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.

    513/542 (page 497)
    learning to the children of mean© men. To whom Richard Pace replied : Then you and other noble men must be con- tent that your children may winde their homes and keep their hawkes, while the children of meane men doe manage matters of Estate. Camden, Remaines Concerning Britaine (1637), P- -/T If Adam should refuse to dig, and now If Gentry hold it scorn to hold the plow. If Eve should gad abroad and leave the Spindle, If Ladies do refuse to use the Thimhle, Sure, then that question would not be your notes Amongst us all sure none would bear good Coats. For it is industry that gains us Riches, And Riches gains us Honour, Coat and Briches Virtue and Learning, and honest Parents, can, With Spade and Spindle, make a Gentleman. 1661, S. Morgan, The Sphere of Gentry, p. loi. You know he is rish. He has terty tousant duckat, and derefore Is honest Gen till man. Sir W. D’Avenant, The Play-House to he Lett, ii, i {Works, 1673, ii, 77). If the Czar [Peter the Great] had not been bred abroad one would not have taken him to be what we call a gentleman, especially an English Gentleman ; for do we ever meet with an English gentleman that does not think himself wise enough and learned enough [whereas the Czar deplored his ignorance]. Do not we English gentlemen think that to be a good sportsman is the perfection of education, and to speak good dog language and good horse language is far above Greek and Latin. . . . I met with one of this sort of gentlemen once that was very bright upon the subject with me. What occasion has a gentleman to trouble himself (said he) with books, and to spend his time poring over old historyes ? 1729, D. Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman (ed. Biilbring), p. 38. A gentleman is every man who with a tolerable suit of clothes, a sword by his side,, and a watch and snuff-box in his Ia.G» K K