Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer Part 10

A good mien in a court will carry a man greater lengths than a good understanding in any other place. We see a world of pains taken, and the best years of life spent in collecting a set of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life, and, after all the man so qualified shall hesitate in his speech to a good suit of clothes, and want common sense before an agreeable woman. Hence it is that wisdom, valour, justice, and learning cannot keep a man in countenance that is possessed of these excellences, if he wants that inferior art of life and behaviour called good breeding. A man endowed with great perfections, without this, is like one who has his pockets full of gold but always wants change for his ordinary occasions.

Will Courtly is a living instance of this truth, and has had the same education which I am giving my nephew. He never spoke a thing but what was said before, and yet can converse with the wittiest men without being ridiculous. Among the learned, he does not appear ignorant; nor with the wise, indiscreet. Living in conversation from his infancy makes him nowhere at a loss; and a long familiarity with the persons of men is, in a manner, of the same service to him as if he knew their arts.

As ceremony is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance, so good breeding is an expedient to make fools and wise men equals.

My three nephews, whom, in June last twelve-month, I disposed of according to their several capacities and inclinations; the first to the university, the second to a merchant, and the third to a woman of quality as her page, by my invitation dined with me to-day. It is my custom often, when I have a mind to give myself a more than ordinary cheerfulness, to invite a certain young gentlewoman of our neighbourhood to make one of the company. She did me that favour this day. The presence of a beautiful woman of honour, to minds which are not trivially disposed, displays an alacrity which is not to be communicated by any other object. It was not unpleasant to me, to look into her thoughts of the company she was in. She smiled at the party of pleasure I had thought of for her, which was composed of an old man and three boys. My scholar, my citizen, and myself, were very soon neglected; and the young courtier, by the bow he made to her at her entrance, engaged her observation without a rival. I observed the Oxonian not a little discomposed at this preference, while the trader kept his eye upon his uncle. My nephew Will had a thousand secret resolutions to break in upon the discourse of his younger brother, who gave my fair companion a full account of the fas.h.i.+on, and what was reckoned most becoming to this complexion, and what sort of habit appeared best upon the other shape.

He proceeded to acquaint her, who of quality was well or sick within the bills of mortality, and named very familiarly all his lady's acquaintance, not forgetting her very words when he spoke of their characters. Besides all this he had a load of flattery; and upon her inquiring what sort of woman Lady Lovely was in her person, "Really, madam," says the jackanapes, "she is exactly of your height and shape; but as you are fair, she is a brown woman." There was no enduring that this fop should outs.h.i.+ne us all at this unmerciful rate; therefore I thought fit to talk to my young scholar concerning his studies; and, because I would throw his learning into present service, I desired him to repeat to me the translation he had made of some tender verses in Theocritus. He did so, with an air of elegance peculiar to the college to which I sent him. I made some exceptions to the turn of the phrases; which he defended with much modesty, as believing in that place the matter was rather to consult the softness of a swain's pa.s.sion than the strength of his expressions. It soon appeared that Will had outstripped his brother in the opinion of our young lady. A little poetry, to one who is bred a scholar, has the same effect that a good carriage of his person has on one who is to live in courts. The favour of women is so natural a pa.s.sion, that I envied both the boys their success in the approbation of my guest; and I thought the only person invulnerable was my young trader. During the whole meal, I could observe in the children a mutual contempt and scorn of each other, arising from their different way of life and education, and took that occasion to advertise them of such growing distastes, which might mislead them in their future life, and disappoint their friends, as well as themselves, of the advantages which might be expected from the diversity of their professions and interests.

The prejudices which are growing up between these brothers from the different ways of education are what create the most fatal misunderstandings in life. But all distinctions of disparagement, merely from our circ.u.mstances, are such as will not bear the examination of reason. The courtier, the trader, and the scholar, should all have an equal pretension to the denomination of a gentleman. That tradesman who deals with me in a commodity which I do not understand, with uprightness, has much more right to that character than the courtier who gives me false hopes, or the scholar who laughs at my ignorance.

The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circ.u.mstances, but to his behaviour in them. For this reason I shall ever, as far as I am able, give my nephews such impressions as shall make them value themselves rather as they are useful to others, than as they are conscious of merit in themselves. There are no qualities for which we ought to pretend to the esteem of others but such as render us serviceable to them: for "free men have no superiors but benefactors."