The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer.
- Abram Smythe Palmer
- Date:
- [1908]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
100/542 page 84
![Heaven : and he accoumpts all those who can brook any Dis- honour or Contempt of their God, that one common Father of us all, as a Bastard and no Son. 1661, Clement Ellis, The Gentile Sinner, p. 172. Whilest I goe about to give you the character of a true Gentleman I am fain into that of a Christian ; and indeed no wonder, for there is such a necessary connexion betwixt these two, that they seem to be no more then the Different Names of the same man. 1661, Clement Ellis, The Gentile Sinner, p. 178. It has, alas, been but too true in all ages that to be Great and to be Good are two : and never was there a more undeniable demonstration of this truth, then in the present Gentlemen of England ; to the no less dishonour of the whole nation, then disparagement of his own name in particular. Whilest there is nothing more his talk then his blood and his breeding, and yet nothing less his care then to dignifie the one, or make a right use of the other. How few of those Gentlemen have we now to show who dare make it their businesse and their glory to be serviceable to their God, their Country, or the Church; or that have breasts full of that heroick courage and mag- nanimity that may embolden them to renounce a sin that is profitable or in fashion. 1661, Clement Ellis, The Gentile Sinner, pp, 85-6. The true Gentleman is one that is as much more, as the false one is lesse, then what to most he seems to be. One who is alwaies so far from being an hypocrite, that he had rather ap- pear in the eyes of others just nothing, then not be everything which indeed [is] truly vertuous and noble. He is a man whom that most Wise King he best resembles has fitted with a character ■—‘ A man of an excellent spirit.’ This is he whose brave and noble soul sores so high above the ordinary reach of mankind that he seems to be a distinct species of himself. He scorns so much the vices of the world that he will hardly stoop to a vertue which is not heroick; or if he do, it is by his good improvement of it, to make it so. He is one to whom all honour seems cheap, which is not the reward of vertue, and he](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0102.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
