come and dine with him. At the fame time he delivered a Letter, which my Friend read to me as foon as the Meffenger left him.

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'Sir ROGER,

I

Defire you to accept of a Jack, which is the best I have caught this Seafon. I intend to come and stay with you a Week, and fee how the Perch bite in the Black River. I obferved ' with fome Concern, the last time I faw you upon 'the Bowling-Green, that your Whip wanted a Lafh to it; I will bring half a dozen with me ' that I twisted last Week, which I hope will ferve you all the Time you are in the Country. I have

' not been out of the Saddle for fix Days last past, having been at Eaton with Sir John's eldeft Son. 'He takes to his Learning hugely. I am,

'SIR, Your Humble Servant,

'WILL WIMBLE.'

THIS extraordinary Letter, and Meffage 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 Superintendant 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 verfed in all the little Handicrafts of an idle. Man: He makes a May-fly 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 Correfpondence 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 oppofite Sides of the Country. 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 Sifters; 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 Hazle-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 fincere Welcome with which Sir ROGER received him, and on the other, the fecret Joy which his Guest discovered at Sight of the good old Knight. After the first Salutes were over, Will defired 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 fooner turned but honeft 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 fame Nature. Odd and uncommon Characters are the Game that I look for, and moft delight in; for which Reafon 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 liftened to him with more than ordinary Attention.

IN the midst of his Difcourfe the Bell rung to Dinner, where the Gentleman I have been speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the huge Jack, he

had caught, ferved up for the first Dish in a moft sumptuous manner. Upon our fitting 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 feveral other Particulars that lafted all the firft Course. A Dish of Wildfowl that came afterwards furnished Converfation for the rest of the Dinner, which concluded with a late Invention of Will's for improving the Quailpipe.

UPON withdrawing into my Room after Dinner, I was fecretly touched with Compaffion towards the honest Gentleman that had dined with us; and could not but confider with a great deal of Concern, how fo good an Heart and fuch bufy Hands were wholly employed in Trifles; that fo much Humanity fhould be fo little beneficial to others, and fo much Industry fo little advantageous to himself. The fame Temper of Mind and Application to Affairs might have recommended him to the publick Efteem, and have raised his Fortune in another Station of Life. What Good to his Country or himself might not a Trader or a Merchant have done with fuch useful though ordinary Qualifications?

WILL WIMBLE's is the Cafe of many a younger Brother of a great Family, who had rather

H

fee their Children ftarve like Gentlemen, than thrive in a Trade or Profeffion that is beneath their Quality. This Humour fills feveral Parts of Europe with Pride and Beggary. It is the Happinefs of a Trading Nation, like ours, that the younger Sons, though uncapable of any liberal Art or Profeffion, may be placed in fuch a way of Life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of their Family: Accordingly we find feveral Citizens that were launched into the World with narrow Fortunes, rifing 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 Phyfick; 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 for the Occupations of Trade and Commerce.