02 - Days With Sir Roger de Coverley by Joseph Addison, Richard Steele

Journey into the world of acclaimed writer Sir Richard Steele, as he recounts his intimate experiences living in the household of the intriguing Sir Roger de Coverley for an entire month. This podcast is narrated by Elijah Fisher.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of Days with Sir Roger de Covering. This
is a libribox recording. All libribox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
libribox dot org. Days with Sir Roger Decovering by Joseph
Addison and Richard Steele. Chapter two, mister will Wimble, I

(00:26):
was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger before his house.
A country fellow brought him a huge fish, which he
told him mister 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

(00:48):
to me. As soon as the messenger left. Sir Roger,
I desire you to accept of a jack, which is
the best I have caught this season. They intend to
come and stay with you 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,

(01:11):
that your whip wanted a lash to it. I will
bring happy 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 path, having been at
Eton with John's eldest son. He takes to his learning hugely.

(01:37):
I am your humble servant, Will William. This extraordinary letter
and message that accompanied it made me very curious to
know the character and quality of the gentleman who sent him,
which I found swallows. Will Wimble is younger brother to
a baronet, and descended of the ancient family of the Wimbles.

(02:02):
He's now between forty and fifty, but being bred to
have 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

(02:22):
a hare. He's extremely well versed in all little handicrafts
of an idle man. He makes a mayfly to a
miracle and furnishes the whole way with inglebrods. As he
is a good natured, obvious fellow, and very much esteemed
upon the account of his family. He's a welcome guest

(02:45):
at every house and makes up a good correspondence among
all gentlemen about him. He carries a tullip rod in
his pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy
between a couple of friends that live perd Perhaps in
the opposite sides of the code. Will is a particular

(03:06):
favorite of all the young hairs, whom he fod obliges
with a gnat that he has weaved, or a setting
dog that he has made himself. He know, and then
presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to
their mother's her sisters, and raises a great deal of
mirth among them by inquiring as often as he meets them.

(03:28):
Howly ware these gentlemanlike manufacturers and obliging little humors 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.

(03:48):
As he came through them in to the house, I
was very much pleased to observe, on one side the
hearty and sincere welcome for which 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

(04:12):
one of his servants to carry a set of shuttlecocks
he had 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 or above.
This half year. Sir Roger's back was no sooner turned,
but honest Will began to tell of a large cock

(04:33):
pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighboring woods,
with two or three other adventures of the same nature,
odd and uncommon characters by the game I looked for
and most delight for whenich reason, I was as much
pleased with them of the person that talked to me
as he could be for his life with the springing

(04:55):
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 that he had
been speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the huge
jack he had caught served up for the first dish
in a most subtumous manner. Upon her sitting down to it,

(05:19):
he gave us a long account how he had looked it,
played with it boiled it, and at length drew out
upon the black bank. With several other particulars tested all
the first course. A dish of wild ball that came
afterwards furnished the conversation for the rest of the dinner,

(05:40):
which concluded with a light invention of wills for improving
the coiled pipe. Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner,
I was secretly touched with towards the honest gentleman that
had dined with me, and could not but consider with
a great deal of concern, how so good and heart
and such busy hands were wholly employed in trifles, that

(06:04):
so much humanity should be so little beneficial to others,
and so industry so little adventurous to himself. The same
temper of mind and application to affairs might have recommended
him to public esteem, and have raised his fortune in
another station of life. What good to us, his country,

(06:28):
or himself might not, hither or merchant have done with
such useful though ordinary qualifications. Woul Wimble's is the case
of many of a younger brother of a great family
who would rather see their children's star like gentlemen, than
thrive in a trade or profession. That is beneath their equality.

(06:50):
This humor fills several parts of Europe with pride and beggary.
It is the happiness of a trading nation like ours,
that the younger son, 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

(07:14):
were launched into the world with narrow fortunes, rising by
an honest industry to greater as states than those of
their eldest 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

(07:35):
him up at length to his own inventions. But certainly,
however improper he might have been for studies of acatre,
he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade
and commerce. As I think this is a point which
cannot be too much inculpated, I shall desire my reader

(07:55):
to compare what I have here written with what I
have said in my twenty for his speculation. End of
chapter two. Read Phiolija Fisher