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FOR THE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

A STUDENTS DIARY........WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN?

AN amusing controversy took
place this evening, at my fire-side,
on this important question. One
was busy in examining the matter
etymologically, and historically.
Another attempted to settle the
point of prevailing custom, and
the general result was, that nothing
was more vague and equivocal than
this term.

“Gentlemen,” says an innkeeper
to a mixed company of sailors and
taylors, whites and blacks, whom
a stage coach had brought to dine
at his house, “the stage is ready,
and you have to pay me half a dollar
a piece.”

The curtain falls at the theatre,
and a performer steps forth, and
addresses his motley audience thus:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, to-mor-
row night will be presented,” &c.
&c.

A man at an inn, who, in a mixed
company, carves a pig or goose
with dexterity and ease, who carries
the glass to his mouth, without
hurry or confusion; who is careful
to supply the wants of all present,

from the dish before him; who
speaks mildly and complaisantly to
the waiter; who finds no fault with
any thing produced; who is dressed
in a sattin waistcoat; a black cloth
coat, without rent or patch; clean
linen and shining boots, that man
is applauded by his companions as
a true gentleman.

If you listen to the conversation
of a well dressed woman, you will
probably catch such sentences as
these.... “The gentlemen are so
apt to flatter us poor girls”....“We
move, dress, and talk, for no other
purpose than to please the gentle-
men”....“ You gentlemen have such
advantages over us; gentlemen can
get rich by their own exertions;
can pursue any trade, and aspire
to any office in society that pleases
them.”

What kind of a man is that,
whom you overhear in a coffee-
house, claiming from another “the
treatment (or satisfaction) due to
a gentleman?”

A man justifies his avenging an
imagined wrong, with a pistol rather

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than a cudgel, by acknowledging
his adversary to be a gentleman.

“Pray,” says a black girl, usher-
ing a couple of gallants of her own
colour, into the kitchen, “take
seats, gentlemen.

Now, in all these cases, there is
doubtless the propriety that flows
from custom and usage; and yet,
the persons that are thus denomi-
nated gentlemen, have no circum-
stance of age, rank, education, or
profession in common with each
other. They are alike, in short,
only in two circumstances: that of
sex, and that of the respectful in-
tention of those who use it. A
gentleman, is a title which merely
implies a desire to please and flatter
those to whom it is applied.

In some parts of Europe, there
are permanent distinctions, origi-
nating in birth, between gentlemen
and others. The son of a butcher,
whatever be his actual situation,
or personal accomplishments, will
frequently have his claim to this
title disputed by those who know
his pedigree: and yet, the two pro-
fessions of clergyman and soldier,
however incompatible in other re-
spects, give, it seems, to those who
embrace them, the rank of gen-
tleman.

Lindley Murray.

It is certainly remarkable that
the natives of America, who have
arrived at eminence in arts and
literature, have chiefly done so in
a foreign country. The adage,
“that a prophet has no honour in
his own country,” is not strictly
applicable to these cases, because
America is justly proud of these
her sons, and affords them every
Sort of patronage and countenance
consistent with her situation; but,
to obtain this credit with their coun-
trymen, it seems previously neces-
sary to have commenced their
career, and to have established
their fame in Europe. This is a
kind of test and recommendation
which our punctilio demands.

It would be worth while to form
a list of those who have done honour

to their county in foreign climes;
among those the names of Benja-
min Thompson and Lindley Murray
deserve a conspicuous place. The
latter has had the honour of con-
tributing more essentially to the
education of Englishmen, and to
the settlement and elucidation of
the English language, than any
person living. His grammatical
treatises bid fair to gain an unri-
valled and permanent pre-emi-
nence; and his collections for the
use of scholars, have already ex-
cluded most others from seminaries
of instruction.

I was shewed to-night a letter
from him, dated May, 1799, in
which he gives the following ac-
count of the success which has
crowned his efforts as an author:

“My literary labours,” says he,
“were the offspring of a sense of
duty, and have amused many an
hour that might otherwise have
been languid, and perhaps weari-
some. It affords me great satis-
faction to find that the public appro-
bation of these works has far
exceeded my most sanguine expec-
tations. In four years there have
been printed of the Abridgment,
the Grammar, the Exercises, and
Key, forty-six thousand copies;
eight thousand of “The English
Reader,” and eleven thousand of
“The Power of Religion.” The
Grammar and exercises have been
so well approved, and are in such
extensive use, that an eminent
house in London, in the book trade,
offered me 700l. for the copy-right,
and afterwards 350l. for that of the
English Reader. These offers I
have accepted. I had before sold
the Abridgement for 100l. Thou
wilt agree that the copy-rights are
well sold, especially as thereby my
wish for a still more extensive and
permanent use, will probably be
accomplished.

“As this, prima, facie, carries
with it an interested appearance,
it seems incumbent on me to inform
thee, that, as I wrote from disin-
terested motives, I have appropri-
ated the whole 1350l. (about 6000

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dollars) for the benefit of others,
without applying any of it to my
private use.

Female Learning.

I have been listening, to-night,
to a very ingenious defence of un-
learned women, by Miss *****. I
had ventured to insinuate against
her, as a fault, an indifference to
books; a want of curiosity; and
had-chiefly insisted on this defect,
not as disparaging her character in
the eyes of others, but as depriv-
ing her of a source of occupation
and amusement the most rational,
commodious, and efficacious of all
others.

To this censure she replied by
appealing to every one's experience,
whether a passion for reading does
not necessarily encroach upon, and
impair that attention to domestic
duties, and regard for personal
decorum, without which, no woman
can be either useful, happy, or
respectable. It is infinitely better,
she thinks, to have no taste but for
domestic affairs, than to have no
taste but for literature. It is im-
possible for human creatures to hit
the true medium: to combine and
compound various tastes and incli-
nations in such due proportions,
that each shall be indulged to the
exact extent, and at the very time
which propriety allows. Books
must either please us too much,
and, of consequence, absorb our
attention unseasonably and exces-
sively, or they must fail to please
at all.

