I was afraid, I should not be able to secure to myself the good
opinion, which your Lordship was pleased to express of my _knowledge of
human nature_. This mortifying experience puts an end to my adventurous
flights, at once; and forces me back again into the narrower walk,
which your Lordship seems willing to prescribe to me.
Be it then, as you insist, that an _English_ gentleman’s care should
be, to accomplish himself in the school of reason and civility; to fit
himself, in short, for that state which your Lordship dignifies with
the name of _natural_. Still I declare against his _European_ travels.
The manners of each state are peculiar to itself, and best adapted to
it. The civility, that prevails in some places on the continent, may be
more studied and exquisite than ours; but not therefore to be preferred
before it. Those refinements have had their birth from correspondent
policies; to which they are well suited, and from which they receive
their whole value. In the more absolute monarchies of _Europe_, all are
courtiers. In our freer monarchy, all should be citizens. Let then the
arts of address and insinuation flourish in _France_. Without them,
what merit can pretend to success, what talents open the way to favour
and distinction? But let a manlier character prevail here. We have a
prince to serve, not to flatter: we have a country to embrace, not a
court to adore: we have, in a word, objects to pursue, and interests
to promote, from the care of which our finer neighbours are happily
disburthened.
Let our countrymen then be indulged in the plainness, nay, the
roughness of their manners: but let them atone for this defect, by
their useful sense, their superior knowledge, their public spirit, and,
above all, by their unpolished integrity.
Would your Lordship’s favourite Athens have done wisely (or rather did
it do so?) to exchange the simplicity and manly freedom of its ancient
character, for the fopperies and prostrations of the Asiatic courts?
Nay, would the softer accomplishments of Athens, in its best state,
have done well in a citizen of _Sparta_?
Your Lordship sees what to conclude from these hints. For my own part,
my Lord, I esteem politeness, in the reasonable sense of the word, as
the ornament, nay more, as the duty of humanity. But, under colour of
making this valuable acquisition, let no culture of the human mind, no
instruction in letters and business, no discipline of the passions, no
improvements of the head and heart, be neglected. Let the foundation
of these essential virtues be laid deep in the usual forms of our
_public_, if you will, or (as you know I had rather) in the way of
a more attentive and moral, because _private_, education. Let the
commerce of the world, in due time and under due regulation, succeed to
this care; and your Lordship will find your young gentleman as fully
accomplished in all respects as, in reason, you should wish to see him.
And for proof of it, if I were not restrained, by a common and perhaps
false delicacy, from bringing the names of our friends and acquaintance
into example in conversation, how many instances of this sort could I
point to, in such men as your Lordship has known in your own country,
and is most disposed to reverence; and some of them, possibly, in your
own family!