The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer.

  • Palmer, Abram Smythe.
Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

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.

    22/542 (page 6)
    see in these tongues mansuetus, comis, liberalis, perhumanus, and sueh more epithets and their abstracts as may expresse a noble spirit.’—Titles of Honor, p. 864, ed. 1631. \_See Sir T. Elyot, Book of the Gouvernour (ed. Croft), vol. ii, p. 27.] Nothing in a woman can be more excellent than courtesy. And neither are the wretched common people deceived even in this word, for they believe that courtesy is no other than liberality ; for liberality is an especial, and not a general courtesy. Courtesy is all one with honesty, modesty, decency ; and because the virtues and good manners were the custom in Courts anciently, as now the opposite is the custom, this word was taken from the Courts ; which word, if it should now be taken from the Courts, especially of Italy, would and could express no other than baseness. 1310, Dante, The Banquet, p. 77 (trans. Sayer). Of Court, it seemes, men Courtesie doe call For that it there most useth to abound : And well beseemeth that in Prince’s hall That vertue should be plentifully found Which of all goodly manners is the ground. And roote of civill conversation. Spenser, Faerie Queene, VI, i, i. Shepherd, I take thy word. And trust thy honest offer’d courtesy. Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls And courts of princes, where it first was named. And yet is most pretended. Milton, Comus, 11. 326-31. It is a mistake to think That he is courtly [old Ger. hufsch] ^ at all times, Who is noble in the world : To do well, that is courtliness, 1 Hufsch, courtly, courteous. Mid. H. Ger. hovesch. Mod. Ger. hofisch, from hof, a court.