The Compleat English Gentleman BA1.LANTYNR, HANSON AND CO. LONDON AND EDINBURGH The Compleat English Gentleman By Daniel Defoe Ql^Pfi Edited for the First Time from the Author's Autograph Manuscript in the British Museum, with Introduction Notes, and Index By Karl D. Bulbring, M.A., Ph.D. London; PubUshed by David Nutt MDCCCXC Be&icated Dr. FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, THE EDITOR OF MANY VALUABLE MANUSCRIPTS AND EARLY PRINTED BOOKS, THE AUTHOR OF NUMEROUS ESSAYS ON EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE, BIOGRAPHY, AND EDUCATION, THE LEADER AND GENEROUS PROMOTER OF THE ENDEAVOURS OF HUNDREDS OF FELLOW-WORKERS, BV HIS SINCERE AND GRATEFUL FRIEND, THE EDITOR. CONTENTS. PAGE Forewords i Remarks on the History of the Word Gentleman xxxii On the Education of the Gentry in Former Times, xlv Text of Defoe's Work i Introduccion 3 PART I. CHAPTER I. Of the born gentleman, in the common, or modern, or present acceptation of the word, and as the gentry among us are pleas'd to understand it ii CHAPTER II. Of the great mistakes in the first managing the children of gentlemen, and of the horrible corrupcion of blood from the suckling them by those (....). That the ignorance and the bad educacion of gentlemen of quallity and fortune is no where in Christendome so entirely neglected as in this nacion, and some thing of the consequences of it' . 59 1 This heading is struck out in MS. [ viii ] CHAPTER III. PAGE Of the generall ignorance of the English gentry, and the true causes of it in the manner of their introduccion into life 92 CHAPTER IV. Of what may be the unhappy consequences of this generall defect in the education of our gentry, and a rational pro- posall for preventing those consequences .... 144 CHAPTER V. That it is not to late to put a stop to this national defect of learning, and that the gentlemen of England, generally speaking, may in a great measure retriev the loss of their education by a little voluntary applicacion ; and an account of some proper and very easie methods for the doing it I have heard 184 CHAPTER VI. Of the gentleman's government of himself, his family, and fortune . 232 PART II. CHAPTER I. Of the fund for the increase of our nobillity and gentry in England, being the begining of those we call bred gentle- men, with some account of the difference .... 256 Notes 279 Index 289 FOREWORDS. ^^^^HE Compleat English Gentleman, by Daniel Defoe, which appears now for the first time in print, is preserved, in the author's hand- writing, in the manuscript collection of the British Museum, numbered 32,555 of the Addi- tional MSS. John Forster was the first to mention the existence of the work, in his Biographical Essays, London, i860, foot-note on page 155. Fuller particulars were made public by William Lee {Life of Daniel Defoe, London, 1869, pp. 451, 452, and 457), and to these subsequent writers have added nothing further. In one point they have all been misled, for the MS. does not consist of a single work, but includes another, which is bound up with it and fills the leaves 67-100. This second work bears the title. On Royall Educa- cion, and will be published shortly by Mr. David Nutt, The Compleat English Gentleman was one of Defoe's last works, the only one published subsequently being his Effectual Scheme for the Preventing of Street Robberies, and Suppressing the other Diso7'ders of the b —— [ X ] Night (1730). Together with the MS. is preserved a printed proof-sheet of sixteen pages, containing the beginning of the work. This seems to be the only part which was ever put in type. There is extant a letter written by Defoe to Mr. T. Watts, in Wild Court, the printer of this sheet, which is important, as it fixes the date previous to which the work must have been composed. It is as follows : Sir— I am to ask your pardon for keeping the enclosed so long, Mr. Baker having told me your resolution of taking it in hand and working it off. But I have been exceedingly ill. I have revised it again, and contracted it very much, and hope to bring it within the bulk you desire, or as near it as possible. But this and some needful alterations will oblige you to much trouble in the first sheet, and perhaps almost as bad as setting it over again, which cannot be avoided. I will endeavour to send the rest of the copy so well corrected as to give you very little trouble. I here return the first sheet and as much copy as will make near three sheets more. You shall have all the remainder so as not to let you stand still at all. I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, De Foe. Sept. loth, 1729. The terminus a quo is furnished by internal evidence of the work itself. Many historical facts are mentioned, the latest of which are these : On page 35, Peter the Great, who died January 28, 1725, is spoken of as the late Czar, and his Avife