The Spectator, Volume 2. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,123 pages of information about The Spectator, Volume 2..

The Spectator, Volume 2. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,123 pages of information about The Spectator, Volume 2..

Their Fifth Professor, it is thought, will be chosen out of the Society of Jesuits, and is to be well read in the Controversies of probable Doctrines, mental Reservation, and the Rights of Princes.  This Learned Man is to instruct them in the Grammar, Syntax, and construing Part of Treaty-Latin; how to distinguish between the Spirit and the Letter, and likewise demonstrate how the same Form of Words may lay an Obligation upon any Prince in Europe, different from that which it lays upon his Most Christian Majesty.  He is likewise to teach them the Art of finding Flaws, Loop-holes, and Evasions, in the most solemn Compacts, and particularly a great Rabbinical Secret, revived of late Years by the Fraternity of Jesuits, namely, that contradictory Interpretations, of the same Article may both of them be true and valid.

When our Statesmen are sufficiently improved by these several Instructors, they are to receive their last Polishing from one who is to act among them as Master of the Ceremonies.  This Gentleman is to give them Lectures upon those important Points of the Elbow Chair, and the Stair Head, to instruct them in the different Situations of the Right-Hand, and to furnish them with Bows and Inclinations of all Sizes, Measures and Proportions.  In short, this Professor is to give the Society their Stiffening, and infuse into their Manners that beautiful Political Starch, which may qualifie them for Levees, Conferences, Visits, and make them shine in what vulgar Minds are apt to look upon as Trifles.  I have not yet heard any further Particulars, which are to be observed in this Society of unfledged Statesmen; but I must confess, had I a Son of five and twenty, that should take it into his Head at that Age to set up for a Politician, I think I should go near to disinherit him for a Block-head.  Besides, I should be apprehensive lest the same Arts which are to enable him to negotiate between Potentates might a little infect his ordinary behaviour between Man and Man.  There is no Question but these young Machiavil’s will, in a little time, turn their College upside-down with Plots and Stratagems, and lay as many Schemes to Circumvent one another in a Frog or a Sallad, as they may hereafter put in Practice to over-reach a Neighbouring Prince or State.

We are told, that the Spartans, tho they punished Theft in their young Men when it was discovered, looked upon it as Honourable if it succeeded.  Provided the Conveyance was clean and unsuspected, a Youth might afterwards boast of it.  This, say the Historians, was to keep them sharp, and to hinder them from being imposed upon, either in their publick or private Negotiations.  Whether any such Relaxations of Morality, such little jeux desprit, ought not to be allowed in this intended Seminary of Politicians, I shall leave to the Wisdom of their Founder.

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The Spectator, Volume 2. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.