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him, when we 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
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[58] at sight of the good old Knight. After the first
salutes were over, Will desired Sir Roger to lend him one of his servants
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 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 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[59] it, and at length 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[60].
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; 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 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 like gentlemen, than thrive in a
trade or profession that is beneath their quality. This humour[61] fills
several parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a
trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, though incapable 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
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
certainly, however improper he might have been for studies of a higher
nature, he was perfectly well turned[62] 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
with what I have said in my twenty-first speculation.