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.
114/542 page 98
![friend and patron to all that dwell about him, to live in the utmost heights of wisdom and holiness, and show through the whole course of his life a true religious greatness of mind. They must aspire after such a gentility, as they might have learnt from seeing the blessed Jesus, and show no other spirit of a gentleman, but such as they might have got by living with the holy Apostles. They must learn to love God with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their strength, and their neighbour as themselves ; and then they have all the greatness and distinction that they can have here, and are fit for an eternal happiness in Heaven hereafter. 1726, W. Law, Serious Call, ch. x, p. 98 (ed. 1888), I must entreat the gentlemen who are to value themselves chiefly upon that advantage [of antient gentry] that they will stoop so low as to admit that vertue, learning, a liberal education, and a degree of naturall and acquir’d knowledge, are necessary to finish the born gentleman ; and that with- out them the entitid’d heir will be but the shaddow of a gentleman. . . . Bringing the blood and the merit together, so we shall produce the best and most glorious peice of God’s creation, a compleat gentleman. 1729, Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman, p. 5. The Gentleman is to be represented as he really is, and in a figure which he cannot be a Gentleman without ; I mean as a Person of Merit and Worth ; a Man of Honour, Virtue, Sense, Integrity, Honesty and Religion, without which he is Nothing at all. ^ 1729, Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman, p. 21. If a man will cut off the entail of virtue and honor, he should cut off the entail of the title too, and should no longer call himself a gentleman than he will act like a gentleman, no longer pretend to be a man of blood and family than he will be a man of honesty and merit. 1729, Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman (ed. Bul- bring), p. 31. The Gentleman inculcates as early as possible good principles into his children’s minds, that so they may become good](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0116.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
