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.
103/542 page 87
![see nothing more frequently galls a Man than baseness of Birth, when in Reputation or Honour; nor nothing more elevates him than the empty Title of a Gentlemcin, which duely considered in its Rise, Progress, and End, is but di Non ens, and the greatest Vanity imaginable to boast of. [Wm. Ramesey] The Gentlemcin’s Compunton, ov ci chaYdctev of True Nobility and Gentility, In the way of Essay, 1672, p. i. His Employments will be worthy and ingenuous. A man that hath this inward Nobility of Mind superadded to that of his Birth, will abhor to busie himself viciously or imper- tinently :' he hath those qualifications, which render him use- ful, and he must give himself those exercises, whereby he rnay become the most eminently so. If by just authority he may be assigned to any publick charge, he is to embrace it cheer- fully ,■ not as a prize either to Ambition or Covetousness, but as an opportunity of vertue ; a sphere wherein he may move the most vigorously in the service of God and his Countrey. 1673, The Gentleman’s Calling, p. 26. There is nothing by which they have so universal an in- fluence, as their Example. Things that are set in some high and eminent place, do naturally attract men s eyes to them . for that eminency of condition wherein Gentlemen are placed, renders their actions more observable. They are like the City our Saviour speaks of, ‘ set on an hill ’, and have by that advantageous situation the means of making their light shine farther than other mens. And therefore it ought to be their constant care, by the bright lustre of their exact and exemplary conversations, to inlighten the whole sphere wherein they move. Would Gentlemen make this their united design, what a happy Constellation of auspicious Stars would they prove, by whose benign Aspect the sterility of vulgar minds might be cured, and even those Clods be inspirited and rendred capable of excellent productions ? What a blur and infamy would it cast upon Vice, if it were once banished out of Gentile Company ? And how fair a step would it be towards its exclusion out of all ? We see what a natural aspiring the lower sort have to approach to the con- dition of their Betters. And though that being now aimed only at their Pomps and Greatness, be no commendable tempei,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0105.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
