DEFOE'S " COMPLEAT ENGLISH GENTLEMAN."*
THIS treatise was written in 1729, and is one of Defoe's last works. It appears now for the first time in print, admirably edited by a German scholar, who dates his preface from Voerde, in Westphalia. He quaintly calls this preface, " Forewords," and we cannot help thinking that in doing so he has run counter to the advice of Dr. Furnivall and others who have helped him " to improve his English." This, however, is, luckily, a point of no importance. For Dr. Biilbring's preface, or introduction rather, is written throughout in excellent English. It fills eighty pages, and does the author great credit. It is elaborated with the painstaking industry of a German literary man. But it is as lucid as it is learned, and is full of sound, fair, and judicious criticism. The treatise itself was pur- chased in 1859 by Mr. James Crossley for £75 8s., and was bought in 1885 by the British Museum at the Crossley sale. John Forster was the first to mention its existence, in his Biographical Essays (1860), and fuller particulars were made public by William Lee, in his Life of Defoe (1869). Subsequent writers, says Dr. Biilbring, have added nothing. So he contents himself with quoting a remark written by Crossley on the fly-leaf of the MS.: " For an admirer of Defoe this volume is a treasure ;" and with citing, further on, Mr. Lee's opinion that " Mr. Crossley would do great service to all lovers of pure English literature if he could be persuaded to publish this valuable work of Defoe." He then, with modest confidence, expresses a hope that, as Mr. Lee's wish is now fulfilled, readers will share his opinion. This hope is not unreasonable, yet if The Compleat English Gentleman had been published without the name of its author, it would scarcely have found any readers. For the title is a misnomer, and the error which Defoe combats in its pages has long been exploded. That error was the belief which the vast majority of English country gentlemen then entertained con- cerning the heirs of their estates. It was held that the eldest son needed no education whatever, seeing that it was folly for one who had all that wealth could give at his command, to do anything else than enjoy himself. He was to stay at home, to shun the perils of warfare and London, to eat, drink, and be merry. The result in many cases is known from Macaulay and Fielding, and is vigorously summed up by an anonymous " Gentleman of the Middle Temple," in a book published in the same year as that in which this treatise was written. " There is not," he wrote, "a more worthless and despicable animal than a true country booby, who, calling himself a country gentleman, spends his life only in eating, drinking, and sleeping : and dis- tinguishes himself in nothing from the brutes, but only that, whereas they keep within the bounds of nature, he prides him- self in the excesses." But there were many, very many country gentlemen who were something very different from " true country boobies." They were good fathers, good masters, and good neighbours, and often felt, without clearly understanding, the burden which ignorance had laid upon them. It is to them that this treatise is mainly addressed, and it may not unfairly be described as a vindication of learning. The fault which mars it most is prolixity, concerning which Dr. Biilbring writes as follows : " The length of this work and the very deliberate
• The Compleat English Gentleman. By Daniel Defoe. Edited by Sail D. 1301bring, ILA., Ph.D. London; David Nutt. 1890.
evolution of the argument will probably deter many readers, and I cannot defend the many superfluous repetitions of the same ideas, which are sometimes, moreover, superficial and commonplace." He calmly asks us, as an excuse for these repetitions, to remember that Defoe was not writing "for us hasty and fastidious moderns." An excuse of this kind will not hold water; but this treatise, long-winded as it is, may be read very complacently by an ordinary reader. This is due, of course, to the author's beautiful style, and to his vivacious common-sense,—due also to the frequency with which he enlivens the monotony of his argument with little stories, dia- logues, and amusing anecdotes. One of the dialogues fills twenty pages, and is a masterpiece of its kind. Sir A. B., one of the interlocutors, was "a gentleman of a great estate and of a mighty ancient family." He was also " the best humoured, best bred gentleman in the world, so kind, so courteous, so charitable, the best neighbour, the best landlord, the best master." All the country prayed for him, and to him, so to speak, for his character moved every one "to worship and adore him." Well, this phcenix of country gentlemen, having built a noble mansion-house, invites a man of letters to inspect it, and point out its deficiencies. His friend said promptly that some good pictures were wanting. The host replied that his great staircase was full of such, and was surprised and disgusted to find that each and every one of his paintings was a worthless daub. Was there anything else lacking P Yes, a library. Sir A. B. explained that his father, Sir Anthony's library consisted of a great Bible, a family register, three map-books, and " the old ballad of Chevy Chase' set to very good music." He tarns at first a deaf ear to his friend's advice about buying some, because " I hate," he says, " anything that looks like a cheat upon the world.
What should I do with books that never read half an hour in the year P " He yields, however, at last, and buys half a bookseller's stock of well-bound books in Cheapside. He is warned that most of them are duplicates ; but as he does not know the meaning of that word, he insists upon having his own way, and does not find out what he has -done, till his friend revisits him.
It is needless to say that Defoe has nothing really to argue against. It is right to admit that he has most care- fully recorded the arguments which were used in his day by men who were anything but fools in defence of heavy ignorance. From a historical point of view, these arguments were well worth preserving. If any able novelist should elect to write about the men whom Defoe lectures so severely in this book, he will find in it all the information he would require. It is pleasant to add that this information is con- veyed in a way which does infinite credit to the author's heart.
He studiously avoids sarcasm, and treats his victims, if we may so call them, as friends to be persuaded, and not as enemies to be abused. To sum up our impressions : The Compleat English Gentleman is a book which was well worth printing. We have already noticed the ability with which it is edited, and have only now to add a few sentences about the author's style and spelling. So far as the style is con- cerned, we may let him speak for himself. It is admitted on all sides that he nearly touches the high-water mark of English prose. And what that means may be inferred from the following passage, which we quote with sincere pleasure :—
"As in all languages," he says, "there is a beauty of style, a cadence and harmony in the expression, so in the English much more than in any other vulgar speech in the world. The late Earl of Roscommon confirms my opinion, and I need no better a testimonial. Speaking of the French, which was boasted of at that time as a polite and beautiful language, he says :—
For who did ever in French authors see The comprehensive English energie ?. The weighty bullion of one sterling line,
Drawn to French wire would through whole pages shine.' "
Defoe's spelling is difficult to handle. Throughout this treatise he insists upon no point with more zest than the dis- grace which an English gentleman incurred through being unable to spell correctly. " How dull did it look," he says, " for a gentleman of sense, and of tolerable good discourse, too, upon an accidental disaster in his family but the other day to write to his friend that there was a mollinkolli accidense be happen'd in his house : it seems one of the servants had drowned himself." Yet his own spelling is, to put it mildly, eccentric. He writes, inter alia, " hormony," " propogate," and " phylosophy." Yet the head and front of the charge which he brings against " gentlemen of fortunes and families," is "that they can't spell their mother-tongue." Did he suppose that foreign importations into that tongue might be spelt at random P It is known that, having neither Latin nor Greek, he was not a scholar, though a great many pages are devoted ia this book to prove that he was. We can only suggest that an article on "English as she was Spelled" in Defoe's time might prove instructive, and would certainly prove amusing.
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