They  have  mounted  themselves  aloft,  and  looking  down  from
those  Pinacles  of  Honour,  all  below  seem  little  and  contemptible,
creeping  things  of  the  Earth,  Worms  and  no  men.  I  am  not
so  for  confounding  of  qualities,  as  to  exact  they  should  choose
their  Intimates  and  Companions  out  of  the  lowest  rank.     I


Essential  Quality  of  a  Gentleman  89

know  Prudence  as  well  as  Pride  has  drawn  a  Partition-wall

*

between  them  (though  perhaps  the  latter  has  raised  it  to  an
unnecessary  height)  but  I  wish  it  might  be  remembered,  that
as  the  Precept  of  '  Not  eating  Blood  '  was  designed  not  for
it  self,  but  as  a  Hedge  against  Murder,  so  that  just  distance,
which  Order  recommends  between  the  Noble  and  the  Mean,  is
valuable  only  as  a  fence  against  base  and  ignoble  practices  ;
true  greatness  consisting  in  despising  not  the  persons,  but  the
vices  of  the  vulgar.  Yet  here  alas  !  the  scene  is  quite  changed,
and  many  who  look  the  most  fastidiously  on  the  one,  will  yet
mix  freely  with  the  other  ;  and  while  they  soar  the  highest
in  the  opinion  of  their  superiority,  do  yet  stoop  to  the  sordid
bestialities  of  the  most  abject  of  men.  Nay,  indeed  this  Lure
does  sometimes  make  many  of  them  descend  even  from  their
punctilioes,  and  those  who  at  another  meeting  must  have
look'd  for  no  other  treatment  but  what  St.  James  describes
(Jas.  2,  3),  '  Stand  thou  there,  or  sit  here  under  my  footstool ',
shall  in  the  rounds  of  good  fellowship  be  equal  with  the  best :
such  a  Leveller  is  Debauchery,  that  it  takes  off  all  distinctions.
