Note 121 — DRYDEN’S LETTERS. LETTER I. TO THE FAIRE HANDS OF MADAME HONOR DRYDEN THESE CRAVE ADMITTANCE.56
Reading edition
This person, in the last age, was frequently called “the learned tradesman.” “Sir Andrew Fountaine (says Swift, in his Journal, October 6, 1710,) came this morning, and caught me writing in bed. I went into the city with him, and we dined at the Chop-house, with Will Pate, the learned woollen-draper; then we sauntered at china shops and booksellers; went to the tavern, and drank two pints of white wine,” &c. Mr William Pate was educated at Trinity Hall in Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.C.L. He died in 1746, and was buried at Lee, in Kent.
Mr Malone, who mentions these particulars, transcribes Mr Pate’s epitaph, the moral of which is:—
Nervos atque artus esse sapientiœ, Non Temere Credere.
It would seem, from Dryden’s letter, that this learned tradesman understood the mercantile, as well as the literary use of the apothegm.