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’
uncapabie 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 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.
L.
[Footnote 1: Will Wimble has been identified
with Mr. Thomas Morecraft, younger son of a Yorkshire
baronet. Mr. Morecraft in his early life became
known to Steele, by whom he was introduced to Addison.
He received help from Addison, and, after his death,
went to Dublin, where he died in 1741 at the house
of his friend, the Bishop of Kildare. There is
no ground for this or any other attempt to find living
persons in the creations of the ‘Spectator’,
although, because lifelike, they were, in the usual
way, attributed by readers to this or that individual,
and so gave occasion for the statement of Pudgell
in the Preface to his ‘Theophrastus’ that
‘most of the characters in the Spectator
were conspicuously known.’
The only original of Will Wimble, as Mr. Wills has
pointed out, is Mr. Thomas Gules of No. 256 in the
’Tatler’.]