To say truth, this conversation
arose from my observing my friend's
indifference to a book which I had
lent her. I expected to find her
deeply engaged in it this evening,
whereas she was quietly employed
with her needle. It seems she had
taken up the book, and after reading
a few pages with little interest, had
laid it aside for the needle, which
pleased her much better. She
maintains very strenuously, that if
she had a stronger inclination to
reading than to sewing, the latter
employment, however enjoined by

duty and necessity, would be ne-
glected, and congratulates herself
on finding pleasure in that to which
propriety enjoins her to attend.

There, is surely a great deal of
truth in these remarks of my friend.
It is not, strictly speaking, impos-
sible to combine business and study
in just proportions; and some ex-
amples, no doubt there are, in
either sex, of persons whom a pas-
sion for study never seduces a
moment from the rigid line of their
domestic and social duty. Though
the possibility of such characters
cannot be denied, I must aver that
I never met with any such. I never
saw man or woman, smitten with
a passion for books, whose happi-
ness and usefulness were not some-
what injured by it; but the injury
is much greater, and more palpable
in women than in men. The do-
mestic sphere being appropriated
to the female, her inattention and
unskilfulness produces the most in-
jury; whereas her prudence and
economy may obviate many incon-
venient and disgusting effects of a
studious disposition in the master
of a family.

A woman who hates reading, is
not necessarily a wise and prudent
economist; and this estimable cha-
racter is sometimes, though rarely
found in a woman of sound judg-
ment, and liberal curiosity. This
curiosity is not, however, in any
case that I know of, just so ardent
as to make books acceptable when-
ever there is leisure to attend to
them. There are many hours in
the life of such women, which drag
on heavily or mournfully, for want
of literary curiosity.

I beseech you my friend, for it is
probable you will sometime see this,
not to consider this verdict as limi-
ted to you, or to your sex. It ex-
tends to all human beings, and I
am half inclined to revoke the con-
cession I just now made, that such
a curiosity, as will fill up, and no
more than fill up every truly leisure
moment, can possibly exist.

One of the most accomplished
women of the last age (intellectually

―248―

considered) was Lady M. W. Mon-
tague, but the stories of her per-
sonal indelicacies are well known.

Women, like men, are known
to the world at large, chiefly by
their writings. Such, therefore,
being obliged to handle the pen
frequently, have some apology for
inattention to other objects. Of
that numerous class of females,
who have cultivated their minds
with science and literature, without
publishing their labours, and who
consequently are unknown to gene-
ral inquirers; how many have
preserved the balance immoveable
between the opposite demands of
the kitchen, the drawing room, the
nursery, and the library? We may
safely answer from our own expe-
rience, not one.

Antiques.

I was shewn, to-night, a frag-
ment of a coverlet, which once be-
longed to William Penn. The old
lady who produced it, gave me a
very circumstantial history of this
relique. It seems, the coverlet,
very old, and very ragged, was
taken by a curious person from the
very bed in which the patriarch of
Pennsylvania lay, and was distri-
buted in small strips among her
particular friends.

American antiquities, if any
such things there be, chiefly relate
to monuments of those nations who
occupied America before the Euro-
pean discoveries. The most per-
manent, conspicuous, and remark-
able of these, are undoubtedly the
mounds or ramparts scattered over
the western country. These have
two qualities to recommend them,
in the highest degree, to curiosity,
and that is the remoteness of their
origin, and the mysteriousness of
their design. Other monuments
consist of the weapons and domes-
tic utensils, which are made of du-
rable materials, and will probably
continue to be found, or to be pre-
served, some thousands of years
hence.

The spirit of curiosity is exactly
in proportion to the remoteness and

the mysteriousness (and the latter
is one of the consequences of the
former) of the object: so that the
reliques of Indian manners will go
on acquiring value from age to age:
a greater number will be busy in
collecting and describing them:
and a stone, tobacco-pipe, or arrow-
head, will, in time, become of
much more value than its weight
in gold.

Time will produce another spe-
cies of antiques, in the reliques of
those generations which have passed
away since the colonization of Ame-
rica. Two centuries have almost
elapsed, since our ancestors began
to migrate hither, and this period
will admit of a succession of ten
generations at least. There are a
great number of books, and of do-
mestic utensils, which were manu-
factured in Europe, and were
brought hither for their immediate
accommodation, by the early colo-
nists. These are greatly prized by
their descendants. This city (Phi-
ladelphia) which was the earliest
settlement of the English in this
state, contains a great number of
these reliques, and the antiquarian
spirit glows very strongly in some
bosoms.

Besides the coverlet, Mrs. *****
shewed me a sampler worked by
her great grandmother, in the year
1669, in Holburn; a silver spoon,
with which all the children of the
family have been fed, since the one
that was born in the year 1687, on
the passage from the Thames to
the Delaware; and a Beza's Tes-
tament, which was one of the few
of his moveables rescued by an an-
cestor of hers from the great fire of
London, in 1665.

Some people may smile at the
spirit which affixes value to objects
of this nature; and these in whom
the sight of these monuments of
times past, awaken no solemn or
agreeable emotions, will naturally
throw the sampler into the fire, the
spoon into the crucible, and the
Bible to the cook; but to me, and
such as me, who cannot handle or
view such articles as I have just

―249―

described, without a thousand pleas-
ing and elevating thoughts, they
will always be precious and sacred.
To become an antiquary, I only
want the leisure and the opportu-
nity required.