Quo virtus, quo ferat error. HOR. De Ar. Poet. 308.
Now say, where virtue stops, and vice begins?
AS any action or posture, long continued, will
distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind
likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual
application to the same set of ideas. It is easy to guess
the trade of an artizan by his knees, his fingers, or
his shoulders: and there are few among men of
the more liberal professions, whose minds do not
carry the brand of their calling, or whose conversation
does not quickly discover to what class of the
community they belong.
These peculiarities have been of great use, in the
general hostility which every part of mankind exercises
against the rest, to furnish insults and sarcasms.
Every art has its dialect, uncouth and ungrateful to
all whom custom has not reconciled to its sound, and
which therefore becomes ridiculous by a slight
misapplication, or unnecessary repetition.
The general reproach with which ignorance
revenges the superciliousness of learning, is that of
pedantry; a censure which every man incurs, who
has at any time the misfortune to talk to those who
cannot understand him, and by which the modest
and timorous are sometimes frighted from the display
of their acquisitions, and the exertion of their
powers.
The name of a pedant is so formidable to young
men when they first sally from their colleges, and
is so liberally scattered by those who mean to boast
their elegance of education, easiness of manners,
and knowledge of the world, that it seems to require
particular consideration; since, perhaps, if it were
once understood, many a heart might be freed from
painful apprehensions, and many a tongue delivered
from restraint.
Pedantry is the unseasonable ostentation of
learning. It may be discovered either in the choice of a
subject, or in the manner of treating it. He is
undoubtedly guilty of pedantry, who, when he has
made himself master of some abstruse and uncultivated
part of knowledge, obtrudes his remarks and
discoveries upon those whom he believes unable to
judge of his proficiency, and from whom, as he
cannot fear contradiction, he cannot properly expect
applause.
To this error the student is sometimes betrayed
by the natural recurrence of the mind to its common
employment, by the pleasure which every man receives
from the recollection of pleasing images, and
the desire of dwelling upon topicks, on which he
knows himself able to speak with justness. But
because we are seldom so far prejudiced in favour of
each other, as to search out for palliations, this failure
of politeness is imputed always to vanity; and the
harmless collegiate, who, perhaps, intended
entertainment and instruction, or at worst only spoke
without sufficient reflection upon the character of
his hearers, is censured as arrogant or overbearing,
and eager to extend his renown, in contempt of the
convenience of society and the laws of conversation.
All discourse of which others cannot partake, is
not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted
to pleasure and entertainment, but what never fails
to excite very keen resentment, an insolent assertion
of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened
understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only
heard with weariness, but malignity; and those who
conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge,
never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously
it was exerted.
To avoid this dangerous imputation, scholars
sometimes divest themselves with too much haste
of their academical formality, and in their
endeavours to accommodate their notions and their style
to common conceptions, talk rather of any thing
than of that which they understand, and sink into
insipidity of sentiment and meanness of expression.
There prevails among men of letters an opinion,
that all appearance of science is particularly hateful
to women; and that therefore, whoever desires to
be well received in female assemblies, must qualify
himself by a total rejection of all that is serious,
rational, or important; must consider argument or
criticism, as perpetually interdicted; and devote all
his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to
compliment.
Students often form their notions of the present
generation from the writings of the past, and are
not very early informed of those changes which the
gradual diffusion of knowledge, or the sudden
caprice of fashion, produces in the world. Whatever
might be the state of female literature in the last
century, there is now no longer any danger lest the
scholar should want an adequate audience at the
tea-table; and whoever thinks it necessary to
regulate his conversation by antiquated rules, will be
rather despised for his futility than caressed for his
politeness.
To talk intentionally in a manner above the
comprehension of those whom we address, is unquestionable
pedantry; but surely complaisance requires,
that no man should, without proof, conclude his
company incapable of following him to the highest
elevation of his fancy, or the utmost extent of his
knowledge. It is always safer to err in favour of
others than of ourselves, and therefore we seldom
hazard much by endeavouring to excel.
It ought at least to be the care of learning, when
she quits her exaltation, to descend with dignity.
Nothing is more despicable than the airiness and
jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and
solitary meditation. To trifle agreeably is a secret
which schools cannot impart; that gay negligence
and vivacious levity, which charm down resistance
whenever they appear, are never attainable by him
who, having spent his first years among the dust
of libraries, enters late into the gay world with an
unpliant attention and established habits.
It is observed in the panegyrick on Fabricus the
mechanist, that, though forced by publick employments
into mingled conversation, he never lost the
modesty and seriousness of the convent, nor drew
ridicule upon himself by an affected imitation of
fashionable life. To the same praise every man
devoted to learning ought to aspire. If he attempts
the softer arts of pleasing, and endeavours to learn
the graceful bow and the familiar embrace, the
insinuating accent and the general smile, he will
lose the respect due to the character of learning,
without arriving at the envied honour of doing any
thing with elegance and facility.
Theophrastus was discovered not to be a native
of Athens, by so strict an adherence to the Attick
dialect, as shewed that he had learned it not by
custom, but by rule. A man not early formed to habitual
elegance, betrays, in like manner, the effects of his
education, by an unnecessary anxiety of behaviour.
It is as possible to become pedantick, by fear of
pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill-timed civility.
There is no kind of impertinence more justly
censurable than his who is always labouring to level
thoughts to intellects higher than his own; who
apologizes for every word which his own narrowness
of converse inclines him to think unusual;
keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible
restraint; is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by
needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his
own abilities, lest weak eyes should be dazzled with
their lustre.