University of Virginia Library

TRUE GENTLEMEN.

Mirror for Magist.

I have mentioned some peculiarities of the
Squire in the education of his sons; but I would
not have it thought that his instructions were
directed chiefly to their personal accomplishments.
He took great pains also to form their
minds, and to inculcate, what he calls, good old
English principles; such as are laid down in the
writings of Peacham and his contemporaries.
There is one author of whom he cannot speak
without indignation; which is Chesterfield. He
avers, that he did much, for a time, to injure the
true national character, and to introduce, instead
of open manly sincerity, a hollow perfidious

courtliness. “His maxims,” he affirms, “were
calculated to chill the delightful enthusiasm of
youth; to make them ashamedof that romance
which is the dawn of generous manhood, and to
impart to them a cold polish, and a premature
worldliness.

“Many of Lord Chesterfield's maxims would
make a young man a mere man of pleasure, but
an English gentleman should not be a mere man
of pleasure. He has no right to such selfish
indulgence. His ease, his leisure, his opulence,
are debts due to his country. He should be a
man at all points; simple, frank and courteous;
intelligent, accomplished and informed; upright,
intrepid and disinterested. One that can mingle
among freemen; that can cope with statesmen;
that can champion his country and its rights,
either at home or abroad.

“In a country like England, where there is
such free and unbounded scope for the exertion
of intellect, and where opinion and example
have such weight with the people; every gentleman
of fortune and leisure should feel himself

bound to employ himself in some way towards
promoting the prosperity or glory of the nation.

“In a country where intellect and action are
trammelled and restrained, men of rank and fortune
may become idlers and triflers with impunity;
but an English coxcomb is inexcusable; and this
perhaps is the reason why he is the most offensive
and insupportable coxcomb in the world.”

The Squire, as Frank Bracebridge informs me,
would often hold forth in this manner to his sons,
when they were about leaving the paternal roof;
one to travel abroad; one to go to the army, and
one to the university. He used to have them
with him in the library, which is hung with the
portraits of Sydney, Surrey, Raleigh, Wyat, and
others.

“Look at those models of true English gentlemen,
my sons,” he would say with enthusiasm.
“Those were men that wreathed the graces of
the most delicate and refined taste around the
hardy virtues of the soldier; that mingled
what was gentle and gracious, with what was

hardy and manly; that possessed the true chivalry
of spirit, which is the exalted essence of manhood.
They are the lights by which the youth
of this country should array themselves. They
were the patterns and the idols of their country
at home; they were the illustrators of its dignity
abroad. `Surrey,' says Camden, `was the first
nobleman that illustrated his high birth with the
beauty of learning. He was acknowledged to
be the gallantest man, the politest lover, and the
completest gentleman of his time.' And as to
Wyat, his friend Surrey most amiably testifies
of him, that his person was majestic and beautiful,
his visage `stern and mild;' that he sang
and played the lute with remarkable sweetness;
spoke the foreign languages with grace and
fluency, and possessed an inexhaustible fund of
wit. And see what a high commendation is
passed upon these illustrious friends.

“They were the two chieftains, who having
travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet
and stately measures and style of Italian poetry,
greatly polished our rude and homely manner

of vulgar poetry from what it had been before,
and therefore may be justly called the reformers
of our English poetry and style; and Sir Philip
Sydney, who has left us such monuments of
elegant thought, and generous sentiment, and
who illustrated his chivalrous spirit so gloriously
in the field. And Sir Walter Raleigh,
the elegant courtier, the intrepid soldier, the
enterprizing discoverer, the enlightened philosopher,
the magnanimous martyr. These are
the men for English gentlemen to study. Chesterfield,
with his cold and courtly maxims,
would have chilled and impoverished such spirits.
He would have blighted all the budding
romance of their temperaments. Sydney would
never have written his Arcadia; nor Surrey
have challenged the world in vindication of the
beauties of his Geraldina. “These are the
men, my sons,” the Squire will continue, “that
show to what our national character may be
exalted when its strong and powerful qualities
are duly wrought up and refined. The solidest
bodies are capable of the highest polish;
and there is no character that may be wrought
to a more exquisite and unsullied brightness,
than that of the true English Gentleman.”

When Guy was about to depart for the army,
the Squire again took him aside, and gave him a
long exhortation. He warned him against that
affectation of cool blooded indifference which he
was told was prevalent among the young British
officers, among whom it was a study to “sink
the soldier” in the mere man of fashion. “A soldier,”
said he, “without pride and enthusiasm in
his profession, is a mere sanguinary hireling.
Nothing distinguishes him from the mercenary
bravo but a spirit of patriotism, or a thirst for
glory. It is the fashion now-a-days, my son,”
said he, “to laugh at the spirit of chivalry;
when that spirit is really extinct, the profession
of the soldier becomes a mere trade of blood.”
He then set before him the conduct of Edward
the Black Prince, who is his mirror of chivalry;
valiant, generous, affable, humane; gallant in

the field; but when he came to dwell on his
courtesy towards his prisoner the King of France;
how he received him into his tent rather as a conqueror
than as a captive, attended on him at table
like one of his retinue; rode uncovered beside
him on his entry into London, mounted on a
common palfrey, while his prisoner was mounted
in state on a white steed of stately beauty, the
tears of enthusiasm stood in the old gentleman's
eyes.

Finally, on taking leave, the good Squire put
in his son's hands, as a manual, one of his favourite
old volumes, the life of the Chevalier Bayard
by Godefroy; on a blank page of which he had
written an extract from the Morte D'Arthur,
containing the eulogy of Sir Ector over the body
of Sir Launcelot of the lake, which the Squire
considers as comprising the excellencies of a true
soldier.

“Ah, Sir Launcelot, thou wert head of all
christain knights; now there thou liest, thou wert
never matched of none earthly knight's hands.
And thou wert the curtiest knight that ever bare

shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy
lover that ever bestrood horse; and thou wert the
truest lover of a simple man that ever loved woman;
and thou wert the kindest man that ever
strook with sword; and thou wert the goodliest
person that ever came among the presse of
knights; and thou wert the meekest man and the
gentlest that ever eate in hall among ladies;
and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal
foe that ever put speare in rest.”