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.
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![Lucas de Penna gives the following definition : ‘ Nobilitas nihil aliud est quam habitus operatioque virtutis in homine,^ Lib. xii, De Dignitatibus, fo. cclxiv, ed. 1509. Compare the remarks of Seneea. ‘ Quis est generosus ? Ad virtutem bene a natura compositus. Non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus. . . . Animus facit nobilem : cui ex quacumque conditione supra fortunam licet surgere.’ ^ Epistol, xliv. Osorius, Bishop of Silves^ whom Dupin calls the Cicero of Portugal, uses very similar language to that of our author in his treatise De Nobilitate Civili. He says, ‘ Nihil aliud est nobilitas quam virtutis praestantia in aliqua gente con- stituta’.^—Lib. i, p. 15, ed. 1552, Osorius says : ‘ Jam, quantum fuit in nobis, vim et originem nobilitatis explicavimus, ejus ortum ab ilia natural! indole repetentes maximis animis innata quae quidem, si excitetur et temporis etiam vetustate confirmetur, perficit ilium uni- versi generis splendorem et claritatem.’—De Nobilitote Civili, 1552, p. 38. [As far as I am able I have set forth the power and origin of nobility, tracing its rise from that natural endowment innate in the greatest minds ; if this is called out and is confirmed by length of time it causes the lustre and distinction of the entire family.] Segar, King at Arms, says : ‘ Some gentlemen doe hold that dignitie by prescrip- tion, not hauing other proofe then that the}?- and their an- cestors were called Gentlemen time out of minde. And for 1 Nobility is nothing else but the habit and working of virtue in a man. 2 Who is a gentleman ? One naturally well-disposed towards virtue. It is not a hall filled with time-darkened portraits that ennobles one, but one’s disposition which may rise above one’s fortune out of any condition of life. 3 Nobility is nothing else but pre-eminence of virtue with which some people are endowed.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
