From my own Apartment, June 16.
The vigilance, the anxiety, the tenderness, which I have for the good
people of England, I am persuaded, will in time be much commended; but
I doubt whether they will be ever rewarded. However, I must go on
cheerfully in my work of reformation: that being my great design, I
am studious to prevent my labours increasing upon me; therefore am
particularly observant of the temper and inclinations of childhood and
youth, that we may not give vice and folly supplies from the growing
generation. It is hardly to be imagined how useful this study is, and
what great evils or benefits arise from putting us in our tender years
to what we are fit or unfit; therefore on Tuesday last, with a design
to sound their inclinations, I took three lads, who are under my
guardianship, a-rambling, in a hackney-coach, to show them the town;
as the lions, the tombs, Bedlam, and the other places which are
entertainments to raw minds because they strike forcibly on the fancy.
The boys are brothers, one of sixteen, the other of fourteen, the other
of twelve. The first was his father's darling, the second his mother's,
and the third is mine, who am their uncle. Mr. William is a lad of true
genius; but, being at the upper end of a great school, and having all
the boys below him, his arrogance is insupportable. If I begin to show
a little of my Latin, he immediately interrupts: "Uncle, under favour,
that which you say is not understood in that manner." "Brother," says my
boy Jack, "you do not show your manners much in contradicting my uncle
Isaac!" "You queer cur," says Mr. William, "do you think my uncle takes
any notice of such a dull rogue as you are?" Mr. William goes on, "He
is the most stupid of all my mother's children; he knows nothing of his
book; when he should mind that, he is hiding or hoarding his taws and
marbles, or laying up farthings. His way of thinking is, four-and-twenty
farthings make sixpence, and two sixpences a shilling; two shillings
and sixpence half a crown, and two half crowns five shillings. So within
these two months the close hunks has scraped up twenty shillings, and we
will make him spend it all before he comes home." Jack immediately
claps his hands into both pockets, and turns as pale as ashes. There
is nothing touches a parent, and such I am to Jack, so nearly as a
provident conduct. This lad has in him the true temper for a good
husband, a kind father, and an honest executor. All the great people you
see make considerable figures on the exchange, in court, and sometimes
in senates, are such as in reality have no greater faculty than what
may be called human instinct, which is a natural tendency to their
own preservation, and that of their friends, without being capable of
striking out of the road for adventures. There is Sir William Scrip was
of this sort of capacity from his childhood; he has brought the country
round him, and makes a bargain better than Sir Harry Wildfire, with all
his wit and humour. Sir Harry never wants money but he comes to Scrip,
laughs at him half an hour, and then gives bond for the other thousand.
The close men are incapable of placing merit anywhere but in their
pence, and therefore gain it; while others, who have larger capacities,
are diverted from the pursuit by enjoyments which can be supported only
by that cash which they despise; and therefore are in the end slaves to
their inferiors both in fortune and understanding. I once heard a man of
excellent sense observe, that more affairs in the world failed by being
in the hands of men of too large capacities for their business, than by
being in the conduct of such as wanted abilities to execute them. Jack,
therefore, being of a plodding make, shall be a citizen: and I design
him to be the refuge of the family in their distress, as well as their
jest in prosperity. His brother Will shall go to Oxford with all speed,
where, if he does not arrive at being a man of sense, he will soon be
informed wherein he is a coxcomb. There is in that place such a true
spirit of raillery and humour, that if they cannot make you a wise man,
they will certainly let you know you are a fool; which is all my cousin
wants, to cease to be so. Thus having taken these two out of the way,
I have leisure to look at my third lad. I observe in the young rogue a
natural subtlety of mind, which discovers itself rather in forbearing
to declare his thoughts on any occasion, than in any visible way of
exerting himself in discourse. For which reason I will place him where,
if he commits no faults, he may go further than those in other stations,
though they excel in virtues. The boy is well fashioned, and will easily
fall into a graceful manner; wherefore I have a design to make him a
page to a great lady of my acquaintance; by which means he will be well
skilled in the common modes of life, and make a greater progress in the
world by that knowledge than with the greatest qualities without it.
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 fashion, 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 outshine 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 passion 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 passion, 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 circumstances, 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
circumstances, 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."