and successor, Catherine I., who died May 17, 1727, as the late Empress ; whilst Prince Menchikoff, who was deprived of the Regency and sent to Siberia in September 1727, is alluded to as being in exile. [ -^i ] Thus, allowing some time for the news to reach London, and taking into account the delay mentioned in the letter, we get the year 1728 and the earlier half of 1729 as the date of composition. The manuscript and proof-sheet appear to have remained in the possession of Defoe's relations, the Baker family, for more than a hundred years, as Mr. Dawson Turner, of Great Yarmouth, bought them in 183 I from the Rev. H. D. F. Baker, the descendant of Henry Baker, son-in-law of Defoe, for ^^69, the British Museum not having ventured to go beyond ^35.^ At the sale of his MSS. in 1859 Defoe's treatise was purchased by Mr. James Crossley for £j^ 8i-. (including commission).' The British Museum bought it on June 20, 1885, at Sotheby's (Crossley Sale, lot 2973). The MS. is a small quarto, and consists of 142 leaves, the printed sheet being affixed at the end. According to Mr. Francis B. Bickley, of the British Museum, the binding was certainly done when the MS. belonged to Dawson Turner, since many of his other MSS. are bound in exactly the same style. The proof- sheet has a few corrections, but in a handwriting different from Defoe's. The MS. itself is in Defoe's own firm, small, and close writing. As a rule, only one side of the paper is written on, but many insertions and notes are added on the opposite page. The first leaf 1 Forster, page 155 ; Lee, page 457; and Dawson Turner's Sale Catalogue. ^ Seethe fly-leaf of the MS., where also this remark in Crossley's " hand is to be found : For an admirer of Defoe this volutne is a treasure.^' — >^ii [ ] contains the title. On the next six leaves are three different Introductions, of which the first, filling folio 2, runs thus : The True Bred Gentleman. Nothing in the worid can be more prepoflerous, and yet nothing of the kind is more warmly efpoufed and dogmatically infifted upon, than the grofs nocions of ^ nobillity and gentiUity, as they are at this time entertained among [us]." If it were to be defended by reafoning, or fupported by argument, we fhould certainly have found fomething among the antients for an opinion that has taken fuch deep root among us. If phylofophy or the laws of Nature were furnifhed with anything to fupply the defeft of argument, they would have been fearcht to the bottom long agoe. If anatomy, or the flrictefl inquiry into the microcofme of the creature called man could afford anything in its favour, fomething might be found in the learned anatomifls of the age. But if neither phylofophy, reafon, or demonflration of parts can fhew any fpecific difference between the Patricij and the Plebei, if the whole kind is formed in the fame mould, if all the parts arc the fame, if the form is the fame, and the materialls the fame ; where then mufl we fearch for the gentleman, among the remains of antiquity, or among the works of Nature ?^ This brief preface does not suit with the beginning of the first chapter, as it partly contradicts and partly anticipates what is said there. The second Introduction (fol. 3-5) is the one adopted for the present edition, as it agrees best with the treatise that follows, though it seems incomplete, ending abruptly ^ MS. of of. 2 tis omitted in MS. 3 " At the bottom of the page : Mr. Furlong at or near the King's Amis at Hungerford Market in the Strand." — [ -^iii ] as it does in the middle of folio 5^. It does not seem that anything is lost, but that Defoe broke off at this point. The third Introduction (fol. ^-7^ is in parts very like the one I have chosen, and is full of witty and striking remarks. I reproduce it here : Introducion. The grave ones tell us that every age has its peculiar favourite follyes, fmgular to itfelf, which the people are all wayes fond of and blind to the weaknefs of them ; and if I may judge of the pafl times by the prefent, I believ 'tis very true. It is true, in former ages, when the fimple things they have taken up with, have run fome length and this or that vice has been fafhionable for a time, the flucfluating palate has chang'd its gufl, the habit has fmelt ftale, they have grown fick of their old mifflrefs, and fac'd about to fome other extravagance : whether this age will do fo, or how long it may be, or if, when they do, they will change for the better or for the worfe, where is the conjuror that can tell ? It might be ufefull, if it were not for being tedious, to run over the world and giv a lift of nacionall follyes, and to look back into time and trace periodicall extravagances of particular ages in thofe nations feparately or among man-kind univerfally : how one age has been quarrelfome, another drunken,^ another lewd, etc., more than any before them.