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.
125/542 page 109
![ness to the lower classes, so as to make the most poor and obscure of men susceptible of all generous and lofty senti- ments which belong to true nobility. K. H, Digby, Godefridus, p. 217 (ed. 1844). Justice, piety and every affection of the heroic mind would be willing to adopt the Castilian maxim that ‘ Every man is the son of his own works ’ ; so that when a man performeth any heroical enterprise, or any virtue, or any extraordinary work, then is he newborn and named the son of his own actions, and so becomes an hidalgo ‘ of a suffycyente gentyl lynage ’ ; a doctrine which is beautifully expressed in the Tabula Genea- logica of the family of Lowenstein, which was written in the year of Christ 1200. . . . The genealogical table of this noble house begins with these words : ‘ Satis antiqua, si posted clari sint virtutibus et bonitate morum. file enim apud Deum prseest potior, non quern nobilitas saeculi, sed quern devotio fidei et sancta vita commendat.’ [It is ancient enough if those who come after are illustrious by their virtues and excellence of character. For with God he rather hath preeminence whom, not the nobility of the world, but devo- tion to the faith and holiness of life commends.] This is the doctrine of Catholic nobility, which fully admitted the maxim of the'ancients, ‘ Nemo sibi parentes aut patriam eligere potest, at ingenium moresque sibi quisque potest fingere [No one can choose his parents or place of birth, but every one can mould his own mind and character.] ‘ The greatest nobility ’, says Bartholomew Arnigio, in his Vigils, ‘ is that which is natural or divine, which may belong to him who walks barefooted in rags ; whereas he who is without it, though clothed in purple and gold, must be ignoble, et tres vilain [Les Veilles, 1608]. ‘ The true and only nobility ’, says the golden tongue of St. John Chrysostom, ‘is to per- form the will of God. This is the nobility of the apostolic order ; and he who is illustrated by the Holy Spirit is ennobled with the sovereign and highest nobility ’. There is, more- over, a natural nobility which consists in peculiar generosity and excellence of soul [Les Veilles, p. 21] ; and this also may be found in the lowest ranks of human life. Witness Chaucer’s peasant, who lived in peace and perfect charity, loving God](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0127.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
