m
we address, is unquestionable pedantry; but surely complaisance
requires, that no man should, without proof, conclude his company
incapable of following him to the highest elevation of his fancy, or the
utmost extent of his knowledge. It is always safer to err in favour of
others than of ourselves, and therefore we seldom hazard much by
endeavouring to excel.

It ought at least to be the care of learning, when she quits her
exaltation, to descend with dignity. Nothing is more despicable than the
airiness and jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and solitary
meditation. To trifle agreeably is a secret which schools cannot impart;
that gay negligence and vivacious levity, which charm down resistance
wherever they appear, are never attainable by him who, having spent his
first years among the dust of libraries, enters late into the gay world
with an unpliant attention and established habits.

It is observed in the panegyrick on Fabricius the mechanist, that,
though forced by publick employments into mingled conversation, he never
lost the modesty and seriousness of the convent, nor drew ridicule upon
himself by an affected imitation of fashionable life. To the same praise
every man devoted to learning ought to aspire. If he attempts the softer
arts of pleasing, and endeavours to learn the graceful bow and the
familiar embrace, the insinuating accent and the general smile, he will
lose the respect due to the character of learning, without arriving at
the envied honour of doing any thing with elegance and facility.

Theophrastus was discovered not to be a native of Athens, by so strict
an adherence to the Attick dialect, as shewed that he had learned it not
by custom, but by rule. A man not early formed to habitual elegance,
betrays, in like manner, the effects of his education, by an unnecessary
anxiety of behaviour. It is as possible to become pedantick, by fear of
pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill-timed civility. There is no kind
of impertinence more justly censurable than his who is always labouring
to level thoughts to intellects higher than his own; who apologizes for
every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think
unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible restraint;
is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by needless explanations; and
endeavours to shade his own abilities, lest weak eyes should be dazzled
with their lustre.

No. 174. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 17