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.
163/542 page 147
![Carlo : Good steps to gentility too, marry : but, Sogliardo, if you affect to be a gentleman indeed, you must observe all the rare qualities, humours,and compliments of a Gentleman.... First, to be an accomplished gentleman, that is, a gentle- man of the time, you must give over housekeeping in the country, and live altogether in the city amongst Gallants . . . but above all, protest in your play and affirm. Upon your credit, As you are a true gentleman, at every cast; you may do it with a safe conscience, I warrant you. Sogliardo : O admirable rare ! he cannot choose but be a gentleman that has these excellent gifts. . . . Carlo : You must talk much of your kindred and allies. . . . You must pretend alliance with courtiers and great persons. 1598, B. Jonson, Every Man out of His Humour, act i, sc.i. Sogliardo : I can write myself gentleman now ; here’s my patent, it cost me thirty pound, by this breath. [The crest] it is your boar without a head rampant. Carlo : Troth, I commend the herald’s wit, he has decyphered him well : a swine without a head, without brain, wit, any- thing indeed, ramping to gentility. Id., act hi, sc. i. Fungoso : If a man had any true melancholy in him, it would make him melancholy to see his yeomanly father cut his neighbours’ throats to make his son a gentleman ; and yet, when he has cut them, he will see his son’s throat cut too, ere he make him a true gentleman indeed, before death cut his own throat. I must be the first head of our house, and yet he will not give me the head till I be made so. Is any man termed a gentleman, that is not always in the fashion ? I would know but that. 1598, B. Jonson, Every Man Out of His Humour, act. iv, sc. i. On January 4, 1699, a judgment was given by the Royal Commissioners in Council at Lyons on the question whether lawyers and doctors were to be regarded as ‘ gentlemen ’. There has been a good deal of evasion of taxation by persons who usurped the title of gentlemen, or noblemen, and there- fore claimed exemption, and this had necessitated several ‘ arrests ’, or decisions, against those thus evading taxation.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0165.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
