Letter No. 566. Monday, July 12, 1714.
'Militia Species Amor est.'
Ovid.
As my Correspondents begin to grow pretty numerous, I think my self obliged to take some Notice of them, and shall therefore make this Paper a Miscellany of Letters. I have, since my reassuming the Office of SPECTATOR, received abundance of Epistles from Gentlemen of the Blade, who, I find, have been so used to Action that they know not how to lie still: They seem generally to be of Opinion, that the Fair at home ought to reward them for their Services abroad, and that, till the Cause of their Country calls them again into the Field, they have a sort of Right to Quarter themselves upon the Ladies. In Order to favour their Approaches, I am desired by some to enlarge upon the Accomplishments of their Profession, and by others to give them my Advice in the carrying on of their Attacks. But let us hear what the Gentlemen say for themselves.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
'Tho' it may look somewhat perverse amidst the Arts of Peace, to talk
too much of War, it is but Gratitude to pay the last Office to its
Manes, since even Peace it self is, in some Measure, obliged to it
for its Being.
'You have, in your former Papers, always recommended the Accomplished
to the Favour of the Fair; and, I hope, you will allow me to represent
some Part of a Military Life not altogether unnecessary to the forming
a Gentleman. I need not tell you that in France, whose Fashions we
have been formerly so fond of, almost every one derives his Pretences
to Merit from the Sword; and that a Man has scarce the Face to make
his Court to a Lady, without some Credentials from the Service to
recommend him. As the Profession is very ancient, we have Reason to
think some of the greatest Men, among the old Romans, derived many
of their Virtues from it, their Commanders being frequently, in other
Respects, some of the most shining Characters of the Age.
'The Army not only gives a Man Opportunities of exercising those two
great Virtues Patience and Courage, but often produces them in
Minds where they had scarce any Footing before. I must add, that it is
one of the best Schools in the World to receive a general Notion of
Mankind in, and a certain Freedom of Behaviour, which is not so easily
acquired in any other Place. At the same Time I must own, that some
Military Airs are pretty extraordinary, and that a Man who goes into
the Army a Coxcomb will come out of it a Sort of Publick Nuisance: But
a Man of Sense, or one who before had not been sufficiently used to a
mixed Conversation, generally takes the true Turn. The Court has in
all Ages been allowed to be the Standard of Good-breeding; and I
believe there is not a juster Observation in Monsieur Rochefoucault,
than that
'A Man who has been bred up wholly to Business, can never get the
Air of a Courtier at Court, but will immediately catch it in the
Camp.'
The Reason of this most certainly is, that the very Essence of
Good-Breeding and Politeness consists in several Niceties, which are
so minute that they escape his Observation, and he falls short of the
Original he would copy after; but when he sees the same Things charged
and aggravated to a Fault, he no sooner endeavours to come up to the
Pattern which is set before him, than, though he stops somewhat short