Days with Sir Roger de Coverley | Page 3

is
extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man: he
makes a Mayfly to a miracle; and furnishes the whole country with
angle-rods. As he is a good-natur'd officious fellow, and very much
esteem'd upon account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every
house, and keeps up a good correspondence 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 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 enquiring as often as he meets
them how they wear! These gentlemen-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 discover'd 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 shuttle-cocks 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 I looked 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 listen'd 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 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.
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 publick
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 tho' 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 fills
several parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a
trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, tho' 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
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 physick; 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