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No. 119. Tuesday, July 17, 1711. Addison.
'Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Melibæe, putavi
Stultus ego huic nostræ similem ...'
Virg.
The first and most obvious Reflections which arise in a Man who changes
the City for the Country, are upon the different Manners of the People
whom he meets with in those two different Scenes of Life. By Manners I
do not mean Morals, but Behaviour and Good Breeding, as they shew
themselves in the Town and in the Country.
And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great Revolution
that has happen'd in this Article of Good Breeding. Several obliging
Deferences, Condescensions and Submissions, with many outward Forms and
Ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the
politer Part of Mankind, who lived in Courts and Cities, and
distinguished themselves from the Rustick part of the Species (who on
all Occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual Complaisance
and Intercourse of Civilities. These Forms of Conversation by degrees
multiplied and grew troublesome; the Modish World found too great a
Constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside.
Conversation, like the _Romish_ Religion, was so encumbered with Show
and Ceremony, that it stood in need of a Reformation to retrench its
Superfluities, and restore it to its natural good Sense and Beauty. At
present therefore an unconstrained Carriage, and a certain Openness of
Behaviour, are the Height of Good Breeding. The Fashionable World is
grown free and easie; our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so
modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shews it
self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.
If after this we look on the People of Mode in the Country, we find in
them the Manners of the last Age. They have no sooner fetched themselves
up to the Fashion of the polite World, but the Town has dropped them,
and are nearer to the first State of Nature than to those Refinements
which formerly reign'd in the Court, and still prevail in the Country.
One may now know a Man that never conversed in the World, by his Excess
of Good Breeding. A polite Country 'Squire shall make you as many Bows
in half an Hour, as would serve a Courtier for a Week. There is
infinitely more to do about Place and Precedency in a Meeting of
Justices Wives, than in an Assembly of Dutchesses.
This Rural Politeness is very troublesome to a Man of my Temper, who
generally take the Chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the
Front or in the Rear, as Chance directs. I have known my Friend Sir
Roger's Dinner almost cold before the Company could adjust the
Ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and have heartily pitied
my old Friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his Guests,
as they sat at the several Parts of his Table, that he might drink their
Healths according to their respective Ranks and Qualities. Honest _Will.
Wimble_, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected with
Ceremony, gives me abundance of Trouble in this Particular. Though he
has been fishing all the Morning, he will not help himself at Dinner
'till I am served. When we are going out of the Hall, he runs behind me;
and last Night, as we were walking in the Fields, stopped short at a
Stile till I came up to it, and upon my making Signs to him to get over,
told me, with a serious Smile, that sure I believed they had no Manners
in the Country.
There has happened another Revolution in the Point of Good Breeding,
which relates to the Conversation among Men of Mode, and which I cannot
but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first
Distinctions of a well-bred Man, to express every thing that had the
most remote Appearance of being obscene, in modest Terms and distant
Phrases; whilst the Clown, who had no such Delicacy of Conception and
Expression, clothed his _Ideas_ in those plain homely Terms that are the
most obvious and natural. This kind of Good Manners was perhaps carried
to an Excess, so as to make Conversation too stiff, formal and precise:
for which Reason (as Hypocrisy in one Age is generally succeeded by
Atheism in another) Conversation is in a great measure relapsed into the
first Extream; so that at present several of our Men of the Town, and
particularly those who have been polished in _France_, make use of the
most coarse uncivilized Words in our Language, and utter themselves
often in such a manner as a Clown would blush to hear.
This infamous Piece of Good Breeding, which reigns among the Coxcombs of
the Town, has not yet made its way into the Country; and as it is
impossible for such an irrational way of Conversation to last long among
a People that make any Profession of Religion, or Show of Modesty, if
the Country Gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the
Lurch. Their Good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be
thought a Parcel of lewd Clowns, while they fancy themselves talking
together like Men of Wit and Pleasure.
As the two Points of Good Breeding, which I have hitherto insisted upon,
regard Behaviour and Conversation, there is a third which turns upon
Dress. In this too the Country are very much behind-hand. The Rural
Beaus are not yet got out of the Fashion that took place at the time of
the Revolution, but ride about the Country in red Coats and laced Hats,
while the Women in many Parts are still trying to outvie one another in
the Height of their Head-dresses.
But a Friend of mine, who is now upon the Western Circuit, having
promised to give me an Account of the several Modes and Fashions that
prevail in the different Parts of the Nation through which he passes, I
shall defer the enlarging upon this last Topick till I have received a
Letter from him, which I expect every Post.